Marketers face competition for every product and service. You must have a great product for people to want it, but you also have to tell them they want it.
Doing this can be tricky—other literary tricks that attract readers to other pieces of content won’t work when you’re trying to make a sale.
Follow these tips, instead:
1. Know your audience.
You probably already do. However, if you don’t have a clear picture of your target audience in your head, you shouldn’t create content yet. Create outstanding and effective marketing content requires you to know those for which you make it.
If your product is made for teenagers, you don’t craft long, boring text—offer something cool or add slang terms. If your product is for older consumers, you lay out a list of reasons for purchasing your wares and services. If your audience is mixed, you make sure to include elements to all of its representative parts.
If you’re selling a a laptop, relate to teenagers that it is an excellent way to chat with friends, play games and do homework. Older consumers want to hear its effectiveness for work projects.
2. Appeal to people’s logic.
Writing content along the lines of, “We’re cool. Buy from us!” or, “We make excellent products, so you just have to try it” won’t work. Instead, persuade consumers to try your product by employing reason through arguments. Consumers don’t like pushy advertisements; they like to feel that they are making a choice instead of being dictated by your rules.
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Describe the benefits of your product or service, including the results of using or owning it. Take a look at this beautiful example by Method Home:
The information you relate should be clear and well structured. Consumers won’t bother to read if you have a one-page introduction to “creative” expressions and unnecessary reflections. Here’s another example from Amazon Kindle:
3. Write for people who don’t read.
Consumers don’t generally read online content. Instead, they scan. Jakob Nielsen’s research showed that only 16 percent of people fully read text on the web “word by word.” The majority (79 percent) scan the information and pick out words and sentences.
Here’s how you can write for scanners:
- Use a larger font size and employ titles to bring main ideas to the forefront:
- Hook your readers with intriguing subheadings every two or three paragraphs. This includes text such as, “Why you love your iPad,” “One rule that can’t be broken” or “How he got caught.”
- Follow the principle of the inverted pyramid by placing the most important information in the beginning of your paragraphs (and articles), followed by less important details. That way, consumers who only read the first sentence(s) of your paragraphs will still know the key points.
3. Write for readers, too.
The 16 percent of people who read online content are also important to remember. With the right content, this number might increase, as well.
Make reading as easy as possible with these tips:
- Keep it short, and don’t hesitate to use one-sentence paragraphs. It doesn’t mean you have writer’s block, but instead, shows that you can quickly relate selling points.
- Though your teachers once begged you to not start sentences with “and” or “but,” use these devices as necessary to write short, conversational sentences—the shorter, the better.
- Marketing content is not a dissertation, so use simple words that are easily read and understood. Use complicated words as necessary to explain difficult concepts and research.
4. Make your text visually attractive.
Spice up what can be a boring block of text with different fonts, subheadings and bullet points. Show readers that your content is easy to comprehend before they start reading it. This is one of the main rules of viral content. Check out the example below:
Boosting sales through content marketing goes much further than choosing the right words to explain your pitch and selecting readable fonts and beautiful pictures to lure in readers—but following these tips will get you started.
What additional tips would you add?
William Sarto is a content marketer and blogger. Follow him on Twitter: @SartoWilliam or Google Plus.
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