Develop great content to drive customer action

Use content to tell a compelling story

Every business has a story. It's up to you to tell it. Content is a powerful tool to help attract, retain and ultimately drive customers to take profitable action. Craft a narrative that defines your brand and tells a compelling story to your customers.

Content creation takes shape in many ways (articles, interviews, infographics or videos) and can be shared across many channels (social media, a blog or email). Good content is about more than just advertising and selling your product or service. It's about reaching your customers with the right message, delivering it to them in the right place at the right time and ultimately guiding them on a journey to the center of it all — your product or service.

Generating engaging content that offers value, like relevant education, how-to guides, problem solving ideas and entertainment, can help you amplify your business' voice amidst competitors. And positioning your product or service at the center of your message makes you the go-to expert on that topic. It gives you a platform to answer the big questions your customers are asking: "What do you do?", "Who do you work with?", "Why do I need what you have?"and "Why is what you do the best?"

As you set out to curate your customer's experience with your brand, the content you put out into the world becomes the narrative that teaches your customer why and how to interact with your business. While operations are vital to run your business, your content is a key part of engaging your customers. Take time to tell your customer a story and guide them through an experience that will speak on your product's behalf.

Content creation process flow

So where to start? Here's a process that'll help you get the word out. Literally.

1. Ideate

Start anywhere and brainstorm ideas. What's your story? What style of communication is most authentic to your biz? What do your customers need to know about? Where do your customers spend time online? What are content trends in your industry? Other industries? Eventually you'll start to recognize patterns — make note of them.

2. Sort

Where do your ideas fit? Are they overarching concepts or do they fall into tactical specifics? Remember, not everything should be directly about your product or service. Give your readers the education, information or entertainment they're looking for that may not seem directly related, but has a tie back to your business offering.

3. Schedule

Get ready for accountability. Set deadlines, find tools and time-block. Map out when, where and how your content will go live.

4. Create

Feeling inspired? Capture those moments. Write it down and stick to your plan and bring your ideas to fruition. Partner with a creative friend to make a video, hop on Facebook Live, snap an Insta-Story, design an email campaign or post the article that points to your product — this is where your ideas come to life and your story takes shape.

5. Engage

It's not enough to put content out into the world and let it sit — you will want to promote your content. Post it on your social media pages, interact with commenters and readers and also encourage sharing. Don't forget to make sure your current customer base is reminded about new products or services.

Remember this: If you give your customers valuable content they didn't even know they needed and connect your offering to the solution they're looking for, they'll see what you do as invaluable to their own individual story.