How can marketers create content that will engage with readers and still drive home their marketing message? When you have myriad of contents competing for the attention of the same set of readers, you need to do more than creating interesting content to keep your readers engaged.
When you have the attention of the audience, you need to master how to keep them engaged. The attention span of an average online reader is a few seconds shorter than that of a billboard viewer. This article will cover the key ingredients you should factor in if you want to create highly engaging content for your online readers.
Be clear and straight-forward
Clear, crisp and straight to the point type of writing does it best when it comes to writing for the internet. Forget about the degree you earned in English here. Your aim shouldn’t be to impress anyone but to keep your readers engaged for as long as you can.
The best writers aim to present their thoughts in as shorter and clearer sentences as possible. This way, you’ll avoid frustrating whoever your message is directed at, and still get them to hear the message you have to sell at the same time.
When creating content for your audience, use straight to the point writing style to get their attention from the beginning.
Assume a reader-focused perspective
Focus more on what your readers are interested in. The key to understanding your readers’ interest is to assume the position they are in. If they’re looking for ways to prevent their iPhone batteries from running out too fast, resist comparing the iPhone to other phones. That’s not what they are interested in.
Being able to assume a reader-focused perspective means giving your readers just what they want. In this regard, less is more.
Once you’ve mastered the art of capturing the interest of your readers, then you will have little problem in the area of engaging them with your content.
Engage Your Audience into participation
To achieve greater engagement with your content, let the readers participate in the content development process. Use surveys, user contributions (eg. testimonials, anecdotes from your users are forms of contributions etc.) to make up your content.
In order to ensure your readers share and engage with your content, you need to give them a sense of participation. Contents that contain contributions from your readers are more likely to be shared because it puts them in centre of the content attention. People love getting attention and you should exploit this trait to create content that drives engagement.
Ask them questions
Creating content for your audience sometimes require that your directly ask them what they want from you. When you’re following trends and focusing on what the industry is putting out, you might miss the fact that the needs of your audience are peculiar. In order to avoid keeping your audience left out, you need to focus on the needs pointed out in their requests.
Learn what type of content your readers want to see you share with them. Use questionnaires, direct questions or surveys to find out what they will connect more with and deliver just that to derive maximum engagement.
Upgrade Already Successful Content
Updating already successful content that you created in the past will give it a fresh appeal with your audience. Since the content has already proven to be valuable, you can spare yourself the worries over whether your content will make a mark on your audience.
Giving your audience an improved version of existing content they liked will help them connect strongly with your brand.
Updating already successful content can come in the form of spicing it with images, graphics or stats that reflect the current state of things in the industry. You could also add more details that were missing from the original content to give it a whole new feel.
This type of content will especially get the attention of your audience because of the greater value it offers. And what’s more, they’ve already shown interest in the content in the past.
