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It’s easy to focus on the detail of what you need to tell your audience. But to be sure that they hear your message, you have to consider things that go beyond that.
What you write is important, but so is the how, where and what’s next.
How: Tone of Voice
‘How’ refers to the tone of voice you adopt. This will be informed by the market you’re in and what your audience will respond to; are you a professional consultancy or selling fun and tasty dog biscuits? Taking a fun, informal approach with your words will work really well when selling dog biscuits, but will probably not resonate with a professional audience of financial consultants.
Tone of voice will also be informed by your brand and how you want to be perceived in the marketplace.
Whatever your choice on tone of voice, be consistent. To develop trust with your audience, they need to be able to recognise you, trust in what you’re saying and see themselves in it.
I’ll expand on tone of voice in a later blog post, so why not subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss it? Or you can add my blog to your rss feed.
Where: Marketing Channel Choice
So you’ve worked hard on the detail of your message and you’ve adopted a tone of voice that will resonate with your audience and reflects your brand. The next decision is where to put this content. To answer this you need to know your customers. How do you reach them? What media do they interact with and when? If you know the answers to these questions then you’ll know where to put your content.
If you get this wrong, all your hard work in developing your content will be wasted, you may as well have shouted into an abandoned cave for all the good it will do your business.
How do you get this right? Develop detailed customer profiles. Know your customers and where they are so that you can get your message in front of them without them needing to dig for it. Then track results and tweak your channel choice accordingly.
I’ll expand on marketing channel choice and customer profiles in later blog posts, so why don't you subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss out. Or you can add my blog to your rss feed.
What’s Next: Call to Action
OK, we’re nearly there. You’ve got the detail of your message right, you’ve adopted a tone of voice that works for you and your audience and you’ve selected sensible places to promote your content. Now you need a strong call to action to seal the deal.
What are you trying to get your audience to do with your content?
If you’re promoting an event, you’ll probably want them to register as a delegate. But you may also want them to be able to share the event details with their friends
Perhaps you want them to subscribe to your newsletter or blog
It might be as simple as getting someone to buy your product or service online
To get your message out there and start influencing a wider audience, you may want to encourage your audience to share your content or engage with it in some way
You might be trying to build up a database of prospective clients so getting them to enter a competition might be your call to action (don’t forget to be GDPR compliant).
Content without a strong call to action is pointless. You need to know what you’re trying to get your audience to do as a result of your content?
Your call to action then needs to be obvious, easy to understand and quick to complete.
You can always test different types of calls to action, so play around and review the results.
I’ll cover what makes a good call to action in a later blog post, so why don’t you subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss it. Or you can add my blog to your rss feed.
That's it in a nutshell - the how, where and what's next of good copywriting and content marketing.
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