To stand out amidst the noise and capture your audience’s attention, it’s crucial to adhere to a set of guidelines that prioritize authenticity, relevance, and engagement. Let’s explore these ideas and how following them can help your brand and website succeed.
Don’t Underestimate Thought Leadership
As we all continue to be inundated by information, messaging, and advertising, often what people are seeking out is a trusted expert. Be that expert and you’ll be rewarded. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry not only builds credibility but also attracts a loyal following. Whether through insightful articles, informative videos, or thought-provoking podcasts, position yourself as a go-to resource for valuable insights and expertise to bring in website visitors who fit into your target audiences and industries.
Get the biggest bang for buck by curating your thought leadership content and sharing it with the right target audience through the right channels. As an example, one of our clients, focused on helping customer with hiring, publishes quarterly reports (including industry data) for each of it’s top three target industries on the state of hiring. It’s not a sales brochure. It’s not inclusive of how their solution is better than the competition. Instead, it’s a very useful read for the exact audience is who are or could be customers. As for distributing such thought leadership, consider where your audience is, whether that’s LinkedIn or an online industry journal.
Speak to Your Audience
Stop and listen to your customers and prospects. Are they asking more about your brand or more about how you can help them? By speaking directly to their primary pain points and challenges, you’ll win not only their attention, but quite possibly their business.
Gone are the days of generic messaging. Take the time to listen to your customers’ needs and tailor your content to address them directly. Consider your top audiences and take yourself on a user journey through your website they would likely follow. Then try to experience things from their point of view to ensure you actually ARE addressing them. Better yet, ASK! Customer interviews can provide great insight into how others view your site and messaging – and lead you to changes you may not have noticed on your own.
Less is More
I once asked a friend who authors books if it’s frustrating to send what he’s written to his editor and see the changes she makes. He looked at me and replied, she doesn’t change my words, she removes them! Oh. And Oh! It’s a good reminder for all of us that we have a tendency to write until we get to the point. And then we tend to not go back to the part before we go to the point to remove it (guilty as charged).
What we end up with is noise. And when we have a website user’s attention, it’s a valuable opportunity to present how we can help, why they should trust us, or how we can work together. Surround your most important messaging with a bunch of extra words – paragraphs even – and your users are now less likely to grasp what you initially intended. You will have drowned out your own best work.
Avoid the temptation to inundate your audience with excessive content. Instead, focus on delivering concise, impactful messages that cut through the clutter and convey your value proposition clearly and compellingly. Make it habit to have other team members review your website copy with the goal of being succinct while still getting your message across.
A Website is Not a Monologue
How can a website not be a one-sided conversation? When we engage our website visitors. This can serve as our best attempt at moving away from speaking at an audience and opening up a question or option for a user to respond to rather than just ingest.
Engagement covers a myriad of onsite interactions from clicking on a link, watching a video, filling out a form, or spending a significant amount of time on the site. You can even try to get users to participate by providing their own information to you by giving them a tool like a calculator (think ROI calculator, or in our case, a Digital Value calculator).
In Conclusion
The new rules of website content may not be entirely new to you or your marketing team, but finding ways to incorporate them into your brand’s website may include a new way of doing things. By embracing thought leadership, speaking directly to your audience, prioritizing clarity and conciseness, and fostering meaningful engagement, you can create a digital presence that captivates, inspires, and converts. Happy writing!
