5 Essential Techniques for Effective Content Marketing

Content Marketing is the creation of useful content that has a marketing purpose.

For example, your company may create an awesome special report, a series of email lessons, or a free eBook and exchange it for your prospect’s email address and their permission to further educate them about your company and what you have to offer.

Think blogs, white papers, viral videos, case studies–anything with exceptional, relevant content, created to help and educate your readers. That’s content marketing.

But in order to be effective, your content has to attract readers. And the only way to do that is to integrate classic copywriting lessons into your content.

So when you begin creating content for your business, consider these copywriting techniques first:

1. Have a good headline.

Without a good headline that grabs your reader’s attention and entices her into the rest of your body copy, your content will go to waste.

Headlines should provoke curiosity, and always speak directly to the reader.

2. Think about how your content benefits readers–before you write it.

Why should your readers take time out of their busy day to read your content?

Just as a product needs to benefit the buyer, your content needs to provide a benefit to the reader, or she won’t return.

3. Build trust with your readers.

You may be getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere, but if that attention isn’t building trust, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

Always be authentic, and never aim to be a jerk. Build trust with your readers, and they’ll keep coming back for more.

4. Use social proof.

When you’re first beginning, you need to leverage social proof to show that your content is worth reading. Try using any (or all) of these tactics to gain social proof:

Encourage comments. Comments show your content is worth staying for and that others are deciding to contribute to the conversation.

Get testimonials. Start with your friends, and go from there. Give free stuff away in exchange for a testimonial.

Get in the media. Getting mentioned in the media is still big social proof. Send out a press release, sign up for Help a Reporter Out (HARO)– whatever you need to do to get your name mentioned. Then leverage it on your website.

5. Create a clear, specific call to action.

Always make sure to have a clear call to action that lets readers know exactly what you want them to do.

This might be to sign up for your newsletter, download your free e-book, or share your content on social sharing sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Take action

Before you set about creating content for your business, whether it be in a blog, a newsletter, or a special report, give these copywriting techniques a try.

Do them correctly, and you’ll build a growing, loyal audience excited to share your content with others.