Creating memorable content isn’t as daunting as you may think, but if you’re serious about promoting your business, you need to get it right.
Whether it’s your website content reading well, a company blog, newsletters or holiday ecards, making sure all of your content stays in the mind of the reader is vital. It’s not just about the message you want to put out, you have to consider your audience as well as how you speak to them.
An easy rule has always been to ask: what’s in it for me? Put yourself in your audience or customer’s feet when you produce content. What do they care about and why should they care about your content? Keep asking yourself what they are getting out of it. This is hugely important for marketing and communication.
We’ve explained some key points to form part of your communication and marketing strategy to make your content instantly memorable…
Show your Voice
First, start with your brand and your voice – who are you? What do you stand for? Establish a voice that reflects your business so you can remain consistent in your content.
Here are a few tips to get you started if you want to discover your brand voice:
- List up to five words that best describe your business and your values.
- Get your best-performing pieces of content and look for consistent or similar language and style.
- Make a style guide to put each employee or your marketing team on the same page.
A brand voice and creating quality content isn’t all about you, it also helps to consider who you’re speaking to. What kind of language does your audience use? What are their interests? Are they experts in a field?
Focusing on creating an authentic brand voice is an effective way to cut through the noise and reach your audience. Showing your identity and speaking to your audience influences a consumer’s perception, and can affect their purchasing decisions.
A distinct brand voice can help you stand out from your competitors, and make it easier for audiences to remember you. Just remember, there is no right or wrong voice and style; you can be authoritative and sophisticated, witty and sarcastic, or humorous.
Know your Audience
Carrying on from what we’ve mentioned above, you need to understand your audience – their decisions, personality and background.
Here are a few ideas to help you understand your audience:
- Use SEO to understand the language that appeals to them – keywords, for example – and how they access your website.
- Look at your audience’s use of language, either individually or as a business – are they using specialist language – and they interact with you through dialogue.
- Look around your industry sector for clues of what your audience responds to – styles of content, such as interviews or studies, even expert comments or posts.
By knowing your audience and consumer base, you put them at the heart of your content strategy, rather than your business message. Nothing engages an audience more than getting them involved, as though you are speaking to them.
When a person feels like they are participating, they have a sense of ownership and feel as though they are part of the narrative. This also includes how you respond to them. If a customer has left a comment, answering or responding shows your care about the audience.
Making your content about your audience, inspired by them, will create brand loyalty and therefore make your content more memorable to them.
Make it Visual
To make your content instantly memorable, make it visual – whether it’s a blog post or email – avoid a wall of words.
Here are some tips on enhancing the visual impact of your content:
- Use featured images or lead images at the top of a page or for an email to grab attention straight away.
- Use imagery to break up your text, every few paragraphs or even when you introduce a new subheading.
- Make sure your images are set to a standard size, you don’t want randomly sized images scattered all over the place, confusing a reader.
People tend to notice and interpret visual content more quickly than text – a thousand words, as it goes – so images are especially good at attracting and holding an audience’s interest. Information is far easier to retain if it’s paired with an image.
Visual stimulation also includes text – more precisely, headings and sub-headings. They help break the text down, make it easy to follow, and inform the reader of a new point. Break-out quotes help give the audience a clear point and something to take away or use themselves.
Visual content grabs attention, can stir emotion and makes it more shareable, and therefore, memorable.
Be Clear and to the Point
Depending on your business, your audience isn’t there to waste time, they want to get the point without frustration.
Here are a few tips on being concise and clear:
- Use bullet points to get brief messages across easily or to summarise.
- Use headings and sub-headings to move to the next topic, creating an easy guide for your audience.
- Don’t have overly large paragraphs followed by shorter ones, this is frustrating and can cause strain on your eyes. Keep paragraphs short – especially when you write with mobile usage in mind.
Use your opening line or paragraph to detail the topic; if it’s a sub-heading, use the remaining paragraphs to add expanded detail on what you’ve summarized in the opener. Imagine a pyramid, the top is brief with core detail but punchy, and you add more as you go with new paragraphs.
Finally, make your headlines punchy. Long, rambling headings will turn off your audience, so, if you can, make them short to grab their attention.
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