What is Valuable Content?

We talk a lot here about how readers must find value in your content to read it, return to your website, and become loyal customers. But what makes content valuable? What is valuable content? These are excellent questions that depend somewhat on your market. But there are some common traits of valuable content. Let’s explore them more.

What is Content Marketing?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty about value, let’s ensure we have a mutual understanding of content and content marketing.

Content marketing is creating and sharing content that helps you connect with your target audience. Instead of explicitly promoting your brand, you distribute relevant and helpful content related to your business and industry to stimulate interest. 

Content marketing allows you to boost your business’s online visibility and helps you develop relationships with clients and potential clients. If your content is effective, you’ll become a trusted expert in your field. 

The content used in content marketing comes in various forms. It includes blog posts, services pages, videos, infographics, case studies, podcasts, webinars, and social media posts. 

Regardless of the format, you want your content to provide value to your audience, which will encourage them to come back for more, establish you as an expert in their minds, and entice them to become loyal customers of your brand. 

What is Valuable Content?

Valuable content is whatever your reader says it is. It’s content that serves them and meets their needs, whatever those may be. Value can be a moving target because it’s not the same for everyone, but that’s why you don’t create content for just anyone. Your focus should be on making your content valuable to your target audience. Anyone else who finds it worthwhile is just icing on the cake.

Traits of valuable content:

• Useful. Can your target audience use the information in their lives? Can it help them make a decision or solve a problem?
• Entertaining. Even useful content won’t get attention if it’s boring. Think about how you can entertain your audience while helping them.
• Timely. Nothing’s older than yesterday’s news. Your content needs to be up-to-date and serve your audience in their current situation. Readers will view outdated information as what it is.
• Focused. Your audience wants content that’s focused on them. It should speak to them and their needs.
• Credible. You can’t help people with content if they don’t trust you to get it right. Your content must come from a place of knowledge and expertise.
• Clear. Have you ever tried to assemble something just to realize that you need instructions for the instructions? It seems like steps are missing, or you can’t understand the words they’re using. Your content must be clear and relatable to serve your audience. They have to be able to understand it to use it.

Creating Valuable Content

Now that you understand why you need content and what gives content value, let’s focus on creating valuable content. Here’s what you need to know and understand to make that happen.

Understand Your Audience

You can’t create content your audience values if you don’t clearly understand who they are and what they need. Perform audience research. Understand who they are, where they come from, how they make purchasing decisions, what questions or concerns keep them up at night, and what they search for when they’re online looking for solutions. You can never know too much about your audience. Also, know intimately why and how your brand solves their problems. Be able to make this connection in their minds readily.

Know Your Industry

People are looking to you for information they don’t have. You must have a clear understanding of your industry and business. You need to know your stuff better than anyone else, including your competitors. And you have to be able to communicate the link between your target audience’s needs and your product or services.

Don’t forget to confirm your authority in your audience’s mind. Do you remember how frustrating it was when your parents said, “Because I said so”? Never make your audience take your word for it. Back up the information you provide with data, examples, and quotes.

Communicate Simply

Regardless of how you choose to deliver content, you must ensure your audience can understand it. That means writing and speaking clearly. It also means you must communicate in simplified terms and anticipate what questions the audience has before they can even ask them. The more easily understood and useful your content is, the more valuable it is to your audience.

Relationship Management: The Next Step in Value

Once you use content to establish a relationship with your audience, it’s time to take the next step — relationship management. 

Managing relationships is really about availability. It means you engage further and deeper with your audience than you have in the past. They view you as an expert in solving their problems and want to take that relationship to the next level. They want to get your input about their unique, specific needs. In return, they are loyal to your brand and will sing its praises to others.

Once you’re consistently distributing valuable content, think about how you can better engage with your audience. Social media is one place to have conversations. Be sure to actively share content on the channels your audience already is gathered on. 

Having a chatbot on your website is another way for your audience to get immediate, direct answers to their individual questions. Email is another method of accomplishing this type of contact, but it tends to be slower. It’s probably best to make both available. 

Accessibility is key to remember. How many steps does it take for your loyal audience members to reach you and how responsive are you to those inquiries? The answer to that question should be a single step and total responsiveness. That’s how you build trust and affirm value.

Let Content Journey Help

Researching to truly understand your audience, their needs, and what specifically they search for online can be challenging. Once that’s done, you add in the difficulty of creating content that links those things to your brand in a helpful, valuable way. Let Content Journey help make those connections for your audience. We’re content marketing experts, so you don’t have to be. Book a call today to learn how Content Journey can help you use valuable content to serve your audience and grow your business.