Capture your target audience’s attention with these creative content tips. Boost your content marketing efforts to stand out in your industry.

Making content that truly captures the attention of your audience is essential to successful content marketing efforts. Creative content in its many forms is the best way to achieve this.

Creative content not only captures the attention of new potential customers it also keeps your existing audience coming back for more.

Therefore, all content marketing strategies should have creative content that appeals to customers and clients at its foundation. This includes content that is relevant, authentic, visually captivating, and personal. Combining these elements together makes for content that is highly ingestible and sharable leading to increased engagement, higher conversions, and increased search rankings.

In this article, you’ll how to use creative content in order to capture and hold the interest of your target audience.

Make Creative Content Relatable

The first step towards creating engaging creative content is to ensure what you’re writing about resonates with your readers.

Look at yourself from their perspective. What would make them want to read or watch something? How do they feel when reading or watching certain things? These questions will help you create relatable content.

When people share information on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—they tend to post links to articles, videos, images, or infographics. If these posts have no value then there is little chance of seeing any engagement. The reason most people don’t engage with social posts is that they find nothing interesting or relevant in them.

Therefore, when writing an article, think about who might be interested in reading it. Who could benefit from knowing what you want to share? Think about topics related to your niche and see whether those ideas resonate with your reader’s interests.

You may even consider asking some of your current clients or followers what kind of content they enjoy seeing.

Content can be made relatable in a number of ways. Here we’ve listed some of the most effective ways:

1. Know your audience

It’s important to know who you’re targeting before you start writing. Who are you trying to reach? Are you aiming to attract new customers or existing ones? Do you want to target specific demographics? Knowing this information will help you write content that is relevant to your audience.

From there you can begin to make creative content that appeals to this audience. For instance, say that you are a wellness brand that sells vitamins and supplements. Based on what you learn about your target audience, you discover that your customers love your no-nonsense minimalist approach. If you are looking to target your current customers then you would want to create content that bolsters and reinforces this image. If you are looking for new customers, then you might want to create content that introduces your brand image and message in an approachable way.

The next step is to determine which social media platform you want to focus on first. Based on your target audience is where you will want to focus your efforts. Again, take the example of the wellness brand above. Say, you are looking to attract more female customers in the 25 to 35 age range. This makes Instagram likely your best option. If instead, you are looking to attract male customers in the 40 to 55 range, Facebook might be more suited to your needs.

Knowing who your target audience is essential as it will govern how you move forward with creating creative content. Creating content without this knowledge can lead to wasted time and resources as well as weakened connections with your audience.

2. Be authentic

Authenticity is often underrated. Readers can sense when content is created to simply sell them something. This usually results in the reader clicking away from the article as fast as possible. Here are two ways to help convey authenticity:

Write about topics that are important to you

Perhaps affordability and accessibility are important to you and your brand. Write about them! When you write about topics that are important to you it demonstrates an authentic passion that will resonate with readers. They will know you are sincere and will be more likely to read and interact with the content you produce.

Of course, what is important to you can be anything. It might be tech, sustainability, innovation -you name it. Just so long as you care about it and it aligns with your brand or business offerings, it is likely a good topic to invest content creation in.

Note: It is usually a good idea to steer clear of some controversial topics, especially if they have nothing to do with your company. These sorts of topics can quickly alienate your current and future customer base. Although, you may feel like it is imperative for you to share your opinions on certain topics. Ultimately, it is your choice what you write about.

Make it personal

Similar to writing about topics that are important to you, sharing personal anecdotes help increase your authenticity. Now you do not need to share things that are too personal if they are not relevant to your brand or content topic. For instance, discussing your favorite breakfast foods might not make much sense if you are a home renovation company but it would be better suited for a health and wellness brand.

Making it personal can include insider industry information. This might include articles like “What 20 Years Working in the X Industry Taught Me,” or “5 Things I Wish I Knew Before My Mid-Life Crisis.”

This style of personal blog post both captures and holds the attention of interested readers.

3. Be a storyteller

This suggestion has to do with the style with which you make your creative content. Walking readers through written content in a storytelling manner encourages the reader to stay longer and really pay attention to what you have to say.

You can craft stories that appeal to your target audience. For example, let’s say you are a fitness brand selling workout gear. You find out from doing some research that people who buy your products tend to be women between 30 and 50 years old. So, based on these findings, you decide to tell a story about one woman who overcame her fear of exercise by using your product. The result? She became healthier and increased her confidence. Real testimonials and case studies are best for this approach and they contribute to authenticity.

You could also use this technique to talk about other aspects of life such as relationships, parenting, career advancement, etc. In each case, the goal is to provide value to your audience while telling a compelling story.

4. Create visual content

Visual content is often overlooked because many marketers believe their audiences prefer text over images. Authentic visuals can capture the attention of your target audience and encourage interaction. Visuals should always complement your written content rather than replace it.

If you want to create great visuals, here are some tips:

When possible use original photos instead of stock photography

Stock photographs can often look generic and impersonal.

Instead, take high-quality pictures of yourself doing activities related to your business. These photos demonstrate how you personally feel about your work and show off your personality. Of course, this isn’t always possible so when using stock photos take care to choose the options that are best suited for the type of content.

Choose to use and take action shots

Action shots are especially effective at capturing interest. Take pictures of employees working hard, customers interacting with your product, or even pets playing around. People love seeing themselves reflected back at them so don’t forget to add captions describing why the photo was taken.

