Creating Purposeful Content: A Checklist
AS YOU AND YOUR TEAM CRANK OUT AN INCREASING (AND, POTENTIALLY, ALARMING) NUMBER OF CASE STUDIES, ONE PAGERS, INFOGRAPHICS, ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS, VIDEOS, SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS AND MORE, IT’S EASY TO JUDGE YOUR SUCCESS BY THE AMOUNT OF CONTENT YOU’RE ABLE TO PUSH OUT THE DOOR.
But as marketing executive Andrea Fryrear said “our job is not to create content. It is to change the world of the people who consume it.” Whether you’re educating, inspiring or entertaining people with your content, your brand’s biggest measure of success is not quantity, but value.
At Purposeful Communications, it’s no surprise that we have a pretty strict standard when it comes to creating purposeful content. Here are the five elements we run each and every piece of content through:
- Is it deliberate?
You want each piece of content to be aligned to your brand purpose, focused on the topics you want to position your brand as an expert on and, most importantly, a value-add for your audiences.
When you come across not so great content, it’s almost always because there wasn’t a clear driving motivation behind it (like throwing a random LinkedIn post on your feed to say you published something on a Tuesday).
It’s important to note that providing quick commentary on a breaking news story or immediately sharing an article you come across can be very deliberate. We’re not suggesting that each piece of content needs an hour brainstorming session — just that they all need to have a strategic reason for existing.
2. Is it trend dependant?
When your content is 100% trend dependant, it’s hard for your audiences to get a sense of what your brand stands for and where your expertise lies. One minute you’re writing about Brexit, the next you’re writing about CBD oils.
As a brand committed to educating, inspiring and entertaining your audience about specific industry topics, tackling the trends that impact your industry is an important piece of your content strategy. But relying on trends to wholly dictate your content strategy is going to leave you, and your audiences, feeling untethered and confused.
3. Is it accessible?
Thankfully, gone are the days of jargon-laced articles and dense, stuffy white papers. Now, content needs to be written in a way that anyone can easily read and understand, regardless of their industry knowledge. When the ultimate goal is to provide value, you want your content to feel accessible to as many people as possible. The best performing content we see is when brands tackle foundational topics and break them down in easy, everyday language (like SalesForce’s What is CPQ?).
4. Is it useful?
Every piece of content should have a clear takeaway for your audiences. Can someone apply what they’ve learned (or how they’ve been inspired) to their careers, businesses, relationships, bodies and lives?
For example, imagine you wanted to draft an article on the year’s top apps in your industry. When you’re creating purposeful content, you’re reviewing each app with your audience in mind. You’re outlining the features they’d find useful, the bugs they should keep an eye on and the functionality they might not like so much. When you’re creating not very useful content, you’re giving your personal commentary on each app with no mention of your audience. See the difference?
The more useful and audience-focused you can make your content, the more people will rely on it, share it and come to trust your brand.
5. Does it stimulate further conversation?
Your content should feel like an ongoing conversation with your community. You want to encourage people to hit reply with a question or comment, shoot you an email if they want to talk further or share with colleagues who might also be interested in the topic.
And yes, individually replying and monitoring takes a little more time. But the rewards you reap from that back-and-forth dialogue, like getting inside intel and feedback straight from your target audience and building high brand loyalty and trust, make it worth prioritizing.
