How to write content your audience will actually read (Part 2: the recipe)
In part 1 of this series, we examined the different types of “leech content” that derive from targeting the wrong audience.
In this post, we’ll focus on the recipe for writing content your audience will actually read.
The recipe is simple. It has only 3 ingredients:
An understanding of your audience
A pinch of stylistic versatility
A generous handful of subject matter expertise
What does it mean to “understand” your audience?
For all its often solitary nature, content creation is a performance art. And if you’ve ever performed in front of a live audience, you know what it’s like to “read the room.” In other words, you know what’s on their mind, you know what triggers an emotional response, and you know how to get them to cheer you on.
In a B2B content creation context, the goal is the same — with an important difference, which is this: You’ll never get it completely right. Your audience is a moving target. Just get it close.
Here’s how. From the list below, you should be able to accurately describe multiple audience characteristics.
How many? Hard to say. The more the merrier. Fewer than two and you have issues. The point is that understanding your audience is always an on-going process of discovery.
Industry: Trends, challenges, and regulatory issues.
Personas: Roles, pains, motivators, expertise, technological sophistication.
Decisions: Who the decision-makers are, and how long that takes.
Media consumption: How they prefer to get their information (Articles? Infographics? Videos? Short videos or long videos?)
Media platforms: Where your audience gets its information (Social media? Industry publications? Conferences?)
Tone: The tone & language styles that are most current and credible in your target market (Academic? Informal?)
Firmographics: The general composition of your target companies, as well as the typical company culture.
Demographics: Characteristics such as level of education and income, socio-economic pressures …
Couple this information with an understanding of the different buying stages and awareness levels your content needs to serve. Your audience will fall into one of four categories of awareness:
They’re aware they have a problem that needs solving
They’re aware that there is a solution category for their problem
They’re aware that your solution belongs to this category
They’re aware of the merits of your particular solution
All told, audience understanding equates to a veritable encyclopedia of information.
Will you use every piece of information in every sentence? Probably not. But ultimately, it’s going to inform a whole range of decisions you make at the content creation level.
And of course, if you’re creating content for account-based marketing (ABM) purposes, you likely will use most of this information in one form or another. I’ll leave that for another blog post.
But seriously, why are we learning all this stuff?
If you give your audience an excuse to leave, they will leave, 100% of the time. They are stressed, busy, and predisposed to mistrust you.
As a content writer, your job is to a) convince them to suspend the impulse to leave, and b) then execute the action you want them to execute.
Those are both tall orders, and they leave you no room to put a foot wrong.
Put simply: The more you know about your audience, the more likely it is that you’ll know how to tailor your copy accordingly, in such a way that they’ll read the next word, and the next, and the next recognize their pain points and priorities as they scan your copy for relevance.
How do you get these audience insights?
How you get information about your audience often depends on how much time and money you have to spend.
Approaches include:
Hiring a consultant to extract persona insights from your target market
Conducting surveys and interviews with existing clients
Analyzing data from website analytics and social media insights
Leveraging market research and industry reports
That said, as a content writer, you will generally not be responsible for tracking this down. Your friendly neighborhood marketing and product management teams/contacts should be all over this.
HOWEVER, do make it your business to avidly consume as much of this information as you can.
Read, listen, digest. Internalize the words your audience is using. Use them. Do not translate them. This is your lexicon.
A template for writing content your audience will read
Given that you have the three key ingredients at hand (an understanding of your audience, stylistic versatility, and subject matter expertise), the template for writing engaging content is actually straightforward:
Understand your format, and how it will be distributed and consumed. This will shape the rhythm of your content.
Identify the buying/awareness stage. This will orient your topic, and steer your search for quotes and research sources.
Identify your emotional levers, and the objections you’ll need to address. This will shape your headline, intro, and direction.
Identify the action you would like your audience to take after consuming your content. This will help you build a connected argument from beginning to end.
Pitch your style, tone, and level of persuasiveness at the appropriate level. This is where your understanding of the audience & stylistic versatility pay off.
Write. Sleep. Iterate. This is how you improve the material.
A note on subject matter expertise
I referenced subject matter expertise as a key ingredient for engaging copy. Now, if you are not an actual expert, you will need to know enough to source, understand, and leverage useful information.
Do not attempt to fake expertise. Results are miserable, 100% of the time. This is, I hope, painfully obvious advice. But writers are generally highly proficient at turning nothing into something, so I can see the temptation.
The good news is that there are techniques that content writers can use to get up to speed on complex material extremely quickly, and I’ll cover those in an upcoming post.
Final word
All told, understanding your audience is not an exact science.
It is also not a set-and-forget process. Your audience will shift with the times, and any insights you do have will require regular monitoring and adjusting.
The moral of the story is that you will never get it complete, nor will you ever get it completely right.
But complement any knowledge and skill you do have with basic humanity and empathy, and you already have all the tools you need to produce content that provokes action.
This blog entry is from the Content Writer’s Handbook series.
For cheat sheets, hands-on examples, and tailored exercises, sign up for a coaching session.
