Ten tips for better result$ from your content in 2012
Case studies, white papers, solutions briefs, web content and blogging aren’t ends in themselves but the means to productive ends: more site visits, inquiries, trials, orders and revenue. To help prepare you for the new year, we’ve compiled a Top Ten list of representative tips for results-driven writing that we published here in 2011. We hope they can contribute to your marketing mission as much they have stood the test of time in our own practice. And here’s to a happy, prosperous New Year from Write Angle!
1. More site traffic might make you feel good, but upping the number of visitors who actually make decisions about purchases is the metric the CEO will look for. Here are five ways to make web content attract the right visitors to your site.
2. There are a lot of wrong ways to produce content and the snake oil of SEO is more widespread than ever today. Beware. Here are some guidelines intended to help you avoid the three biggest mistakes in content marketing.
3. If your case studies aren’t lead generators, is the time you’re taking to produce them really worth it? Make the most of your time by applying these three things that make your case studies drive quality leads.
4. Ninjas, gurus and wizards belong in video games, not on your content team. The Web site metrics your content must drive are achievable by regular folks doing the right things.
5. Making the most of your resources will be no less important in the coming year, if not more so. To create quality content on time and on budget, it’s incumbent upon the internal team to know how to get the most out of your writing consultants.
6. “Ready, fire, aim” has never been a winning sequence when it comes to marketing and selling. Carefully consider and answer our five questions to ask BEFORE embarking on a content-creation effort.
7. Too many marketers undertake a writing project with an objective of getting it approved rather than making it effective. The objective of any content is to be consumed. It must be read and passed along. At Write Angle, we call it market-alism: how to write copy that customers want to read.
8. It’s essential to see the world through customers’ eyes and to not look at customers through the lens of your offerings. Here’s an insider’s guide to outside-in writing.
9. You want readers to heed your calls to action. To do so, those readers must relate to the story you tell. So it’s no mystery that citing examples that speak to customers makes your content hard to ignore.
10. McAfee, a brand that aims to protect itself as zealously as it strives to safeguard its customers’ digital assets, shares our views on why guarding the brand is Job One for technology writers.
What are your New Year’s resolutions on improving your marketing content? What did you learn in 2011 that you intend to practice in 2012?