Mixing the Right Ingredients for Powerful, Clickable Content
Throughout the pandemic, consumers have been shopping online like never before — a record number of new Amazon Prime members is proof enough of that. Amazon Prime saw a 50% increase in subscribers from 2018–2020, and another 50 million added in 2021. Ecommerce sales jumped 32% in 2020 compared to 2019. The pandemic also accelerated the all-in transition to digital marketing for many businesses, which exacerbated the problem of standing out in a sea of competition.
In the age of social media and incessant scrolling, marketers can easily lose prospective customers’ attention. How can one create Instagram or Twitter-worthy content that not only draws eyeballs but also compels shoppers to make a purchase? By laying the proper groundwork, striking the right emotional chord, and getting creative, business can create powerful, clickable content.
Laying the Groundwork for Powerful Content
Perhaps the most overlooked step in creating powerful content is proper research to get facts and figures correct to ensure credibility and to weave a story around them in a relevant way.
While building that story, consider your audience. Identify where they come from and what their pain points are so that you can deliver relevant messaging and lay the groundwork to create empathetic content — a crucial aspect to help you stand out.
Then there is SEO. If you don’t appear at the top or on the first page of search engine results, most people will deem your content irrelevant and won’t bother to scroll past the first couple of links above the fold. Optimizing your results involves knowing the right set of keywords that resonate with your audience and bidding for them as you weave them into your copy. If you can’t drive traffic to your website, people won’t buy your products no matter how great your content is.
Emotionalizing Your Content
When optimizing your content, you need to be smart about how you make your brand stand out. It can be easy to make an expensive sports car brand stand out, but what about everyday clothing, books, or something that may be a sensitive topic for some, like laxatives?
It all starts by recognizing that emotions, not mere facts, drive much online traffic. Marketers need to create content that resonates and has a clear impact on customers’ emotions. Thus, it’s essential to understand your audience. It’s not enough to try to be empathetic. You need the right type of empathetic content. Once the marketer digs a little deeper into understanding prospective customers, they can consider the correct choice of words, phrases, and stories that will increase the empathy quotient.
The field of neuro-marketing provides a framework that goes by the acronym “PPP-MART,” which details seven basic triggers that create an emotional response:
P for Passion: Apple wouldn’t be what it is today without Steve Jobs’ passion. Even though you could buy a quality phone for cheaper, we keep going back to the iPhone because Steve Jobs created a movement around his products.
P for Prestige: We all want validation and recognition. Someone may say they want to buy a Rolex watch for its craftsmanship, but it’s really about prestige. Even if a product is not expensive, if you can make your audience feel like they have access to the best without necessarily having to pay for it, that carries the same effect.
P for Power: We all want to be put on a pedestal and feel important. If your product can make your audience feel powerful, they will come. When Apple released the first iPod, it was marketed as enabling consumers to carry 1,000 songs in their pocket. It gave them power to have the Beatles or Queen or any other artist on demand anywhere.
M for Mystique: At one point, KFC made a big fuss about their 11 secret herbs and spices. But do we all not know what the secret herbs and spices are? That’s the power of positioning statements. In this instance, a positioning statement created an aura of mystique around a product. Many who start using a product this way end up customers for life.
Alarm: This is sensational stuff that follows the “if you don’t do this, you’re going to die” mentality. Although it sounds crude, insurance companies do it all the time.
Rebellion: Closely related to alarm, this emotion conveys that rules are meant to be broken. People think they can’t do it themselves but are drawn to other people doing it. It works in the same way with products. Ban a book and watch what happens.
Trust: Companies like Ford or others that have been here for 100+ years cash in on trust because people know they’ll always be there.
Creativity
Get creative with your content. Instead of saying they offered a stool softener, a laxative company repositioned themselves as a weight-loss platform. The message was simple but effective. “If you want to lose weight and get a flat tummy, you need to empty your bowels. Use our product.” They soon ended up on every possible platform available.
It was a creative way to become one of America’s largest-selling laxatives, but not too many realized it was a laxative. But beware of the temptation to write clickbait. If someone said that their laxative can help prevent cancer or heart disease, a line is crossed. Even though these words trigger the fear emotion, it is not an ethical way to approach emotion-based selling.
Conclusion
Incorporating these elements, brands can better connect with consumers, which requires an understanding of media platforms, your audience, and the words, phrases, and stories that will conjure up the emotions needed to capture attention, interest, and market share.
Many marketers fail to understand that being authentic to your product’s cause will help establish an actual relationship with consumers. On the other hand, the brands that look to develop a movement around their products stand to increase their customer base over the long term.
Sharmin Ali is the founder and CEO of Instoried.
