You have a product you want to sell. So, you have lured the customer in and he is flipping through your website. And, you know that he is interested! But what is that quick-kill chord that needs to resonate with him and make him hit the ‘Buy’ button? Aah. It is then that you rack your brain for those magic words. That unique piece of content writing that will talk about your product and more importantly, sell it! For, in the veritable ocean of products that hit Googlers like nothing less than a tsunami, your product needs to stand out. So, how do you get about product description writing that sets your product apart from a gazillion others of the same kind? Well, there’s an army of trade tricks to write that brilliant, selling copy. But remember, not all will work well for all products. There are, however, some general guidelines, that you must keep in mind when you go about scripting the sales-effective copy for your product. Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself while writing a product description. Who is my audience/customer? First and foremost- Always! Pay keen attention to the audience/clientele you are catering to. Think about who they are – age, interests, demography, where they are from, etc. Think about how your product (through your weapon of the description) can appeal to that clientele. Strike a chord with that group, use words/phrases that pique their interests (for example, use sports terms for customers buying fitness goods, perhaps), and give them an idea that you understand them and are on their side. For example, take a look at this one The Kellogg’s Oats Masst Masala product description clearly caters to health-conscious individuals, who are not ready to invest time in the preparation of food. So, the description talks about nutrition, heart-health, and that it cooks in 3 minutes! That is enough to grab the attention of the audience? What are they looking for? Why are they here? Now that you have given them the assurance that you are batting for them, aim your description at the pain points for which the customer is on your site, looking at your product. Talk about their problems such that your audience finds a kindred soul in you, bound by the same trials and tribulations (no matter how tiny or insignificant). Let them know that you have been through it, just like them. And you have looked for a solution, just like them. For example, take a look at this one The potential customer that has surfed through pages and landed on the page selling Vanish Oxi Action Stain Remover Washing Liquid, can be assumed to be tired of removing stains from clothes. The first thing the description does is calm down the frayed nerves of the audience by saying ‘Wash away your worries’, clearly indicating that the Vanish people understand their customer’s problem. It then goes on to describe the product’s plus points, from a problem-solving perspective. So, how can my product help them? The next logical step is to step in like a magician (well, almost) and tell your audience that you have just the product for them, that will work for them and solve the problem they are looking at your product about. Focus on the benefits of your product, try to go in as much detail as possible within limit constraints. Tell them that your product can improve the quality of their lives and give them a good idea about how and why it will happen. For example, take a look at this one The author of the product description of L’Oréal’s Magic Root Coverup doesn’t waste any time before delving straight into the benefits of the hair spray. The copy introduction starts with how conveniently the customer can die her roots and cover the grey bits and then moves swiftly on to a more elaborate focus on the benefits of the product. Why you, and not the others? While you had been doing all of the above, one crucial aspect should have guided your choice of words, tone, flavour, and graphics used. And that is – why should your customer choose you over others in your category? What is so special about your product that your client (who has been enticed by similar products galore), will think to himself ‘Huh! This product speaks to me!’ Keeping that in mind, think of the unique trait that you are offering and how exactly that trait can be useful to your customer. For example, take a look at this one This product description for Dove beauty bar soap might talk about moisturizing, but the focus is clearly on how only Dove understands ‘moisturizing’ and ‘skin-natural’ features more than any other competing beauty bar. In general, it will do you good to remember the following things as well: Set the tone of your description: From fun and playful, to romantic or steamy, from loving and cuddly to staid and formal, the tone of your copy should align itself with the product you are selling and the audience you are targeting. Be conversational: Everybody likes a good story. So, if time and space permit, tell one! Talk to your audience as if you are having a one-on-one conversation. Pack a punch in the introduction to hook your customer. And then carefully unfurl your ideas. Use bullet points: For listing characteristics of your products, nothing can be more useful than bullet points. Lists give a great snapshot of what you are offering, in an uncluttered way. This can prove useful in prodding the audience in the direction of finally making that purchase. Use words that convey emotion: A lot of people buy on impulse, driven primarily by emotion. So, use words that might appeal to your audience’s emotions. Don’t scrimp on your adjectives, but then again, at the same time, be careful that you do not go overboard
Month: February 2019
Do This & Don’t Do That While Executing Your Content Marketing Plan
When you are in the business of content, people always want to know how to increase traffic to their website/business quickly. Is there a right or wrong way of doing content marketing? So here it is – a list of what to do and what not to do when you are doing content marketing. One of the first things I do when I sit down with a prospective client to discuss content marketing is asking him what his goals are. Is it be Do know what you want to achieve From a client, that’s totally understandable, and yet I sit down another 15 minutes to make them understand that knowing what you want is very important since that will determine the content platforms and avenues that have to be used for the desired result. Each of the above goals will need to a slightly different, yet important strategy, which will drive in the results. For eg, for those interested in driving traffic to their website should use more content in their SEO strategy. In short, use more blogs, more social media sharing among relevant groups, invest in more fresh content on content-specific platforms like Quora, voice your opinions in relevant groups etc. The same