In the world of business communication, branding and marketing, it’s often easy to forget we are having conversations with real people….but we are!!!
Every blog article, every brochure, every advert, every web page is a chance to communicate with an audience of PEOPLE! It’s not just a ‘tick a box in a campaign column on a spreadsheet’ exercise to a contact list in a database.
I’ve seen with some frequency, companies broadcast the features and advantages of their products or services. They use industry jargon that requires a phd in linguistics to decipher (that’s if you don’t give up after the first sentence and trudge through proverbial treacle to reach the anti-climax at the end).
So here’s a thought. Produce content and copy that your audience is looking for, rather than the sort of content you would normally push to them on autopilot, because it’s what you know.
Customers care about themselves, the basic need’s they have, and how you could ‘possibly’ fulfil that need. For example, they want to know how you can:
- Make their life easier
- Help them solve a problem
- Enhance their life in some way
- Make them feel good
- Delight them
- Excite them
- Relive pressure for them
It’s simple enough when you think about it and fairly obvious too! Because, at some point, (and quite frequently in business or at home) you are a customer of someone else too. You know what you want when you are looking for something you need, and you know how you want the companies you are buying off to communicate with you.
Use empathy to understand what the motivations of your customers are and where your solution can fulfil their need.
A handy way to approach this is to plan your content in advance. When building a new website, producing your next brochure, or concentrating on your SEO, start with your ideal customer first.
If you have a clear and well defined brand strategy you will already have a well crafted vision of your ideal customer. If not then click here to find out how we can help you define your brand strategy.
Having that clear image of the customer in your mind will help you approach your content as a targeted conversation and your tone of voice needs to reflect your brand personality, just the way your own tone of voice represents your individual personality.
To wrap up, here are our top 3 tips on developing content for marketing
- Clearly visualise and define your ideal customer first
- Think about the type of conversation you would like to have
- Remember customers are individuals and people buy from people. They have a need and are looking at you to fulfil that need.
