The main focus of your writing should be to stir the audience’s curiosity and garner a reaction from them, within the first sentence. Audience’s live in a fast paced world and if an article doesn’t appeal to them they will be quick to flick to something else. Here are nine ways to keep your audience engaged in your content:
1. Describe the Business
Readers want valuable information related to your business. They don’t want to feel like you are shoving promotional material down their throats. Give a clear description of what your business is doing, why your service can improve your client’s life and the benefits of your product.
2. Write About Customers
Don’t choose to write about random content that has no relevance to your customers. Reflect on a similar brand you are a customer of and think about what you would want them to feature.
Take time to understand your customers from their online customer engagement stats, this will help in developing marketing strategies and producing relevant content.
3. Choose your Words
More often than not it’s not the words you write but how you use them that can win over an audience. The best strategy to achieve the optimal customer experience is to create a sense of community and communication. Make an emotional connection between your brand and the consumer.
4. Avoid Subtle Calls-to-action
When it comes to call-to-action phrases avoid any subtleties. Call-to-action statements are what makes the customer react and purchase from you instead of your competitors. Be direct and specific, don’t let the customer make assumptions about your products. This doesn’t mean you can be rude and harsh, just to the point.
“Give customers a point to call that action, give them a reason to sign up to your newsletter like offering discounts, pre-sales or exclusive items. Make sure the customer has a reason to choose your company over your competitors,” says Julie Pickering, a content writer at AustralianHelp.
5. Avoid Sugar Coating
Customers are becoming more and more savvy. They have a multitude of bloggers, reviewers and price comparison websites at their fingertips so over the top gushing reviews don’t cut it any more. Customers don’t just want you to describe your brand as “amazing” or “life-changing” they want to know ingredients, benefits or facts about the process. Tell them what makes it the product they need in their life.
Try writing from a personal perspective by saying things like “Although I was sceptical,” or a personal touch by saying “It was recommended to me by my mother.” Avoiding going so over the top it begins to make customers sceptical. Phrases like “Age old recipe,” or “A family tradition,” can turn customers off because they simply don’t believe it.
6. Don’t Be Scared to Seek Help
Maybe you’re a small business that can’t afford to budget in copywriting teams. Don’t be afraid to use online tools to help perfect that article.
- Grammar Checker and Studydemic: These are great grammar guides for both experts and beginners to customer centred content.
- Paperfellows and Assignment Help: Huffington Post recommends these as the best proofreading tools out there.
- My Writing Way and Lets Go and Learn: These are writing blogs that offer vital advice in writing anything from marketing to website content.
7. Tackle Difficult Truths
Customers understand that miracles aren’t real and business isn’t always perfect. If your business has a downside that you know customers will notice like a high price, don’t avoid mentioning it. Make customers trust you by being honest and informative. Give an argument as to why you have this flaw. Explain how expensive the ingredients are, the work that goes into it or how innovative the concept is. Great copywriting will argue what you can do for the customer.
8. Pay Attention to Design
People will judge the business, brand or product from the content. Badly spelt text on a badly aligned template, in an ugly font can make people judge your brand. If it looks messy, careless and unprofessional, your business will be perceived the same way. Use correct grammar, sub-headers, bullet points and a professional template to give the right impression.
Using a good design will not only give the right image, but it will also make it easier for your audience to engage, making them more likely to return.
9. Avoid Superlatives
Copywriters and content makers have been known to overuse superlatives to sell their product. There are so many better ways to illustrate how good a product or service is without going into superlatives. Using sentences like “We’re the best,” has been proven to not work anymore. Don’t eliminate superlatives all together but only use them if you can back it up with a fact.
Relevancy is the key to keeping an audience engaged. Choose relevancy over cleverness. Keep professional and clear but think about what you would want from your favourite brands. While terminology, statistics and platforms may change, your audience’s needs rarely do.
