Creating content is one of the most important steps you can take to keeping clients and bring in new ones.
You know an excellent content campaign is crucial for your business, but you might feel like your content is lacking. How do you create stunning content? How can you spice it up and make it truly exciting?
Take a look at a few tips I’ve learned from one of the largest tech companies – Apple.
Ten (Simple) Ways You Can Create Content Like Apple
Apple is an incredible company to gain inspiration from, and I want to take a look at a few things you can do to create excellent content. Let’s see just what you can learn!
1. Focus on the Most Profitable Market, Not the Largest One
When it comes to other tech companies, many try hard to reach as many people as possible with their products. However, Apple doesn’t want to do that and, instead, creates products that reach out to a slice of the tech market, which Copyblogger has noticed.
This can help create a loyal customer and fan base, which has, and will, continue to help Apple be immensely successful. This is a great example of how focusing on the profitable market can help your business succeed. When you focus on what is profitable, and not the largest, you will be able to focus on creating excellent content for your clients, and build a lasting relationship. It can also help you bring in more readers and eventually turn them into clients.
2. Give Readers a Common Problem and Answer it With Content
There are many problems people face, and you can always find a problem that your product offers the solution to.
Apple does this with their content and products by presenting their audience and customers with a common problem the customers all face. (Example: see the ad below. You have a heavy computer, and it’s old. Apple has your new and improved solution. Said with fun wording.)
Apple then answers that problem with an excellent solution that involves the latest Apple product or even pushes an older one to bring in more clients. Take some time to research your audience and learn what their problems are and how your product can be the solution, and begin writing content about it.
Find a problem your clients face that your product can easily be the solution to.
3. Utilize Storytelling to Connect With Your Audience
Apple is a great example of what happens when you utilize the wonderful element of storytelling in your content. Throughout the years, the company has had epic ad campaigns. Some of the campaigns have been fun, and silly, without very much substance – much like a fun story that lights up our day. It’s amazing how the fluffy, fun stuff sticks with us, right?
Their home page features many very simple ads like these, with a great one-three word tagline that is not only fitting, but in some ways humorous as well as descriptive. Here’s an example of one of these ads that flip through on the home page:
Screenshot from Apple.com taken June 2015
However, the company has also created excellent story-based content through video marketing (see their Films content section) that helps to sell their product, like the below example:
Screenshot of Apple.com taken June 2015
Building a story around their content and product helps to create a lasting bond with readers and clients, and it is a great way to make people feel involved.
4. Don’t be Afraid to Use the Tearjerker Element in Your Content
As I mentioned above, Apple uses stories for their content to help bring about a connection with their audience. This leading tech and gadget co. also goes for the tearjerker content (see their holiday ad for 2014), utilizing emotions as a strong way to sell their product.
As John Rugh from Business to Community puts it, emotion is a powerful tool to connect your content marketing with your audience.
You can always put out information about your products and services, but if you don’t find a way to connect with clients, that information isn’t going to be interesting. Follow Apple’s example and go for some powerful content that evokes happy tears.
5. Don’t Forget Your Younger Audience
Younger audiences are sometimes considered unimportant or overlooked by many different businesses in favor of the older, possibly better-off generation, but Apple seems to think otherwise. The mega tech company seems to understand that while older generations will bring in more money, younger generations can as well.
They also understand that these younger potential clients could also help bring in more clients – in their own age group, or people like their parents or grandparents.
While you might not be able to reach out to the young demographic Apple does, this doesn’t mean you should ignore younger people completely. Do some research to see if your company has potential to reach younger people, and start creating content they can relate to.
6. Write Shorter Sentences for Readability
Kissmetrics points out that one of the most seductive things about Apple’s content is they use shorter sentences to break up content. This makes it easier to read, and people can skim through the sales copy quickly and see what they want to see without having to spend a lot of time reading.
These short sentences might seem difficult at first, especially with if you have a writing background, but they are perfectly possible to create. In fact, the Kissmetrics’ blog points out that Apple even uses broken sentences with sales copy. This creates excellent, snappy content pieces that really convert.
7. Share Video Content from Customers
Another excellent thing Apple does with content is sharing videos from their customers. This is a great way to promote engagement with the client base while also showing off their latest product to other customers. Each video and film shared on Apple’s web page is shot with the new iPhone 6, showing just how high-quality the phone really is.
These films are great because they showcase the product and make clients feel like Apple listens to and watches what they do for the company. You can utilize video or photo content from your clients too by having them share content related to your products or services. You can then share this content, giving your audience excellent visual content while creating a bond with them.
8. Put News Out Using Your Blog
While they don’t utilize a traditional blog, Apple does provide the latest, hottest news from their company. You can find out what they are planning on doing regarding protecting the environment, learn about upcoming events, and more when you read their hot news section.
You should always have a blog, and give your clients excellent news content to read. You can help keep them up-to-date on your company, any new products you have coming out, and anything else you think would be interesting to your clients. This is a great way to give new things to your customers through content instead of posting generic blogs constantly.
9. Surround Your Products with Intrigue
We can all see the intrigue that surrounds Apple products. They always make sure they provide just enough information to get people interested but keep the rest hidden, making people want to see and learn more. This is one of the reasons why their product releases are always so popular, and even live-streamed to those who can’t attend. You can create intrigue, too, when it comes to your products or services.
Give your clients information regarding the products, but make sure your content is written in such a way that the reader wants to learn more. Then, the reader will click over to your product and learn as much as they can. You can also do similar releases with your new products by beginning to share small bits of content about it before releasing it.
10. Don’t be Afraid to Try Something Different to Grab Your Reader’s Attention
You might have a tried and true method when it comes to your content, but you want to make sure you don’t stick to it all the time. You can always use parts of the method to create excellent content your clients want to see, but you need to make sure you spruce things up and grab their attention. Apple does this regularly, which is why their ads switch from being fun to emotion-filled and back. They always make sure to capture their audience’s attention through new things, keeping everyone coming back for more.
A few ways you can do this are by trying out different headline styles, writing different types of content pieces, and providing visuals and auditory content. Create videos about your products or host a bi-weekly or a monthly podcast.
Do something new and exciting, and you will have a better chance of grabbing your visitors’ attention and having them come back for more.
Be Fun, Be Kind, and Reach Those Emotions!
Apple is a fun brand that focuses on being kind as well as reaching out to their audiences in a multitude of ways. As you can see, it’s not hard to start creating content just as amazing as Apple’s, which will help you build an incredible fan base that could possibly be more loyal to you than Bieber-fans are to Bieber.
Focus on the fun, kind, and emotional elements: this can also help you keep existing clients, building long-term company-client relationships.
Featured Image: skyme via Shutterstock