5. Use infographics

Infographic design is an excellent way to visually communicate information quickly and effectively. Infographics are easy to read and digest making them ideal for sharing online. They also allow you to include lots of data points without overwhelming viewers.

The most common type of infographic is the bar chart. It’s a great tool for comparing two things side by side. For example, if you want to compare the number of calories in different types of food, a bar chart will show you which foods contain the most calories.

Plus, infographics are highly shareable content, making it easy for your content to reach more people.

6. Solve your target audience’s problems

Content that seeks to help the readers solve their problems increases the relevance of the content. Not only are readers more likely to engage with material that answers their questions they’re also more likely to share content with their friends.

Customers want to know how your products or services can help them. Be direct when explaining solutions.

Articles that are guides, how-tos, and insider tips are very popular as they are solution-oriented. So, writing articles like these increases engagement and relevance

Plus, solving problems makes your content more authentic. It shows that you understand your audience and know exactly where they need assistance. This helps build trust among potential clients.

Remember AIDA

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. This is the basic formula for any successful content marketing campaign.

The first step is to capture attention, which means you need to create great content that is interesting and useful to your target audience. Once they’ve been captured, you need to keep them interested, which means you need compelling content that keeps them engaged. Finally, you need to convert them into buyers, which means you need a call to action at the end of each piece of content.

Let’s dive deeper into each dimension of AIDA.

A- Attention

Content that uses the AIDA model should first capture the reader’s attention. This can be done by including words or images that are attention-grabbing.

What is attention-grabbing will depend on your target audience. So, take into account whose attention it is you are looking to capture and think about what they will gravitate towards.

Headlines are an excellent place to focus your attention-getting efforts. The headline is the first thing that catches the reader’s eye when they read an article. A good headline should be short, catchy, and interesting. If you want to create a great headline, try using a question. This way, the headline will sound like a question, which makes it easier for readers to remember.

Note: Attention and attention-grabbing does not equal clickbait! Content should deliver on what the headline promises. Do not create headlines or content that is sensational for the sake of getting some quick attention. This will only work to your detriment as readers will equate you with being untrustworthy.

I- Interest

Once you have a reader’s attention you will now need to hold it by maintaining their interest. Like attention, building interest will depend on who your audience is and what their needs are.

One way to do this is to increase engagement.

If you want to increase engagement, then make sure your content provides value to your readers. You could use data visualization tools such as infographics to provide information in a visually appealing format. Or, you could include videos that explain how something works.

Another way to develop and maintain interest to through the use of bullet points numbered lists and subheadings. This helps break up larger sections of text making it easier for readers to stay interested in the content.

D- Desire

Desire comes from showing your audience how your product or service can be useful to them. How solutions will benefit your audience should be made clear.

You may also wish to consider adding testimonials to your content. These help build trust between yourself and your potential customers. They show that other people believe in your products and services enough to share their experiences.

Finally, if you offer a free trial period, then you might consider offering incentives to encourage users to signup. For example, you could give away one month of access to your premium features.

A- Action

At the end of every piece of content, there must be a Call-To-Action (CTA). It is important that your CTAs are consistent throughout all pieces of content so visitors know where to go next after reading your content.

An obvious call to action would be: Buy Now. However, this type of call to action does not always work well because it assumes that everyone wants to buy immediately. Instead, you may find better results by asking questions instead. Questions allow you to gather more information before deciding whether or not someone actually wants to purchase anything.

For instance, you could ask: Do you currently own any X? Then, depending on the answer, you could either suggest buying X right now or recommend checking out another option.

In addition, you should always add a link to your website in this section of your content. This allows readers to easily navigate back to your site.

Also, CTAs should mesh well with your brand image and tone. For example, you may prefer CTAs that are lower profile and less sales-y or you may like a traditional sale pitch approach. In either case, make sure that the CTA you chose works for your business.

Repurpose Your Video Content Into a Blog

Another way to make creative content is to capitalize on video content. Creating written blog post content out of your existing video material or vice versa is both engaging and time-saving.

This method requires some planning ahead but it has many benefits. First, creating new content using old footage saves money since you don’t have to create entirely new materials. Second, having an already created set of images makes editing much faster than starting over again. Finally, when done correctly, this technique creates a seamless transition between two different types of media.

To start off, choose which part of your video content you’d like to convert into blog posts. If you’re converting only certain parts of your video, then you’ll need to decide what those parts are.

The most common choices are:

• Introduction – A short introduction about who you are and why viewers/readers should care about your company
• Product Overviews – An overview of each feature/benefit of your product
• Demo Videos/ Product Videos – Demonstrations of key features
• Webinars- Pre-recorded information sessions

Any of these types of content can be made into written posts or video content. Once you have transformed the content you can then link to the new article or video from the older one.

Final Thoughts

We live in a world saturated with media. To stand out, businesses must invest in making creative content that can hold the attention span of their target audience.

To accomplish this, you must know your audience and your goals. From there you will need to create and implement a content marketing strategy that includes engaging and relatable content. Authenticity, personality, storytelling, visual elements should form the backbone of this content.

Whenever possible, you should rely on the AIDA formula of Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action to help you create content that will capture and hold the audience’s attention.

Finally, take advantage of your existing archive of video and written content to transform each medium into the other. Making existing videos into written posts and vice versa allows you to “double-dip” and get the most from your topics and keywords.

Partner with WriteForMe for Your Creative Content Needs

If you are looking to capture your target audience’s attention and need help doing so, contact the experts at WriteForMe.

Our content marketing experts, researchers, writers, and editors can help you develop a successful content strategy and create custom content.

Learn how with a free content marketing playbook!