sort of aggressive content generation might not be required if you are looking to just rank on the first page of Google for keywords relevant to your business. Successful as a brand To be on the first page of search engines Generate Leads Add more traffic to the website Hence, the first thing to DO is to know your Goal. Once you have that clear, ask your content strategist to chalk out a detailed road map for the next 3 months. Think whats actually workable for the business as a whole. Also, try and stick to something that can be adhered to and is wholly sustainable in the long run Don’t do what everyone is doing. Know who is your customer is and where can they be found Content marketing should always be unique and fresh. The same package cannot usually apply to everyone. If you are doing social media, be sure you know why you are doing it. Will it help you reach your client? Yes, there will be a tendency to be everywhere – coz that’s what everyone is doing – but that does not help your purpose since your customers are unique to your business. Explore where you should be and ask yourself what sort of content aligns with your business. Ask yourself 5 times why you have chosen a particular medium. The best way here is to get your team to look online at the various forums, online groups, discussion boards and websites, to know who is looking for your services. A few hours a week will immediately give you a sense of which platforms to target. . Do build a community Building a community around your product is the best and cheapest way to create momentum for your product. Here is how you should do it Look for pockets of active users who are interested in your product/service. Use emailers to touch base with new members, or even using your existing contact list to follow you somewhere else. Get more people to sign up for your newsletters Build content for your community – Once them sign up, you have to keep their interest alive. Create content for them, stuff that provides useful knowledge about your product, industry and how they can benefit from it. Offer ebooks, whitepapers and guides that useful for your community. content can be how-to guides, insightful researches, best practices and trends, anything that your user community sees value in. Make sure your members find value from their involvement with your community. Do arrange industry events Okay, this might not be for all, but it’s a great way of crafting a healthy networking path and engaging your community, ultimately leading to lead generation. Build social into your event and create as much buzz as you can about the event through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Try getting a micro-site up, and linking your social media to it. When done with the event, always create a post talking about all the positive insights into the event, for people to help jog-up with the insights and inner happenings of the event. Do not forget to tag albums with people featured in them. You never know, you might be opening windows to new buyers and leads! Don’t take the pushy salesman approach Educate, inspire, enlighten and entertain your audience, but do stay away from acting like a pesky salesman. One thing that would resonate with your audience would be transparency – and in all modesty, please leave the used car salesman act at home. Think from the buyer’s angle, and be enlightening and inspirational, and provide value wherever you can. Don’t forget to Explore Content marketing, today, goes beyond the realms of blogging and has proved its prowess everywhere – from traditional data sheets, case studies and videos; to infographics, eBooks, SlideShares and podcasts; to tweets and Facebook posts. Be certain that you understand the pulse of every medium and give your audience a well-encapsulated experience, which will resonate leaving a deeper impact and impression. Another good idea would be to get yourself enrolled in websites where you are most likely to get acquainted with professionals of your field. These platforms and discussion-based forums is a great way to build your brand identity, further on networking with the like-minded audience there. However, be sure to make the commenting on the forum approval based. Don’t ever skip the editing of the content that you publish Grammatically wrong, spelling mistakes and the content gap is simply not cool. Make sure you sift through tons of pages evaluating them both quantitatively and qualitatively. On-page SEO, keyword usage and hyperlinking to your main website/blog is a must. However, that being said, go ahead and use slangs and other informal speech conventions — do not treat this
5 Common Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Content marketing is without a doubt one of the most effective marketing strategies out there. It brings your website invaluable organic traffic over a long period of time. In fact, 53% of marketers believe that blogs are one of the best ways to generate inbound traffic. however, there’s a flipside to content marketing. It is a very, very crowded field. Every day, more than four million blog posts are published online. Does this mean you shouldn’t invest in content marketing and stick to advertising and other marketing techniques? The answer is a resounding no. Content marketing, if done correctly, can help build your brand and reputation like no other marketing activity. But this extreme competition means you need to be very smart in your approach to content marketing. The key to this is identifying the most common and costly content marketing mistakes and avoid them from day one. Here are five common content marketing mistakes and how you can fix them Not putting your audience first Surprisingly enough many content marketers make this mistake while starting out. It’s one thing to have a vague understanding of your audience, and another to really solve their problems through your content. Most content marketers use prestigious publications or competitor blogs to find topics to write about. And then find themselves with very little traffic. Another common mistake happens when you have a limited understanding of your audience. Once the content is ready, you have very little idea about how to reach out to prospective readers. It’s important to use the first-principle approach when it comes to understanding your audience. Use tools like the Facebook Ads Manager or EpicBeat to get insights about your audience. These tools have detailed insights about audiences. See what they like, what they’re interested in, what content they read and share. Use this information to define what your next content piece should be and how you should share it. You can even do a group discussion or one-on-one with a few audience members to understand where they’re coming from. Just remember that a whopping 55% of people say that they receive content from brands which they