5 Steps to Creating Great Content for the IT Industry

5 Steps to Creating Great Content for the IT Industry

Content marketing has become and will continue to be especially important to the IT industry. Understanding a product is a crucial step to a sale. High-quality content can clearly explain benefits of products and services, especially to non-technical audiences. And it does so in a way that isn t pushy but is still effective. Need proof? A Custom Content Council report indicates that 80 percent of the decision makers within a business greatly prefer to get information about products and services through useful articles instead of direct sales pitches. Clearly, content is an effective way to make meaningful connections with a targeted audience. Content marketing in the IT industry requires more than throwing together articles with a few keywords or phrases. Instead, effective IT content explains news, features, products and services in a way that s compelling and engaging to the reader, even if the topic is traditionally considered high-tech or obscure.

Next, we ve broken down content creation for IT into five simple but essential steps. Step 1: Define the end goal. Don t write a single word before defining what action the reader should take after consuming the content. Do you want to push for a sales conversion, a call to action for lead generation, or to provide customers with more information after they ve already purchased your product? Knowing your end goal before you start to write makes it easier to emphasize that goal naturally throughout the content. Additionally, the format or structure of the content should be shaped by your end goal, making it necessary to have a solid definition before you start. For example, if your end goal is to have reader contact customer support only if her issue hasn t been resolved by the content in the post, leave a call to action to contact your customer support at the end of the post. Concrete calls to action get a better response than vague or indecisive options. Step 2: Identify the target audience. The second step to define when you create content is the specific demographic that s viewing the content. This focus can be as broad or as narrow as you want, but typically the narrower the better. When you speak to an incredibly specific target audience, you re free to use the exact language they speak. You also may better know what their challenges and problems are.

Once you ve determined your target audience, it s helpful to glean information on any pain points this demographic experiences. You can search for honest feedback from consumers on niche forums and special interest groups; for IT, these can largely be found on the XDA Developers Forum, Sitepoint, CodeGuru and MSDN. Once you ve established what difficulties your audience has experienced in tech, you ll want to create content on how your business makes their lives easier. Typically, consumers react strongly to this approach, since you re empathizing with their problems while offering them a solution. The topic should also be as specific and narrow as possible. While basic 101-type articles are useful for drawing in general traffic, the long tail and niche traffic comes from specific queries and questions. Step 3: Provide solutions. Readers almost always have a reason for visiting your landing page. Sometimes they ve encountered difficulties within their IT department and they need a solution now. Other times, they re simply curious about the products and services available on the market. You want to provide as much information as possible while guiding readers down a path that encourages them to choose your business for their required solution. Whenever you provide a solution to a problem, don t forget to include a call to action so readers know how to purchase, contact you or take another necessary action.

You don t want to make readers struggle to understand what value you re providing them. Make it clear what advantages your solution has for their problems, and spell out step by step how to fix it, with your products featured prominently. By the time they get to the end of the content piece, they should be warmed up and ready to purchase or contact you for more information. Step 4: Engage the audience. Social networking has removed the wall between a faceless corporation and their customers. Instead of talking through carefully screened public relations workers, businesses can speak directly to customers. It s not a bad thing to add some personality into the mix. In fact, adding the right kind of personality is beneficial by making your content more shareable. Technology is fascinating, but you need more than that to capture the attention of an IT manager who simply wants to get away from CRT monitors. Use commenting and other social sharing platforms to interact directly with your customers and readers through the content. Google+ and IT Toolbox both have technologically adept users, and thus make good options. Ask their opinions on the types of articles and content they find useful, and consider the approach these and similar audiences want.

Step 5: Track the results. It s not enough to look at website statistics and assume that you know exactly how well your content is doing. You need a specific content marketing analytics tool set up to figure out which content marketing initiatives are working, which pieces of content are falling flat, and which are runaway hits. Some important metrics to track with content marketing include: 1. The bounce rates of specific articles; 2. How long the reader stuck around the website after reading the landing page, and where they went from there; 3. The keywords associated with each page. Google Analytics does a good job at providing basic content tracking, but if you want a better way to calculate ROI, consider analytics tools specific to content marketing. When you have a detailed view of your content s trends, it s much easier to figure out which aspects to duplicate, and which to throw out the door. Demand for custom content is not going away anytime soon, and every industry, especially IT, benefits from compelling content for educational and marketing efforts. Technological advances require clear explanations, detailing new features, and explaining how it benefits the business environment.

emedia North America 333 E Butterfield Rd, Suite 700 Lombard IL 60148 USA TF. 1-800-782-6167 F. 678-680-0718 E. inquiries@emedia.com Content Creation While content marketing is obviously beneficial for small businesses, knowing how to use content once it s created is not always easy. No marketing materials, no matter how interesting or well written, are useful if customers don t see them. For those who aren t sure how to go about creating and distributing content, hiring an outside firm is often the best course of action. If you need help getting your content to potential buyers, emedia is here to help. We re the experts when it comes to generating leads using your white papers, videos, webinars and other forms of content. Lead generation using your content is our specialty. References http://marketingland.com/survey-customers-more-frustrated-by-how-l ong-it-takes-to-resolve-a-customer-service-issue-than-the-resolution-3 8756 http://socialmediatoday.com/rtmixmktg/1846186/8-examples-contentmarketing-traditional-industries http://www.getspokal.com/top-11-most-powerful-content-marketing-ex amples-by-small-businesses/