Unless you’ve been writing in a professional capacity, you probably haven’t picked up a pen (or should I say, picked up a keyboard?) in a very long time: perhaps since college, or maybe even high school. The good news is, we’re not talking about writing term papers or citing research journals – mercifully, this is a much simpler form of writing. But it’s still going to be much different than writing for any other audience or in a different capacity.
When it comes to writing content for inbound marketing purposes, you have one objective that takes priority over everything else: intriguing the visitor. You want to pique the prospect’s interest so that they will consider looking at more of your content, ultimately deciding to download one of your content offers. Because that may be the most critical transaction in the inbound marketing world.
If you want to succeed with inbound marketing, your content offers have to be downloaded. When visitors download the offers, they provide contact information in exchange, which is how they become leads. And of course, leads are what bring us completed sales, and therefore money.
So how do you make visitors interested in your content? Here are a few tips to follow:
Don’t worry about random benchmarks
What do I mean by random benchmarks? Things that used to matter for homework assignments but serve no real purpose here. Things like word counts, thesis statements, etc. Basically, the kind of things a teacher would have required in the past. None of these things matter when it comes to writing content for a business website. You have one purpose – to make the visitor interested in reading more. Therefore, you should focus on providing good content above all else. A visitor isn’t going to become more intrigued by an article simply because it’s over 500 words instead of under.
Keep it casual
Blog articles need to feel inclusive and casual; you want the visitor to feel like they’re getting some advice from someone at a cocktail party, not reading a scientific journal. Don’t feel inclined to cite academic sources or provide tons of references; one or two links is perfectly sufficient for this sort of thing. Keeping it casual helps the reader feel at ease, and will make them more likely to want to read more. If you write too formally, the reader could feel intimidated by your content, and an intimidated reader probably isn’t going to want to look at more of your stuff.
Prove your worth
Aside from interesting the reader, we have one more important goal when it comes to writing content: providing value. Sure, you want the reader to have a good opinion of your business and be interested, but ultimately you need to prove your value to the reader and make them believe that your business is both credible and professional. Because in the end, you want that reader to give you some of their money, and people don’t just give money to businesses that don’t seem worth it.
So how do you prove value? By writing stuff that people want to read. I’ve discouraged you from writing a research paper, but there should still be some helpful information in your blog article. You need to introduce the reader to a new idea or help them see something in a different light. Make the reader think differently, and they’ll remember you for it – and they’ll have a better opinion of your business, too.
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