Digital marketing is now all about content. All marketing and sales books point to producing content as the most effective promotion method. It’s because at the end of the day, content means communication. Our audience wants good, valuable information, and providing it in a clear way is what leads to growing our audience, and gaining new customers.

But with so much information available to everyone, how do you make sure your message is not only relevant, but resonates in your audience's hearts and minds?

Discovering your talking points

It all starts with having an overall message. Messaging strategy is tied to branding and positioning. You create a brand around your product or service. Then you work on positioning, or how you differentiate yourself in your market. And how you talk about your unique offering and way of doing things. Three key ways to get there are with your Why, What, and How:

• Why: your story, why are you doing what you’re doing
• What: the problems you are solving
• How: what you do differently than others

Your why shows your audience the passion for your work. Your What lets them know if you are a good fit for what they need. And your How provides a blueprint to match your audience’s blueprint for how they prefer to do things. Your answers serve as guidelines for what all of your content should be about. Everything you write will touch on each of these. Or, a couple of them. Or even better, all three.

“Your why shows your audience the passion for your work. Your What lets them know if you are a good fit for what they need. And your How provides a blueprint to match your audience’s blueprint for how they prefer to do things. ”

Writing your content

Now you have ideas around your product or service that you want to start talking about. Here are three key things to ensure that your copy is well-written:

• Tell a story: write conversationally
• Be engaging: develop a voice and craft writing that moves
• Keep it succinct: half of the work of good writing is editing and revising

Practice writing regularly and you’ll develop a habit for it. Study writing by others and keep learning to improve your own writing. Email is naturally conversational, so write marketing emails the same way. Keep in mind visuals to use along with your writing.

“Email is naturally conversational, so write marketing emails the same way.”

Replicating results

You know what you want to talk about and you know how to do it. The last part is doing it effectively. And these are the three key things needed for strategic writing:

• Be consistent: utilize your brand messaging and your key talking points in every kind of marketing campaign
• Align each written piece on a single goal: Who is it for? How should they feel? What should they do?
• Consider the entire customer journey: provide a clear pathway for customers to follow; think about the cues that prompt action

Every email, blog post, article you write should have your brand values embedded in. It should have an audience in mind and what your goal is for them in reading your content. And from email, to landing page, to sale, there should be a defined path for them to follow if they choose to do so.

“Every email, blog post, article you write should have your brand values embedded in.”

Following the guidelines you create at the beginning feel like limitations. But over time, as you develop your writing muscle and become more ingrained in the goal of your content, you'll find that they make your writing easier and clearer. The more you dive in, the more opportunities you find for what to write about next.

The Blocks Edit visual editor allows you drag and drop to build your marketing campaign from a custom template, and fill in content, as you're writing it.