Before you start writing your next blog post or lead magnet, you should take a little time to read this article. We have covered many aspects related to a great content marketing strategy: how to document it, how to improve its overall quality, etc.
But today we will go even deeper into the chemistry of a good content piece. We will not be talking about audiences, niches, when and where to share your content and instead, we will focus on the most important questions that any content marketing piece should answer.
Why Do People Read Your Content?
When someone decides to spend 5-10 minutes of their life reading your article, they are giving you something very precious these days and it is their attention. You already know how attention span is getting smaller and smaller every day, and this is because the online and offline worlds are crammed to saturation with content marketing pieces “jumping” in front of people and trying to grab their attention.
In addition, the more they are assaulted by marketing messages, the less willing people are to waste their precious time browsing them. So, why do they read articles? We are not trying to make a psychological study here, but the basic answer is because they want to learn something or to be entertained.
Great Content Marketing Pieces Are Built Around Five Key Questions
The concept of the 5W appeared in journalism schools. The theory is that any news article should cover these five basic questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why. For more in-depth articles the question “How?” is added to these basic five.
In content marketing, things are similar and different at the same time. Let’s take a look:
1. What
The first issue you should consider is the topic of your content marketing piece. Is it something that would interest your intended audience? If it doesn’t, you’ve missed your chance from the start.
This is why it is important to use content curation tools and to monitor your followers’ activity on your social media pages because these are the only ways of knowing what they want to read about, what keeps them entertained, and what pain points they want to solve. Also, keep in mind that people’s interests change with time and with their evolving personal circumstances. The topics you write about must be always up to date with their preferences.
2. How
Now that you have a topic, how will you tackle it? Will you write a blog article or a lead magnet? Will you go live on Facebook™? The choice depends greatly on the type of topic – and on your prospects’ favourite medium for consuming content.
For instance, you can opt for an e-book or a video for a tutorial. For breaking news on a topic of interest for your audience, you should go live on Facebook™ and discuss the issue with your followers.
3. Where
Where you post your content marketing piece has great importance. For example, an article on an evergreen topic would be very useful on your company blog. It will help your SEO efforts and generate continuous traffic for your site.
For tutorials, webinars and other video materials, consider whether they would generate more traffic and conversions on YouTube or as native Facebook™ videos. Also, consider whether you may want to re-share and repurpose these videos at a further date on other platforms.
4. Why
Why would people bother to read/watch your content marketing pieces? What is the key aspect that makes them interesting, useful or entertaining for your prospects? Once you identify this idea, you should use it in your captions or headlines when you share your content on other platforms.
This will draw people’s attention to it and increase the chances of getting a higher engagement and conversion rate.
5. When
When will you revisit your topics to update them with fresh ideas? This is very good for SEO and it helps a lot on those days when you don’t have time or inspiration to create new content marketing pieces.
In some instances, it is even possible to revisit a topic a few months later and update it with supplementary ideas.