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How To Create An Audience-focused Content

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How To Create An Audience-focused Content

Bill Gates once said content is king.

And I agree.

You’ve heard countless times how important it is to produce content even a baby can understand. It all sounds great until you realize babies, don’t rule the world!

In this article, you’ll learn how to create content that makes you sell like crazy. But, before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s start by identifying the people who make up your audience.

Become the Bartender

You’ve probably watched a movie where there is a guy sitting in a bar, narrating his misfortune to the bartender. If you pay attention to those scenes you’ll notice this bartender rarely utters a word. All he does is listen and refill his customer’s glass.

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It’s not because his own life is perfect. He just happens to understands the principle behind a buyer-seller relationship.The rule is, you forget about yourself and focus and whatever story your prospect has.

To increase your sales, you must become the bartender for your prospect. Ok, I’m not talking about quitting your job to apply as a bartender in that bar you’re already thinking of.

What I mean is, you need to create a unique relationship with your prospect.

Who is he?

What are his dreams, hopes, fears, aspirations?

Why should he trust you or your product/service?

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If you succeed in knowing your prospects well enough, they’ll think you can read their minds. And this brings us to the next step of this new journey of producing great copies.

Audience Segmentation

This is the key to content that sells. Have you ever seen an ad and thought to yourself, “Did they read my mind?”. This is exactly what audience segmentation does. It helps you send the right message to the right people.

There are essential points you need to look upon when carving out your audience. Based on the product or service you offer, here are some factors to consider for segmentation :

  • Age
  • Language
  • Location
  • Interest
  • Demographics
  • Stage of life
  • Spending power
  • B2B or B2C

This is close to impossible for common mortals like you and me, and that’s why we have analytics to help. Google Analytics and Bing Ads provide interesting features for online audience segmentation. They’re also great to help keep track of your audience’s interaction with your content.

Analytics provide valuable information on which content format best suits your audience.

Choosing the Right Format for Your Content

As we’ve seen above, people have different ways of interacting on the internet. Some people like blog posts, whereas, others stick to: a picture is worth a thousand words. This translates into four words. Choose. The. Right. Format.

Before picking out any format, you should make sure it aligns with your business goals. Each format portrays content in a unique way.

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  • Blogs: Used for both long-form and short-form written content.
  • Infographics: Useful for large amounts of data and information.
  • E-Books: Ideal for educational and easy-to-read guides.
  • Videos: Suitable for engaging and entertaining content.
  • Press releases: Perfect for product/service updates and, news-worthy information on the company.
  • Webinars: Practical for business-related content that engages and educates your audience.
  • Reviews: Great way for prospects to leave their experience with your product/service.
  • Case studies: Helpful when it comes to presenting explanatory research.

Knowing the ideal format to use for your content helps you stand out in your niche. But, you shouldn’t stick to one content form as it may become boring for your audience.

Apply the API Formula

Content creation starts with serious brainstorming. At this stage, passion isn’t enough if you must get noticed by your audience. They are three key guidelines when it comes to producing audience-focused content.

Answer

Before writing any sales copy, you should be able to join the conversation in your prospect’s mind. I’m not talking about asking them what they think. What I mean is, you need to know them well enough to answer the questions they’ve not even voiced out. I know it sounds crazy but please, hear me out.

The brain is always working. It’s the reason you have ongoing conversations with YOU. Most of the time, you don’t even notice it. This is why when you see an answer to a question you’ve been asking yourself, it picks your interest.

This is what occurs in what we call “love at first sight”. The person you love at first sight is never a stranger. He is most of the time a product of what you designed in your mind.

So, if you’re not answering those questions, you won’t prick your prospect’s curiosity.

And, the best way to achieve this is to write to one person.

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Who is your ideal prospect?

When you succeed in having a clear image of this person, writing becomes easy. It’s simpler to write to one person because your brain works best when it has a clear target. If your ideal prospect can relate to what you’re saying, other prospects will.

A great way to check the effectiveness of your copy is by analyzing your conversion rate. It will help you brainstorm the right ideas for your content.

Provide

Content creation doesn’t end at the answering phase. You must provide useful and valuable information to your audience. This isn’t always about pouring in a lot of facts and statistics. From what you know of your audience, you can predict how they will react to your content.

You need to give them content they can relate to. If you’re starting your business, you’ll want to focus on building your brand’s style and tone. Don’t make your copies too salesy. Remember, you’re not talking to giant wallets ready to cash out on the go. They need to see you as a professional they can run to at any time. In other words, provide the solution they’ve been looking for.

Use tools like Google Console, Keyword Planner, Answer the Public, or Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest to do a Keyword search. They give you useful statistics on what people are looking for and the words they use to look for your product/service. This makes your content more specific and thus attracts the right audience

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Intrigue

Good content should keep the audience wanting more. The best movie plots are those in which there is a leveled amount of intrigue. Proof that your content is good is, people, interact with it. This can be through email, social media platforms, reviews, and, testimonials.

Take your audience through every word of your content. Try to be as creative and persuasive as possible. Every copy should communicate the passion you have for what you do.

Keep them updated on your latest projects and sometimes personal life. This will help you create a unique bond with your community.

Conclusion

Content creation can be quite challenging. This is why most companies now invest in audience-focused content. What makes a marketing campaign exceptional isn’t the content. It’s the knowledge you have of your audience. This is what will place you a step ahead of your competition and of course increase your sales.


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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