Content Marketing Tip: Know Your Audience

keep them entertained

If you’re looking to ramp up your content marketing strategy,

the first thing you need to decide is what platform (or platforms!) you will use to showcase your content. There are many different ways to communicate a topic, and so many different marketing channels to choose from. However, the most important consideration in content marketing is to know your audience. Who will be reading this content? Is it a loyal customer who already knows all about your company, or is it a journalist who needs all of the information at once? Read our guideline below on matching the audiences to the most prevalent content formats.

 

FOUR MAIN TYPES OF CONTENT FOR MARKETING & HOW THEY DIFFER BY AUDIENCE

WEBSITE

Audience: Potential customers/clients

Tone: Informative and persuasive

Description: Website copy is meant to inform the site visitor of exactly what you do and how you do it. Within 15 seconds of clicking on the homepage, the visitor should know if your company is for them or not.  It should clearly speak to the customer/client and showcase how your company can solve their needs. Additional pages and sections are appropriate for going into more depth about the how and why. For persuasion, calls to action that encourage the visitor to learn more, contact you, or purchase from you should be featured throughout the site.

 

BLOG

Audience: Current and potential customers/clients

Tone: Conversational, but professional, and always informative

Description: A blog is an important space to showcase company news, the latest releases/updates, thought leadership, and industry news. Here, you are speaking directly to the reader, and this reader is likely already informed about what your company does and has established some interest by the time they have clicked through to your blog, so the tone can be a bit more casual than that of your other website content.

 

PRESS RELEASE

Audience: Journalists (as a PR tool) and/or blog audience (as a marketing tool)

Tone: Strictly informative and non-persuasive

Description: A press release is meant to inform a journalist of the facts of your announcement. This is a place to clearly describe the features and key points of the announcement. It covers the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of your news, and usually includes a quote or two from the founder, CEO or a key company executive. There are a few ways to distribute a press release, which will affect your exact audience: a newswire, by email to journalists in an effort to garner media attention, and/or on your company blog. When reaching out to a journalist, the press release is generally included as an attachment to an email with persuasive language about why the press release news is exciting. At his or her discretion, the journalist then can take the information and use it to create a story that will be intended for the final reader.

 

EMAIL CAMPAIGN

Audience: Existing and potential customers/clients

Tone: Informative and casually persuasive

Description: In an email campaign, the goal is to add value to the reader’s inbox. That could mean letting them know about exciting company news or a new solution that they could benefit from. The call to action should persuade the reader to go to your website and sign up for your offer, or call you directly so you or your sales team can convert them into customers. The leading content must add value in order for them to be convinced to move on to the next step.

Written by Abigail Sierra, Director of Content Strategy