Yawn! Why Your Customers Are Bored Of Your Content
Content is fast becoming the marketing vehicle of choice for many companies. They’re finding that it’s far easier and cost effective to drum up business with inbound marketing than it is to try and force it on people with sales tactics and PPC advertising. What’s more, with around 48 percent of Millennials claiming to use ad-blockers, the old methods of reaching out to customers would seem to have had their day.
Of course, in business, there’s no such thing as free lunch. It’s not enough just to create content: your content has to be interesting too. People actually have to be able to derive some direct value from it for them to come back to your company for more help and for your website to rise in the search engine rankings.
The bad news is that only a small fraction of companies are creating content that people find interesting. But the good news is that this is an opportunity for others who want to get ahead. If your competitors are churning out the usual, boring corporate spiel, you’ve got a chance to do something really creative and grab market share.
The following are some of the reasons why your customers are bored of your content and what you can do about it.
Reason #1: You’re Not Telling A Story
To really grab people and draw them in, you’ve got to tell a story. Many businesses, though, don’t do this.
Why?
Because they think that if they keep things simple, then it will reflect poorly on their business. They feel as if they need to speak in technical terms to gain credibility. However, as the famous theoretical physicist Richard Feynman once said, if you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t truly understand it.
Stories help to make complicated and sometimes boring subjects interesting. They break things down into terms that people understand and help build comprehension naturally. When it comes to difficult topics, people want the learning experience to be as easy as possible, and for most people, that means writing in a narrative voice and putting particular concepts in context.
Reason #2: Nothing is Surprising Or Original
How many times have you clicked on an article expecting to find interesting and helpful information only to find out that it’s a regurgitation of something you read last week? Too many times, that’s for sure. When people click on your content, they want something novel. They’re looking for new information to excite them, even if they are reading about a topic they already know a lot about.
How can you do this? Usually, you can do it by taking a new angle on a subject that has been covered before. Coming at a problem from a new angle often gives readers that vital “aha” moment when they realize they’ve been doing something wrong their whole lives. For instance, if you sell specialty teas online, you could write a post about how to cold brew tea overnight in the fridge - something that’s perfect for when people want a cup of tea but want something refreshing at the same time (without all the added sugar of ice tea).
Reason #3: Your Content Lacks Humour
How do you make “boring” content fun? One of the easiest ways is to add a touch of humor. Yet this is something that the vast majority of content creators don’t do because they’re afraid of introducing fun into a business blog. Why?
Top copywriting services make a point of creating humorous content for companies. They’re not afraid of injecting a bit of fun here and there to lighten the mood and get readers interested. The odd humorous observation can help deliver the rest of your professional material in a way that is interesting.
Reason #4: You’re Writing Too Formally
Most people who end up writing content for a company have been to university. But the problem with university is that it teaches you to write in a formal, academic way. While this style of writing might be the best for communicating ideas to other experts, it’s no good when you’re trying to speak to people who have no particular expertise in your field.
A conversational, personal voice is the best type of voice to adopt for content writing. It helps open up a dialogue with visitors, making your writing more accessible. There’s nothing wrong with being more formal in official reports and documents, but your blog is your opportunity to truly connect with other people (and share whatever it is about your business that you think people will find interesting).
Reason #5: You Do Not Include Videos Or Images
When it comes to writing great content, eloquent prose is only a part of the story. In addition, you need great visuals too. According to research, people are about twice as likely to click a link to your content if it contains pictures. Furthermore, by simply including pictures, many people see your content as more trustworthy and authoritative, even if you borrowed the images from somebody else.
Video is especially powerful these days. Already, using video in blogs makes them 57 times more powerful for SEO. And with the rise of video search - something that big internet search giants are working on right now - video content is a great way of preparing your business for the future.
Reason #6: You’re Not Offering Practical Help
If people want to read a news story, they’ll go onto a news website, like the New York Times, Breitbart or BuzzFeed. That’s not where companies should be competing (unless it’s very specific news from within the industry). Instead, businesses should reach out to customers by offering practical help. Why? Because that’s what the vast majority of people who arrive at your website want. They will have some problem they need your help solving.
To really help people, try writing about topics that your readers can then use to help themselves in the real world. It can be practically anything, from how to do better SEO if you’re an SEO agency, to how to strip wallpaper if you’re a handyman. If you help people, they will come back to you in the future.
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