Now more than ever consumers are searching for a connection with the brands and people they follow. And one truly excellent way to connect with your audience is through custom content.
In this post, we’re talking about the types of content that foster connections, lead to sales, and improve your marketing productivity.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Content Strategy from Scratch Workbook
[Meghan] We already know that people gravitate to the brands that they feel connected to. Maybe it’s shared values and beliefs. Or, perhaps it’s personality and branding.
[Theresa] Whatever the reason people are drawn to certain businesses, we know that content is really an effective tool to foster online connections with your audience.
In fact, according to Demand Metric, nearly 80% of people perceive a relationship between themselves and a company using custom content. That’s huge!
[Meghan] It is! And you know what, that perceived connection improves the impact and influence of your marketing. This is great because you want to spend your time on marketing that is productive and worthwhile.
So, let’s talk a little more about why it’s important to connect with your audience.
Why Is It Important to Connect with Your Audience?
[Theresa] There are quite a few reasons to focus on establishing connections with your audience. First, a connection captures your audience’s attention and keeps them interested.
These days, people desire a more personal experience. So, connecting makes your communication feel more like a conversation and like you’re talking directly to your prospects.
And, people want to feel aligned with the brands and businesses they follow. They want to get to know your values, personality, and mindset. Connecting with your audience can make that possible.
[Meghan] Definitely! Establishing legitimacy, trust, and a certain level of intimacy builds those know, like and trust bonds that lead to engagement and to your prospects buying.
So, these are all reasons why marketers are so keen on “connecting” these days.
[Theresa] And, it’s why a lot of businesses look to social media as an avenue to build communities and interact in a friendly, non-salesy way.
But connecting extends beyond social. Any and all of your content—blog posts, videos, podcasts, email—are opportunities to build bonds with your prospects.
Here's how to use content to connect with an audience so that you increase relatability and build trust with your prospects.Click To TweetConnect with Your Audience with These Types of Custom Content
[Meghan] So, let’s talk about how to use certain types of custom content to connect with your audience. These categories of content increase your impact because they address those psychological triggers that build relationships and influence how others perceive you. The types of content are:
- Emotional
- Educational
- Informational
- Entertaining
- Original
- See below for a bonus type!
[Theresa] Note that Meghan emphasized “custom” content. Custom means that it’s important to create content specific to YOUR target market and to YOUR brand or personality.
This can pay off—especially since people are 61% more likely to purchase from a company that produces unique content. (Source: ExpressWriters)
So, don’t be afraid to be different. You don’t want to be a copy of someone else.
[Meghan] Anyone can create mediocre and predictable content. Custom content helps you stand out online. That’s why content marketing is so great for connecting.
It’s okay to tackle similar topics as your competitors, but address them in a way that’s highly relevant to your specific avatar and with a lens of YOUR perspective, experience, and expertise. This will make your content more customized and also more effective at forming connections.
1) Emotional Content
[Theresa] Okay, the first type of content that helps you connect with your audience is emotional.
Studies have shown that “triggering an emotional response is the best way to get people to pay attention and to motivate them to take action as a result of reading your content.”
[Meghan] Emotions are so powerful and influential! We’ve learned time and time again that emotion outweighs logic when it comes to buying decisions. Logic helps, but people love stories, and storytelling is often an emotional journey.
Appealing to the mind AND the heart makes connecting on a personal level easier. It also makes it easier to convince someone to give you money!
[Theresa] For sure! We talked about the importance of the emotional connection in the episode about content topics that generate leads. People really do respond to emotion—whether it be positive or negative.
Positive emotional content refers to content that has to do with humor, inspiration, motivation, belonging, empathy, positivity, joy, and awe—to name a few.
Negative emotional content focuses on feelings like fear, guilt, anger, and sadness.
[Meghan] Some examples of brands using emotional content are:
Squatty Potty
Squatty Potty capitalizes on humor and laughter. You can even view their products in your own bathroom (“view this Squatty in your Potty”). Their viral pooping unicorn video transforms an awkward, embarrassing topic into a funny, relatable conversation.
Everyday Power
Everyday Power is a website with motivational, inspirational, and empowering content meant to influence mindset and perspectives.
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a highly political, environmental, activist-centered organization that uses fear and anger along with some hopeful content to inspire their base to take action.
[Theresa] Obviously, each one of these examples has very different themes and tactics for connecting with their target market.
One brand wants you to laugh, one wants to expand your mindset, and one wants you to get out and protest. And the content reflects these differences.
[Meghan] The point being: before you get to creating content, set goals. Determine a content strategy first.
Your goals and target market play a big role in what content to create. If you need help with your strategy, consider hiring a content marketing consultant, like me!
2) Educational Content
Now, if emotional content isn’t your cup of tea, you may want to try educational content, which is the second type of content we’re talking about.
[Theresa] With my background as a teacher, I love educational content! There are so many benefits to publishing content that educates. It:
- Highlights your expertise
- Delivers value through DIY solutions, which endears fans to you
- Positions you as an authority
- Builds trust and credibility with your audience
And those are just a few things that educational content achieves!
[Meghan] You know, some business owners worry that showing their audience how to do something will eliminate the likelihood of getting hired.
But often, the educational content results in an opportunity to create more advanced educational training for a fee. Or, it influences people to hire you to do it for them because they don’t want to deal with it.
In other words, educational content is great for selling services as well as online courses or informational products.
