Use Relevant Content to Emphasize One Key Message

Posting relevant content is one of the hardest aspects of building a successful brand. Who really defines what is relevant or isn’t relevant? How will you know which aspect of your content will go viral or will be considered shareable? Relevance is not something your content team is born with or can learn. Posting relevant content is a result of keeping up with market trends and producing content that your target audience will either find amusing or useful. But of course, this is much easier to achieve in words than in reality. So, what can you do? 

Develop a Buyer Persona 

Buyer personas are overly generalized examples of who your ideal customer would be. This forces us business owners to remember that our products and services affect the lives of real people. And in so doing, we begin to focus more on how we can make the lives of these people better by means of our business. But the million dollar question is, how does one create a useful buyer persona? You start by simply asking the right questions. The insights I encouraged you to gather from your clients in the previous blog, Carefully Define Your Brand and All That It Represents, will prove very useful. All you need to do is figure out the type of people who have believed your brand’s promise in the past and are very likely to continue doing so in the future. 

Every sensible survey begins with simple demographic questions such as age, gender and occupation. Make good use of this information! In fact, you do not even have to re-create the wheel by creating your own survey, market research on existing buyer personas are published daily. Why not use this kind of research to your advantage? If you have front line members of staff or a designated sales team, their interactions with your customers can provide very useful information about your customers. Be sure to solicit information from both good and bad customers. It is always advantageous to learn more about your own strengths and weaknesses. 

Don’t Be Too Forward 

Once you know exactly the kind of people you are trying to reach, it will make it much easier to reach them with relevant content. But as I have mentioned before, you want your target audience to welcome you into their lives and not feel like you are barging into their homes through the front door. Being subtle is an excellent way to be bold. Instead of posting content about business and product offerings all the time, get your audience excited or intrigued. You need to get them talking about you without even realizing it. Here are my suggestions:  

• Post a thought provoking question about topics such as current events and world affairs 
• Post useful how to videos about hobbies that would suit someone represented in your buyer persona 
• Have exciting giveaways that feature your clients sharing pictures of themselves, perhaps even pictures of them using your products 
• Post Memes your target audience will likely find hilarious 
• Post content from other companies that your target audience will find useful 
• Participate in trending challenges 

Understand User Intent 

If you intend to post SEO content to attract new business, you need to also take some time to understand the concept of user intent. Creating a list of keywords is important, but this should not be the focus of your SEO strategy. It is better to understand what your audience actually intends to do with the information they are trying to find. Generally a user will search for content online with three main intentions, to find a location, understand a topic or learn how to do something. With this is mind, you will be better able to create a keyword list that will be more ideal for one or a combination of these intentions. Additionally, content created with the intention of the target audience in mind will be of the utmost relevance to these individuals and they will be more likely to share this content with their contacts. It is a win-win situation. Your audience will benefit because they have learned something useful and you will benefit as these individuals unintentionally draw attention to your brand. 

Don’t Be Afraid to Share 

Despite your intentions of becoming a distinguished brand, there is much to be gained by sharing the content of other brands. I am not recommending plagiarism but it would not hurt to share relevant content from other businesses. Are there any breaking news reports, inspirational quotes or instructional videos your audience might find useful? Sharing this kind of content will give your audience the impression that you genuinely want what is best for them. If you intend to make use of this bit of advice, please be cautious. Do not share content from competing brands in your niche. Your good intentions may be misinterpreted as an all out attack or attempts to surrender. 

Now that you know how to post useful content, let us now focus on ensuring this content emphasizes one key message. Posting the same images, videos and information on a number of different platforms, may not be the best way to send a consistent message. Your brand will come across as being either too lazy or too pushy. A better option would be to focus on particular themes that are closely tied with the objectives of your company. For example, if your product or service aims to make your customers healthier you can take the direct approach and try to sell your product by any means necessary. But, you can also subtly encourage sales by encouraging your audience to focus on a more holistic approach to their health. You could then post content from other sources featuring easy workout videos and healthy meal preparation guides. You can then use this kind of content to draw attention to the benefits of your product. Remember the aim is not to be pushy but to be effective. 

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

When you employ the subtle approach and make use of content from other relevant sources, you will be emphasizing the strengths of your brand without becoming too repetitive. There is only so much and no more that you can say about your limited array of products or services. The next blog post will focus more on how to use the strengths of existing players in the market to strengthen your own brand.