Good content is THE essential element in all search, marketing, publishing, advertising, PR or comms endeavours for every business regardless of size, niche, product or audience.
It establishes your credibility and expertise online, and so becomes the magnetic field that creates interest and attracts visitors and, if you utilise those visitors, customers. Therefore it is the key area in which a company, however well promoted in other areas, will be judged.
Unfortunately not all content is created equal.
While everyone and anybody can produce content, the every ease (and speed) in which it can be created online can often result poorly written and presented content and in far more mistakes being made than any self-respecting offline publication, catalogue, mailshot or brochure would ever have countenanced.
Poor content is a turn off and will not encourage people to stay, return, put their trust in you or buy from you, and so is literally not ‘fit for purpose’. So how do you make sure your company’s content does the job it’s meant to and doesn’t end up damaging your reputation and bottom line?
- Get the facts right – incorrect facts in something written about you are one thing and unfortunately far too common, but factual mistakes in your own content are inexcusable. Check and check again, and if a mistake does slip through make sure it is rectified immediately – and always ask for mistakes elsewhere to be corrected as well.
- Write it well – it’s always easier to write it ‘long’ rather than take the time to edit it and refine it, yet a well-crafted piece is much easier to read than a rambling piece of copy and will keep the reader engaged all the way through. Get it professionally written if your team can’t do it themselves.
- Be correct – bad grammar and spelling errors are a complete no go, whether you’re writing purely ‘business’ English or servicing an audience where the language has taken on its own form (urban, dialect, etc). The same holds true whatever language you are writing in, and that includes getting it translated – always hire an expert if it isn’t your first language, be (or hire) an eagle-eyed sub editor and check, check, check.
- Know your audience – if I ask you whom you sell to, you probably have a precise and definable customer profile, but does your online content reflect that? If not, you are missing the point (online IS your business) and need to revisit it, refine, or even get it rewritten completely.
- Don’t be a parrot – write what you think, what you know, what you believe, not repeat what someone else is saying. The internet is FULL of rip off merchants and it is important to make sure your voice is not only on message but also your very own. And yes, I know that is hard – that’s why so many company websites are so boring, so many company blogs are such failures, and why if you get it right, you and your company will stand out from the crowd.
- Don’t patronise or be heavy handed – the digital revolution has done what the entire political left has been trying to do for decades: levelled the playing field and made everyone equal. So DO build relationships, DO communicate not dictate, and DON’T speak down to your customers. Or you’ll be boycotted faster than you can click your mouse.
- DO be an expert – don’t be afraid to share your and your team’s expert knowledge, just do it in an adult manner ie peer to peer, NOT teacher to pupil.
- Give added value – share and include excerpts and hyperlinks to interesting or supporting pieces of content (your own or otherwise– always credit if the latter). Add a downloadable white paper for additional information, run a webinar, or offer a discount on a related event or product. Make it easy for people who want to know more to do so.
- Make it readable, sharable and mobile friendly – social media, smart phones and tablets have already changed the digital landscape, and will continue to do so in ever-expending ways. In this context design and typeface also become overwhelmingly important because if your visitor can’t read the first paragraph, trust me, they’ll leave, so ensure your content is readable in every format, as well as easily sharable.
- Work it – I’m a great believer in value for money and so always look to see if one idea or large piece of content can be made to work harder by splitting and re-crafting and placing in different formats, and I’m never afraid to reference old content that still has value.
So look at your content with fresh eyes – is it talking to the right people in the right way? Is it engaging, sharable, easy to read? Can you make it work harder?
A series of blog posts can become an eBook, for example, which could in its turn become a fully-fledged published book (or viz versa – a book can become a series of articles or blog posts exploring the ideas in more detail). A white paper or research study could be a downloadable giveaway.
All can be chunked down and used as a Google+ post, Tumblr picture and feed, Facebook status updates, and Twitter updates, or chunked up and rewritten as news release or online/offline/iPad tablet magazine article, or maybe even form the basis for a webinar and event, which can then be promoted again in turn, all feeding a virtual circle of social goodness that increases your company’s profile as well as your content’s chances of being seen by those you want to reach and with whom you would like to do business.
Which is the crucial thing in Business Comms of all sorts because in today’s digital landscape there is so much noise and content vying for attention that actually becoming visible to your potential audience in the first instance, let alone getting them to stick around and read what you have to say or buy into what you are trying to sell, is a huge hurdle that can’t be underestimated.
Consequently by getting your content spot on you increase your ability to attract visitors from different areas, point them back to your website and encourage them to drop into your marketing funnel ready for the sales team to convert.
Which is the name of the game after all.