don’t find relevant. Make sure you don’t belong in this group. No follow-up Some content marketers believe their job is done once the article has been written and shared. However, it is a long journey from content consumer to customer and marketers need to enable that. Experts say that it takes 7 exposures to go from being a website visitor to a customer. Setting up a follow-up campaign takes time but it’s the only way to go for a truly effective marketing strategy. Luckily, there are some great marketing automation tools like ActiveCampaign, SharpSpring, and LeadSquared that can do the heavy lifting. Your role is to understand the customer journey and create a follow-up strategy accordingly. Using only one form of content One of the biggest mistakes today’s content marketers can make is to stick to text-only blog posts. Even the usual blog post with 2-3 images is not enough today. As users spend more time-consuming content, especially on hand-held devices, they prefer more visually appealing content. Infographics and videos have both made enormous headway in popularity. They can even bring in a whole new audience that doesn’t usually consume long-form content. Infographics are especially useful because they are low-hanging fruit. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to repurpose a blog post into an attractive infographic. You can use tools like Canva and Piktochart to design your infographic fairly easily. Not having enough evergreen content Evergreen content is content that literally stays “evergreen”. In other words, it’s not based on recent news or trends that will get outdated soon. Evergreen content is centered around topics that have been relevant for some time and will continue to be relevant in the near future. Having evergreen content on your website is a very important aspect of content marketing. Creating content that will still be relevant 5 years down the line means that you will get long-term website traffic. You can search for specific keywords on Google trends to see if they can qualify as evergreen content. If so, you can focus on creating content around them. Not getting enough help One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a content marketer is to try and do everything yourself. There are several kinds of people who find themselves donning the content marketer hat. You may be a blogger who has tremendous writing talent and wants her blog to reach a huge audience. You may also be looking to grow your business through content marketing. Or a professional content marketer setting up or scaling the content marketing efforts at your company. In every case, doing everything yourself is a bad idea. If you have great writing skills, focus your energy on creating valuable content that your audience will love. Outsource the audience outreach to an expert. Similarly, if your skills lie in audience outreach but you’re not a writer, find a talented writer who matches your brand voice. If you don’t have either of these skills work with individuals or agencies that do. When you try to do it all yourself, your mind is easily diverted and the learning curve is steep. You will most likely end up giving up on content marketing without giving it a real chance. Stick to your strengths and hire experts as soon as you can. Conclusion If you do a Google search for your targeted keywords today, don’t be surprised to find over a million results. That is the kind of intense competition that you will have to deal with in content marketing today. Hence, it’s super important to use the right strategy and avoid the common mistakes discussed in this article. Also, it will be wise to keep the long-term horizon in view. So go ahead and start using the tips discussed above to create a valuable
Are You Doing These 5 Mistakes While Choosing Your SEO Keywords?
The keywords are the nuts and bolts of your SEO campaign. The first step is to get these ducks in the right row. Here are a few things you might be doing wrong while choosing your keywords. Keywords are what makes the SEO world go around, so it’s obviously crucial to get those darn things right. With the wrong set of keywords, you would just be trying out various ways to catch Google crawlers and yet not show up where you want to be. So here are five ‘mistakes’ that you should avoid while choosing your keywords, no matter how right they sound. You might not be an SEO expert or want to be one, but make sure you know what is right for your business. CHOOSING SHORT KEYWORDS It seems like a better idea to choose shorter keywords but the truth is that phrases or multi-word keywords are more likely to fetch you an audience. So from an SEO standpoint, more keywords equal more potential. LACK OF CREATIVITY We are often tempted to use general keywords that define our business as it is. Suppose you are a seller of graphic tees in Delhi, the first reaction is to “graphic tees seller Delhi” as keywords. This is where you get burrowed under the competition. Instead of the above, use a term like “Funky graphic tees seller Delhi” or “Cotton graphic tees seller Delhi”. This is likely to bring more visitors. NO IDEA OF TARGET AUDIENCE It is common to design keywords based on our understanding of our product or business, like fitting technical terms or terms that the target segment is unfamiliar with. What you need to do is to get into the mind of your audience and think from their point of view. This doesn’t mean that you give up jargons totally, but balance them with some familiar words too. USING PLURALS Never make the mistake of choosing plurals as keywords. This is because people seldom search for plurals, and since the search engine is very sensitive it may bury your website. IGNORING GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION A very important but frequently overlooked fact is taking the geographical considerations into account when designing key keywords. The locally used lingo in a country varies across the world. Therefore, it is important to carry out appropriate research to incorporate keywords significant to a geographical location. OVERLOOKING TRENDS The world is constantly evolving, there is increased awareness and the media is constantly feeding new trends to the audience. In such a dynamic environment it is essential that keywords follow the trends. Old fashioned words that are no longer in use will not attract people to your site. So keep up with the time and make sure your keywords do too.your keywords do too. UNEVEN KEYWORD DISTRIBUTION In trying to use popular keywords, there is a tendency to forget keywords that are less used but have less competition. Therefore, it is important to strike the right balance between the two to maximize your results. There you go, with extensive research and avoiding the above-listed mistakes, you are sure to find the right keywords that will open the door to your success.