One example is Income School. They teach how to make money with blogging and vlogging. Now, a ton of that information is available online for free. That’s a saturated market. Yet, Income School has a successful membership training program, and they consult too. So, it’s a good example of how free educational content leads to paid products as well as services.
[Theresa] Or what about Donald Miller and Story Brand? Or even Amy Porterfield? Those are two examples of free training that leads to paid training. So, don’t rule out educational content as a way to attract clients and customers.
3) Informational Content
[Meghan] Moving onto the third type of content, and that is informational content.
Although this is a lot like educational content, informational content is less about how-to do things and more about compiling data or details into a single location. Think of this content as resources, guides, comparisons and reviews.
[Theresa] Now, we’re not going to spend a lot of time on this one since informational and educational content achieve very similar benefits.
Here’s what you need to know. By saving your target market time and possibly money through the sharing of knowledge, you help build a relationship. You’re perceived as helpful, knowledgeable, and authoritative.
[Meghan] Often, you’ll see informative content mixed in with educational content, and that’s smart. They make a good duo.
Brands like Elegant Themes, Neil Patel, and Content Warrior come to mind as examples. Each of them uses informational and educational content together to connect with an audience. So, take a look at those brands for some ideas.
4) Entertaining Content
[Theresa] Ok, the fourth type is entertaining content. You probably know this from your own experiences, but engaging content gets more people to pay attention.
According to Buffer, entertaining content is highly shareable and can humanize your business whereby your audience feels you’re “just like them,” which builds trust.
That said, your niche may not be that entertaining. So, content ideas may take some effort, that’s for sure.
[Meghan] But even a blender company was able to come up with an entertaining YouTube channel. BlendTec’s “Will it Blend?” has over 860,000 subscribers who are interested in watching the blender try to blend gadgets and ridiculous items.
If you’re having a tough time coming up with an entertaining content idea, here’s a pro tip for you. Focus on another type of content but interject your personality, some emotion, and little bit of storytelling into it. This can ramp up the entertainment factor.
Just be sure to align your entertaining content with your products or services – even loosely – and appeal to your target market. It’s not enough to just be entertaining or you won’t be able to monetize your efforts.
[Theresa] It is really important to remember that your content serves a purpose!
Think about The Dodo. With almost 10 million subscribers, The Dodo’s YouTube content is highly effective. The brand strives to create animal advocates through entertainment.
Let’s face it: if you’re an animal lover, you’ll eat this content up! It also ticks the emotional content box, and that makes it powerful.
[Meghan] I’m a sucker for a happy animal story, ya know? It’s “feel good” content that makes me want to adopt a dog or feed the squirrels and birds. And that’s the point.
5) Original Content
Okay, let’s talk about original content. This is some of the toughest content to create. There are a couple ways to look at originality.
First, you can take a common topic and approach it with your unique take. Use your expertise and experience to share an opposing or different opinion.
Another option is to talk about something that very few people in your industry are addressing.
However, probably the most impactful form of original content is performing your own analysis and research. You know, doing your own surveys or tracking your own data or third-party data. This is referred to as being the “primary source.”
[Theresa] Doing your own research and publishing the results is very time consuming. And, this may not be something that works in your niche.
But if you can pull it off, original research sets you apart from the competition. It emphasizes your authority and builds your brand, which helps your visibility within your industry and target market.
Your unique perspective will repel the wrong people and attract the right ones. You’ll connect with people who are meant to be part of your community.
[Meghan] When I think of brands doing original research, I think of Backlinko and Orbit Media as examples.
I created original content a few times during my Smart Bird Social days. I felt like it was worth the work and did raise brand awareness and visibility. And, the topics made sense since they supported a membership that I launched in 2017.
6) BONUS: User Generated Content
[Meghan] One other type of content is user-generated (UGC). This is content that your community or audience creates, such as photos of them using your products or videos of them reviewing your services.
This content can help you connect with your prospects since it’s highly relatable. Plus, this content carries more weight since it’s about your brand but not generated by your brand.
UGC could work for you if you have a way to collect and manage the content. However, I feel like this is something bigger brands with larger teams try.
Red Bull is a great example of UGC. Look at their social media to see how they incorporate end users’ stories into their brand message.
If you have a way to put your customers’ stories front and center and relate those stories to your brand and offers, then go for it!
“Our content must be based on fulfilling our customers’ needs and interests, so that they come to build a trusted and emotional connection with our brands.” – Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute
Use These Content Tips to Connect with Your Audience
[Meghan] I’ll end by giving you a few tips that will help you create content that connects:
- Write conversationally (not corporate or too formal)
- Speak directly to your avatar
- Choose a writing style that fits your brand to express your message and personality
- Combine more than one type of content for bigger impact and influence
- Make it custom (unique and different + tailored to your specific avatar) to boost psychological triggers that get people to feel like you know them and to feel connected to your brand
[Meghan] Hopefully, we’ve given you some insight and examples about the ways you can make your content marketing more effective and productive. That’s our goal!
[Theresa] Don’t forget that your marketing decisions do affect your productivity, especially as a team of one. So, choose the marketing tactics that make sense for you as a solopreneur.
[Meghan] When you’re ready to create content, be sure to check out these posts/episodes for topic ideas:
- 5 Hacks for Finding Content Ideas When You’re in a Slump
- How to Find Content Ideas that Attract Targeted Leads to Your Business
- Last Minute Content Creation: 7 Ideas for When You’re Unprepared But Need to Post Something
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