If the buzzphrase “viral content” has taught us anything over the past few years, it’s that really good content will be shared far and wide. And while there’s no exact science to what will go viral and what won’t, paying attention to your customers is a pretty good strategy to start with.
Get to Know Your Customers Before Writing
If you didn’t realize it, your existing customers are your goldmine in terms of telling you exactly the kinds of content you need to write. If you’re using a customer relationship management system (CRM) effectively, you have rich data on their purchases, their behavior on your website, and even what they’re doing on social media.
A quick peek at what you’ve got in your CRM can guide you to what to write. Just pay attention to:
- Recent articles they’ve shared on social media
- Types of products they have purchased
- The eBooks or offers they’ve subscribed to via your email system
Look at Past Content
Why reinvent the wheel when your website analytics will tell you the most popular posts you’ve published? Take your top five most popular posts and come up with new content ideas around them. If your “Top 5 Ideas to Grow Your Brand” post rocked it last month, consider adding a “5 MORE Ideas to Grow Your Brand” post this month. You can also write a roundup and link to the most popular posts on a highly-trafficked topic on your blog.
Go Beyond the Blog
Still looking at your most popular posts, you can expand your content offering to something a little more substantial than a blog post. For example, if your public relations blog’s most popular post was on writing press release headlines, you could create a free or low-cost Headline Writing Guide that provides more in-depth tips to your customers.
Then you can use your existing blog posts to push your new product. Use a tool like ScrollBox to create signup boxes only on the relevant content. Once readers are in your email funnel, you can deliver more content and offers around the same topic.
Follow the Leaders on Social Media
Once you know what your customers are doing on social media, pay attention to other people they share and tweet. Those are the thought leaders in your space you want to emulate. You don’t have to be a copycat to get content ideas from them. Don’t be shy about linking to a post on a highly successful blog that inspired you. They might even share your post and help you reach even more people.
If your own contacts are the ones creating and sharing that content, all the better. Directly complimenting them on it is a great way to foster communication on social media that can translate to a long-lasting customer relationship.
The more you pay attention to your customers, the better you can target your content so it hits them between the eyes (in a good way). The better you can anticipate what they want to know more about, the more likely they are to share it far and wide.
Original article: Inside Your CRM: Top Secret Ways to Create Viral Content
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