5 Signs of Effective Content

January 09 / Chair 10 Marketing Team / filed under SEO

digital content marketing inbound

For several years now, content marketing has been one way to bridge the gap between your company and potential customers. Blogs, videos, and social media allow you to engage with consumers and further develop your relationship.

The problem is, the secret is out, and more and more companies use content marketing to reach consumers. As a result, generating content that stands out from the rest has become a difficult but necessary part of running a business.

Many businesses hire agencies to develop creative, engaging content. That is great for companies that don’t have the bandwidth required to keep up with a content schedule. But even if you outsource this task, you want to keep a close eye on it to ensure its quality. To help you, here are 5 things you should be looking for to ensure your content is doing its job: adding potential customers to the funnel.

1. It’s Original.

Content allows you to deliver value to people who are interested in your area of expertise. In other words, there’s something of value that you have that they are interested in, at that moment. To truly capitalize on these moments, it’s important that while you are delivering that value, you are simultaneously differentiating yourself. In other words, because it’s your company’s expert advice or maybe your take on a subject, you’re giving them something that they can’t get somewhere else.

2. It Addresses All of Your Audience’s Needs.

In the past, blogs were used to create brand awareness among consumers at the top of the marketing funnel.

Today, consumers are adjusting the marketing funnel to meet their individual needs. People still want to be entertained, but they also look to online content to solve problems they encounter as their individual journey progresses. Your content needs to be comprehensive, help consumers evaluate alternatives, and ensure they feel like they made the right choice post-purchase.

3. It’s Easy to Read.

The competition to catch a potential customer’s attention has grown dramatically in recent years. Making them work to understand your message is a sure-fire way to steer them to another source. Make your content easy to enjoy and ensure the tone is conversational. Avoid technical jargon and too much detail. This is becoming increasingly important as voice search is more widely adopted.

4. It’s Error Free.

Consumers are generally risk-averse, so anything that suggests your brand might not be the best option out there can be an instant deal breaker. Few things can discredit a brand faster than a typo, grammatical error, or inaccurate information in your content. While this seems obvious, regularly proofreading or viewing your site’s content to screen for errors is important enough to mention.

5. It Makes the Next Step Obvious.

People don’t want to try to decipher what it is you want them to do next. You don’t need a hard sell at the end of every interaction. It should, however, be obvious how they can choose to take the engagement a bit further. This can be as explicit as a well-placed “Learn More” button or non-invasive as a comment box, like the one below.

Speaking of which, if you have a comment or question, or you’d like to learn more about how Chair 10 can help you develop a winning content strategy, we’d love to hear from you.