Content drives business, and at any given moment; buyers are searching for information that will enlighten them, educate them, or help them solve a problem.
Whether it’s a data sheet, white paper, demo script, or web page, marketing content needs to speak to the needs of your prospects and customers while being geared to targeted points in your sales process.
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It can be a delicate balance, but getting the right message to the right person at the right time offers tremendous upside: it establishes credibility and authority, creates brand affinity, and – maybe most importantly – reduces sales resistance. It’s estimated that, on average, we’re bombarded with around 10,000 messages per day.
Now that audiences are faced with more choices than ever before, the balance of power between businesses and consumers has shifted.
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Brands need a more sophisticated approach to stand out from the competition – and relevant, consumable content is the new currency to fulfill this by providing tangible added value and a satisfying customer experience.
So how do you craft great marketing content that will yield results?
The answer is simply getting the right hands to write the kind of content that will resonate with your ideal audience.
Simply put, having a content marketer that possesses strong qualities or characteristic that is common to content marketers will push your brand ten (10) steps ahead of your competitors; thereby putting you ahead in respect to content marketing.
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This post will outline some very important characteristics to look out for before hiring the services of a content marketer.
Creativity
This is as essential as wearing clothes in the real sense of it. Creativity entails crafting out something enticing from bits and pieces of information you have collected.
What really distinguished painters like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Pablo Picasso from others in the same niche?
It’s their level of creativity. Every content writer or marketer has to be creative with the approach they take in regards content.
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Creativity requires that you should incorporate certain essential elements to create engaging content. The content marketer should be able to creatively use the various types of content to engage their customers.
This means, he or she must be equipped with the creative ability to create mouthwatering varieties of content. For example, the content marketer can work in partnership with the graphics person to create visually engaging images for either an ad or blog post.
Also, with the variety of content, the bulk of the creative process of making either an infographic or video comes majorly from the content marketer because he or she has studied the audience or customers.
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Therefore, that person knows exactly how to entice the audience with the right content. Another aspect of creativity comes in writing.
Writing involves expressing your opinions, experience, and telling your brand story to your customers. Therefore, you have to deploy a very creative means of disseminating this information. The whole idea is to make it worth reading, interesting and engaging avoiding any form of boredom.
Sometimes, some people write really flat articles; this will discourage your audience. The level of creativity to put into generating content will determine the number of leads you will attract.
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The ripple effect of a boring content is lack of patronage; it’s therefore best you put all your creativity to work.
Sell ice to an Eskimo with your words
Who sells ice to an Eskimo who already leaves on ice! That’s the work of a content marketer or writer. They are expected to use their words to paint a mental picture of the brand, product or service relevance to your life.
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Therefore, they have to be as convincing as possible, using the right words to massage the audience or customers ego; thereby influencing their purchase decision.
A content marketer should be a skillful writer
Anyone can practically write; as long as you know how to construct a sentence and give a narrative of your experience. But it takes a certain level of skill and proficiency to write an appealing content that can influence the purchasing decision of your leads, prospects or client.
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Whether you’re trying to “acquire” a new customer or you’re dealing with existing clients, a content marketer should exhibit a high level of skillful communication. You are relaying a message to your audience – so people expect to understand what you are saying.
Which means you should be able to:
Express yourself adequately in written English
Know how and when to use past or present tense
Use punctuation marks where and when relevant
Make use of example to buttress your points (I’ll encourage you to use this because it helps your audience understand you better).
Identify and know how to use the figures of speech to make the article, campaign or ad more interesting
There are other necessary skill sets required of a content writer or marketer but the above mentioned are very important for achieve maximum communication.
For most content you see on the internet, someone has put in a lot of effort in explaining, educate and inform you the audience on how certain variables work online.
I think these sets of persons should be acknowledged for their hard work and skill put into crafting something out of the ordinary.
Have a good sense of humor
It’s not only the duty of comedians to crack their audience up but as a content marketer, you can use a bit of light humor in your post. It makes it less boring and too professional. Ok, there are times you strictly go professional and very formal but hey!
You can loosen up and sometimes try to be funny. It makes it very interactive. Moreover, people go through a lot and are just looking forward to reading something that will educate them without being too rigid and boring. Therefore, you should grab the opportunity with a bit of humor.
