Buyers want and expect engaging, valuable content from companies they choose to do business with. So you need to create that content for your potential customers and audience. If you’re in a “boring” industry, you may be thinking, “People think my industry is so boring. The content I create will sound boring.” Stop right there.
No industry is as boring as you think it is.
When you create content, whether it’s a/an:
- Blog
- Ebook
- Whitepaper
- Newsletter
- Much, much more
You create it to give people solutions to their problems. When someone does a Google search for a topic in your industry, and they click on your link, boom. You’ve helped solve a problem.
And if you still don’t believe that creating content for a “boring” industry will do any good, look at this stat: 66 billion dollars. This is how much global revenue businesses made because of content writing and marketing last year.
Let’s learn how to solve problems and write engaging content.
Write for your ideal customer and audience
Who’s your ideal customer and audience? You probably already know; in fact, you probably have buyer’s personas already created to help guide your content tone and voice. You know what stage of the buyer’s journey they’re in, what problems they want to solve, and what solutions you can offer them. So provide those solutions with your content! Establishing trust will help gain your audience’s attention and keep them engaged.
Cut out the industry jargon
Let’s say you’re writing a copywriting blog about how to write 503 error messages for websites. Compare these two sentences:
- When constructing your sentence, use the following words: “Due to a plethora of incidents, the online platform has been temporarily disabled.”
- When writing your sentence, try this example: “Oops! Sorry! Our platform’s temporarily down because we’re clearing some bugs. We’ll be up again soon.”
Which sentence do you think would appeal to your audience?
If you picked the second sentence, good. Both sentences say the same thing, but the second sentence is written in conversational, easy-to-understand terms.
Your industry has jargon and business-speak that you use with colleagues, clients, and employees daily. However, when you’re writing, you want to tell a story with your content, not have your audience drown in jargon and business-speak. Overly technical language will alienate them, and make it difficult for them to absorb any information. As HubSpot says, “You establish professionalism by providing solid advice, not by sounding like you got hit in the face by a briefcase.”
In other words, establish professionalism by writing how you speak. It takes practice, but it gets easier over time.
Have a sense of humor
We’re not telling you to go out and invest in stand-up comedy classes. But writing with a bit of humor can inject new life into your content. If appropriate for your brand, include some jokes. Use idioms. Infuse pop culture into your writing. Humor can spice up a piece of content and keep an audience’s attention. One piece of advice—go easy on the sarcasm. Sarcasm can be hard to detect in writing, making your content sound unintentionally mean.
Edit, edit, edit
Shakespeare once said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” What does that mean? If you can be concise, so much the better. With anything you write, you want to edit it—or have someone else edit it for you. See what can be edited and what can be said in fewer words. A paragraph that has 50 words may, with editing, be whittled down to 30.
Editing is important to ensure quality content. Also, with people spending 5 to 6 hours a day on their mobile devices, attention spans are short and you want to keep your audience engaged and interested. A speedier reading experience is important and editing your content will help keep people on the page longer.
Chop up your content into chunks
Take a look at how this blog is structured.
Instead of writing it all in one big block of text, we have used bolded headers, links, and bullet-pointed lists. Chopping up your content into chunks helps your audience digest your content, keeps them interested, and helps them more easily absorb the information. You can also add items such as:
- Bolded and italicized words and phrases; e.g., to help a definition stand out
- Videos, images, and infographics, to help tell your story visually
- Tables and charts to help break down data
Be educational, be helpful
When people are looking for a solution to their problems, no industry is ever truly “boring.” Writing content that is educational and helpful to your audience will help them learn and establish trust. And trust is key to gaining advocates and disciples of your brand.
Now, get out there and write amazing content!
Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners
Photo by belchonock
