Successful online campaigns are made up of sincere, market-focused brand stories. And if there is anything digital transformation has taught us, it’s that words matter.
Great content can create awareness, interest, desire, and action in a reader. Research has shown that content marketing gets three times more inbound leads than paid search advertising. This has led to more and more companies investing time, money, and resources in order to craft and deliver content to their specific niches. In fact, this year, 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing.
If you need a little bit more convincing, here are other statistics about content marketing that we think you should know:
- 92% of marketers have said that their company views content as a business asset.
- 62% of companies with manpower 5,000 or above produce content on a daily basis.
- 84% of consumers expect brands to publish content that entertains, offers solutions, and produces experiences and events.
- 51% of consumed content comes from organic search.
Now, if you are a newbie in the realm of content marketing and unsure of how to measure success, here are the common key metrics companies consider:
This goes to show that powerful words in marketing are not just designed for people to read, they can also be created for people to take action – whether that’s to buy an item, subscribe to a newsletter, or inquire about a service.
Benefits of Action-Focused Content to your Business
The question now is, what makes a piece of content “action-focused”? Content marketing is more than just words, it’s strategy, it is not a task for the light-hearted. It takes a lot of time to research, fact check, and write, so it only makes sense that you don’t want it to fall on deaf ears.
To give you an idea, here are the core elements that make an amazing, actionable content your audience will surely be interested in:
Okay, now that you know the anatomy of a content piece that encourages action, you are probably wondering about the role and relevance great content plays in your business’s journey to success.
Aside from the fact that it’s a cost-effective, highly result-oriented digital strategy, it’s also a perfect way to reach and engage with your market consistently. It’s a way to turn SEO proposals into search clicks, and site visitors into paying customers, and to earn market trust that will transform seasonal buyers into loyal customers. To give you a better idea on how else content marketing can benefit your business, here’s a quick visual look from Lyfe Marketing:
How to Make Your Content More Action-Oriented
Are you finally ready to give content marketing a try but don’t know how to start? Here’s how you can effectively strategize, craft, and publish great, actionable content using action words:
#1. Use Conversion-Oriented Headlines to capture Audience Attention
There’s nothing more important than a well-thought out headline. This is where you make the first impression. This is also the part of the content designed to convince and persuade the consumer to read the rest of the article. In fact, most users determine if a content is shareable based on the headline alone, so make sure it’s unique, hyper-specific, and useful.
#2. Be Clear on your CTA Copy
Since we’re talking about “actionable” here, it’s only natural to bring up the significance of CTAs in making your content convert. It’s literally the copy that directly tells the reader what you want them to do. The best strategy to crafting CTA copy is very basic – know the intent and goal of the landing page. Do you want the reader to sign up? Make a purchase? Request a demo? Or Contact you? Simplicity, relevance, and being direct-to-the-point are keys to great CTAs.
#3. Write with an Active Voice
Active voice is a style of writing that focuses on what an action does versus what the action is. What this basically means is you write about how your service can help your market, versus what your service is. Writing in an active voice is important in effective content marketing because it nudges the reader to engage, connect, and get into your brand story.
#4. Make Content Easy to Read and Scan
Readability is all about keeping content simple, and by simple we mean audience-focused. It’s important to always think about your target market and to imagine reading it from their perspective. For instance, if you’re targeting first-time home buyers, then you can’t put too much real estate jargon that might confuse them. Make sure to consider grammar and sentence structure as well.
Scannable, on the other hand, is making your content easy to digest, regardless if they have 10 minutes to read it or 2 minutes to scan it. This is actually why Listicles are a popular content format. Another approach to make content scannable is to break it into sections and subheaders, or to add visual content in between.
#5. Cross Market Content on Social Media and Vice Versa
Social media is a great way to share brand stories, the probability of reaching a wider audience is also higher given that a lot of consumers are personally active on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. You can post fresh content on your accounts and link them to your site to read more or add a feature on your web pages where they can share it with just one click – enabling content marketing to deepen social media engagement.
#6. Don’t use Lazy Language and Strategize Repetition of Words
Remember one of Robin Williams’ lines in the movie “Dead Poets Society?”
“…avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose.”
Using lazy language will come across…well, lazy. As we’ve already established, words are powerful and one change can make a world of difference in terms of how it can make readers feel. You have to paint a picture that a user can imagine, something that would make a personal, emotional connection.
Word repetition also plays a significant role in content marketing because it has been proven that people are more likely to remember details when they have been exposed to it repeatedly. This is why brand slogans are usually placed on both offline and online content as well – it enables users to associate particular words to your brand. You can even use the words often used by your consumers to describe you on positive reviews, there’s nothing better than using satisfied clients’ own words to keep things authentic.
Final Words
Knowing all these can be overwhelming at first, especially for those who don’t consider themselves connoisseurs of the written word. But it really all boils down to understanding your market and providing them value. Your content should always be able to answer the number one audience question, “What’s in it for me?”.
About the Author: Aaron Chichioco is the chief content officer (CCO) and one of the web designers of Design Doxa. His expertise includes not only limited to Web/mobile design and development, but digital marketing, branding, eCommerce strategy and business management tactics as well. For more information about Aaron, visit http://designdoxa.com/about-us/.