Striving to make your written marketing content shine even brighter? You’re not alone. According to the HubSpot 2024 State of Marketing Report, marketers struggle most with finding content ideas and creating high-engagement content. However, when you hit the bullseye, the rewards are immense.
The same report reveals that website, blog, and SEO content resulted in the highest ROI for marketers last year. Senior Editor of Search Engine Journal Ben Steele notes in the report, “Your content must be personal, demonstrate experience, and address real needs. And you’re already playing catch-up.”
What about AI for content creation?
Steele explains, “Generative AI offers powerful efficiency tools, but I don’t believe it’s a wholesale answer to content marketing. I predict an increased demand for verifiably human content about deeper and more complex topics.”
So, how can you ideate and create more authentic content? Here are my steps to make sure your content shines:
1️⃣ Research your customers thoroughly. Understand their motivations and where they’re heading.
2️⃣ Step into your customers’ shoes. What matters to them? What challenges and opportunities are front of mind?
3️⃣ Understand your SEO equity. Start with keyword research to know how your customers are searching.
4️⃣ Map out your content framework. Ideally, use customer and SEO research to form a long-term content pillar and topic cluster strategy. At a minimum, create a spreadsheet to start planning your content topics.
5️⃣ Reach out to subject matter experts. If you’re the expert, spend time researching your topic. Look for juicy stats, studies, and stories from other experts to reference.
6️⃣ Remove distractions and just write. Get the ideas flowing. Don’t get hung up on grammatical accuracy or sentence structure.
7️⃣ Review, rework, and further refine. Put your grammar hat back on and polish your content. Seek stakeholder feedback to rework the finer details. Refine your work based on feedback, and make your content shine.
One last nugget of insight from Steele, “It takes genuine experience to predict and answer the specific situations a reader might encounter. Leaning into your unique knowledge allows you to curate experiences that address what users don’t know they don’t know—content that surprises, delights, and provides new insights.”
One big takeaway from all of this? Authentic, customer-centric content wins—every time.
Read more insights from the 2024 HubSpot State of Marketing Report.
Need a hand with content with creating high-quality content? Get in touch.
