Simply creating content is not guaranteed to grab and keep the attention of your readers. Instead, the writer has to create an intangible connection with the audience so they get hooked. One of the best ways to do it is through content personalisation and interactivity.
This trend is not only noticeable for blogs but is also gaining traction on search engines and social media. Simply put, you can improve your brand’s market position by just listening to your users and tailoring content to them specifically.
But there is another reason why personalisation and interactivity are so important: people are impatient.
We’re living in a marketing world where we’re constantly spammed by different messages. If we are not involved with a message, we will simply go to another channel or blog. This is why everything has to be tailor-made for your audience.
Content Personalisation
Personalisation is a way of creating content that will help people identify with it. The content should be tailor-made for a particular group of people, by using a particular set of expressions and slang, touching on important topics and providing assistance where it’s needed. In a way, content personalisation is used to narrow the focus of your content.
Here are some of the main benefits of personalisation:
- It increases the relevance of content for a particular audience
- It gives tailor-made information that can help you solve a real problem
- Such content allows you to gain the trust of a broader audience
- It improves your overall marketing efforts and increases efficiency
- Can help you reach the audience that wasn’t familiar with your brand
Unfortunately, there are also some issues with personalisation:
- In order to create such content, you need much more time
- It sometimes needs high-technology and web tools
- You have to analyse your audience before you start making personalised content
So, how do you exactly create content that is personalised?
In order to do it, you have to go through three different phases:
1. Acquiring Data
Basically, it all starts by using a code to the back-end of your website that allows you to read all this information. Here, you have to find out where the person entered your website, which pages were visited when a person left and for how long the session lasted. This data allows you to analyse pages and determine which ones are the winner and which ones are losers. A great example is Google Analytics.
2. Learning from the Data
Next, you need a thorough analysis. Just knowing that a certain page is under-performing isn’t enough. Instead, you need to understand why has that happened and what is wrong with such a page. And vice versa. Tracking this data can tell you a lot about your customers and more importantly, you can find out what they like and dislike.
3. Creating Content
Now, you need to create content that will meet those needs. Depending on the situation, you might be forced to do some A/B testing in order to realise what would work. No matter what, it is better to be proactive and take action as soon as possible.
Interactive Content
As the name implies, interactive content is… well, interactive. It presumes that the audience will have a direct point of contact with content and that they need to be involved to extend with it. Whether it’s simple clicking or doing polls and quizzes, there are various ways to get people to care.
Interactivity is especially important nowadays as there is so much content out there and people want to feel like a part of something. Furthermore, interactive content is much better at drawing attention and retaining it. It is very similar to content personalisation in terms of its impact.
Here are some of the reasons why you should do create interactive content:
- Increases brand loyalty
- Improves user engagement
- Significantly increases sales by driving people to certain pages and affecting their decisions
- Helps other marketing efforts
On the flip side, there are also some disadvantages:
- Some people are not comfortable with participating
- No matter how good is our data, certain content may not fit all users
- It might be costly to produce
Creating interactive content is even harder than personalising content. In most cases, you will need some additional skills besides writing to pull it off. Or, you can hire an agency that will help you with it.
The type of interactive content that you should make also depends on your industry and demographics. Certain solutions will not fit your audience so like with content personalisation, you will have to know who your audience is.
Last Thoughts
The worst thing you can do nowadays is create content and hope someone lands on your pages.
Even if you’re great at marketing and are able to get a lot of views, that doesn’t mean that this will lead to sales and interaction with the site. For that, you need something extra such as personalisation and interactivity.
Did you learn something about your marketing strategy and content from this article? Check out these other articles from Marketing.com.au here:
- The Definitive Content Marketing Checklist to Drive Leads
- How Automation Is Changing in 2018 and What Marketers Can Learn from It
- Why the Future of Content Will Be User Created & Controlled
- Creating Better Brand Consistency with the Help of Your Website Design
Ellan Dineen