1. Storytelling
Everyone loves a story! Don’t just state the facts, bring your audience along with you – create intrigue… you know yourself how well this works from all the terrible news ads you’ve been enticed to click in your time. You know the ones… ‘It looked like just a normal banana... but then one man did something amazing!’ We can’t help it; we want to know what the amazing thing is (even though we know it’s only going to be something about a banana). Use your words to create pictures, don’t be afraid to let your personality - and all its quirks - shine through.
2. Use of ‘secrets’
The epitome of creating intrigue is to promise use ‘secrets…’ or indeed information readily available via Google labelled as such!!
We’re talking lines like ‘The 5 secrets to team building every leader should know’ … ‘Top Chefs swear by this secret ingredient (but they don’t want you to know about it)’ … you might not be a leader or a chef, but suddenly you want to know, don’t you?
3. Appealing to egos
Flattery will get you everywhere my dear! If you address your audience as being a discerning foodie, successful business owner, a valued customer, they will feel automatically more inclined to like and trust you. They are likely to feel more open to your content, knowing you ‘get them’, you get me?
4. Exclusivity
One of the oldest sales tricks in the book but showing that the content or promotion is for a privileged few will trigger FOMO in your audience and more likely to gain traction as a result. This could be as subtle as labels such as ‘hand-picked’ or a bit more overt with ‘limited’, through to the other end of the spectrum with ‘just for you, while stocks last’.
5. Structure
Lastly, pay attention to the structure of what you are writing. Use sections, use bullet points, add pictures. Make it easy to consume, and your reader is much more likely to get to the end (and then take your recommended action.)Speaking of which… if you would like me to help with any of your content marketing, please drop me a line.
