If You Want to Create Great Content, Focus on the Feelings

with guest Rob Dial #MakingBank S4E32

Content, content, content. Everyone stresses the importance of it, and you know it’s true… but what about when it’s not true?

You’ve undoubtedly heard marketing gurus, consultants and coaches talk about the importance of putting out content, but something is being left unsaid here: you have to create content that people actually enjoy. Content that sparks people to respond with their own thoughts. Content that gets people going so much they hit the share button and do part of your work for you.

Writing an article titled ‘The 3 Best Ways to Cut Your Lawn’ is not going to get that kind of action, unless you happen to have an audience chock full of 40 something suburbians with dad bods and a healthy desire to distract themselves from interacting with their family.

What all of these marketing courses gloss over but don’t actually teach you to do is to develop engaging content, and rightfully so — teaching that would actually be hard. Some people have this naturally, but most of us have to work on it. On this episode of the podcast, Rob spoke about his personal approach to creating content by focusing first on what feelings he wants to elicit in his subscribers.

By thinking about how he can make people feel good about themselves and leave them in a state that is more likely to lead to them hitting the like, share and comment buttons, Rob takes a unique approach to developing his articles, videos and podcasts.

A great way to destroy that feeling is to give people a 2 minute video clip that ends with a pitch to buy a product, service or audio book. No one wants to feel like they have been tricked into watching an advertisement, and when videos end like this it leaves the viewer with the icky feeling of having been duped by someone who doesn’t actually have their best interests at heart.

Still, creating enticing content that your audience connects deeply with is a hard earned skill that could take years to master. To start, remember the feeling you want to elicit — most likely positivity unless you aim to spend your life trolling — and use these steps to achieve that goal.

Provide Success Stories

You want your audience to finish your article, video, tweet or whatever else feeling that you have imparted valuable advice unto them which will help them achieve a goal in the future. Vaguely going over generalities is not likely to inspire the kind of reaction you are looking for; you need to provide real, specific steps that actually tell people something they didn’t already know.

One of the best ways to do this is to tell stories. Stories give people something that they can relate to and try to emulate, and make their goals feel more achievable. If someone else did it, then your audience can too. Bonus points if you can go into detail about how specific obstacles that were overcome.

By explaining the roadmap others have taken to achieve the same things your audience wants to it will leave them feeling more confident because they will have actually learned something new. The more intimate the story, the more compelling the obstacles and the more relatable the main character, the better. Audiences identify with people overcoming big odds, especially when they want to achieve something similar themselves.

Detail Specific Tactics

Most content these days offers a lot of fluff without ever going into real detail. If you take the easy route, you’re going to get lost among the crowd and have trouble getting any engagement at all. Part of posting content that leaves people feeling good is leaving them with a piece of knowledge that they did not previously possess. If people feel like they’re getting a peak behind the curtain, they’re bound to get excited.

Writing a compelling story requires research, maybe even hours of research, but if you can tell people exactly how you can generate an email campaign and monitor its success by leveraging Hubspot’s many in depth analytical tools, you will have given people a specific insight that they may not have had before.

Teaching your audience how to install and take advantage of a Pixel on their Facebook page is something that many businesses don’t explicitly know about, but could gain a lot from. Teach them how to install the Pixel as well as use it and you will be giving many people something that’s legitimately valuable to them, rather than just feel good fodder.

Draw them In With a Good Title

The best content in the world means nothing if no one reads it, and if you don’t write a good headline then your hard work may go completely to waste. Read our article here on how to create a killer title that promises to get clicks.

The headline is the entryway, it is the first point of interaction people will have with your content, and it’s your first chance to begin eliciting those juicy sentiments. A good headline should tell people what you are planning to teach them and/or what kind of results they can expect if they decide to give you that precious click. A great headline will grab people’s attention by poking at their inner desires and promising to help them unlock a higher potential.

Using listicles works, as do timeframes, but most importantly you need to know what your audience wants and deliver key insights on that subject that they were not yet privy to. Content without a great headline will not get read, but a great headline without great content will just leave a bad taste in people’s mouths and lead to them distrusting you.

When you can walk the fine line between legitimate, insightful content and eye catching, click driving headlines, you will have struck gold, and by focusing on eliciting the right feelings, you can fast track yourself to finding the formula that works for you.