Good Read: Drake Morton
3 Tips for Delivering the
Content Your Audience Wants
By Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations
What’s most important to your email marketing and lead-nurturing efforts? It’s probably some combination of building relationships, increasingly loyalty, moving buyers through the sales cycle and, of course, turning your messages into revenue. Delivering the right message–content that educates, engages and entices recipients to perform the action you want–is essential to all of these goals.
With carefully planned strategy and the correct tools, you can improve the likelihood of providing the content your contacts are looking for–especially if you nail the right timing for your message. Here are a few tips for building your content so you deliver messaging that resonates strongly.
1) Listen to your audience. Marketing has evolved–the best marketers are the best listeners, so go to where your audience is and listen to what they have to say. Leverage social networks and community forums to see what your customers and potential customers are saying and see if you can incorporate those thoughts in your strategy moving forward. If your customers aren’t providing enough feedback on the social sites, don’t hesitate to ask what they like about and look for in emails. Ask, and they will answer!You can also ask your customers to tell you about themselves through surveys and Web forms. Providing an incentive for them to do so is a great way to receive more feedback. Keep in mind you don’t want to overwhelm people with a ton of questions right away. Use progressive profiling and ask the most important questions first–the ones you’ll need to deliver relevant content right out of the gate.
2) Incorporate dynamic content into your messages.
Each of your customers and prospects has unique behaviors, interests and needs. Instead of sending all of your recipients the same generic message, use dynamic content to speak to them on a one-on-one basis. Dynamic content replaces entire sections of your emails based on each recipient’s unique behaviors and increases relevance while also achieving a high degree of automation that reduces costs. A great way to use the tool is to include reviews, recommendations and testimonials that match each recipient’s interests or purchase history. (Read more about dynamic content.)
3) Humanize your content.
Social media is a part of your customers’ daily lives, and many likely go from reading friends’ most recent status updates to “liking” a post on your corporate Facebook. As a result, they probably expect your company’s messages to be more casual and not contain too much corporate speak. Keep that in mind when building your messages–customers want the content to sound like it came from a real human being, not some kind of robot. Consider entertaining your recipients with humor, adding customer comments and incorporating employee stories for a more personal touch. (Read more about humanizing content.)
By following these tips when crafting your message, you’ll be on your way to delivering relevant content that stands out. The result? Happier, more engaged customers and prospects.
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