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You can use funny but intellectual images or videos within your post or you can either be creatively funny with your words. But be conscious as not to overdo the humor because if you do, you’ll sure sound like a joke.
Content marketer should possess excellent storytelling skills
This is like writing a novel but in this case, it is more of a summary and technical. Ok, let me explain what I mean by ‘summary’ and ‘technical’.
You obviously know as a content marketer, you can’t tell the whole brand story with in depth explanation but you will have to summarize every experience with short and explicit words that are straight to the point.
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Also, technical in the sense that you will sure have to use industry jargons and you might in some cases have to explain certain technicalities in the niche.
Therefore, as a content marketer, you should be able to tell an excellent brand story or experience without making it too boring, rigid, and complex.
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Your job as a content writer is to make hard look simple by simply or to make boring seem interesting. This is exactly where the craftsmanship of content marketers is put to test.
Great knowledge of the niche
Please, i really don’t get how someone will write about topics in a field he or she knows nothing about. In my world, it is somewhat like an impossibility; because you really do not have anything tangible to tell your audience. Therefore, it is mandatory that this quality be found in a content marketer.
In most cases, the content writer might not be conversant with that particular niche but it is therefore important that such a person gives in extra time to research and know more about that particular niche.
Image Courtesy: Riches in niche blog by susan friedmann, CSP
This is important for relaying precise message and also, there are certain terminologies or industry jargon’s that a peculiar to certain niches.
As a writer in that niche, you should be able to equip yourself with words like that in other to sound professional and also be recognized as an expert.
Should be a voracious reader
People or the audience is not interested in how long your article is but the quality in what you have written. Yeah! that’s true. If you want to establish yourself as someone who stands for quality content, you should be ready to read every and any thing.
It is important that a content marketer has the passion to read widely because there are new inventions and developments on the internet.
Therefore, a content marketer should gives his or her all to reading and understanding those trends and how it affects a business or content.
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Also, another reason is for the sack of the content quality. Some content marketers hardly research before writing content.
The need for reading widely is to understand and see other peoples opinion in the same niche and you can craft out your opinion without sounding off-point.
Be acquainted with social media tools
As a content marketer, social media should be your room and playground. This is because a lot of internet users hangout on either one, two or more social media platforms.
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Therefore, it is wise for a content marketer to equip his or herself with the necessary knowledge of using social media tools to increase engagements with their ideal audience. You should be able to distribute your content across board to reach those who it is meant for.
Have an ability to work with others
Working with others is very primary as there are different units when it relates to internet marketing. Therefore, a company could employ more than one content marketer and probably others in social media marketing, SEO, or email marketing department.
It is therefore mandatory that a content marketer to keep a healthy relationship with other colleagues in other for the work to flow smoothly. Sometimes, a content marketer might need to work along side the SEO personnel and vise versa.
Shot of a group of colleagues having a brainstorming session at work
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So, how do you work if you always have issues with everyone?
No one would want to work with you. Hence, a content marketer should be approachable, ready to learn and take correction since you can’t be all knowing.
Not afraid to try new things (be innovative)
They say change is the constant thing in life. This is sure true because without change, we won’t be as developed as we are right now. When a person is afraid to try something new, its basically because the person is afraid of the change that follows.
A content marketer should embrace change and all that it entails. It helps them try new things and see the possibilities in it working. For example, you always write blog posts and have never tried using an infographics.
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Change comes when you decide to use an infographic to see how your audience will engage with it. It is paramount that a content marketer be open to change and trying out new things – it makes you different and gives you an edge over other competitors.
Conclusion
Sometimes, organizations get distracted with certain trivial things when hiring content marketers but certain key elements are important when searching for a content marketer.
It is more than just writing but it is about understanding the art of writing on the internet, knowing the audience you are writing for and getting a grip on the platforms available for you use.
Writing has gone way pass putting words together but it is about selling a brand with the right words. A content marketer is majorly expected to entice the appetite of his or her target audience to the point of taking a buying decision – and they do this by playing with words.
Content marketing has gone way pass just using anyone who can write but its about getting the right person who will put words together that will tingle in the ears of the customer.
I have mentioned 10 attributes to look out for but there are more which i’ll love you to share with me.
Daniel Obaike
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