No matter how well-produced your webinar or how well-written your white paper, if it’s not on the right topic, it may not attract the audience you’re looking for. When developing new content, while production value, research, marketing, and other considerations are important, choosing the right topic is perhaps the most crucial element for success.
It’s time-consuming to sit through a webinar or read a white paper, and your prospects’ time is valuable. If you want them to give you their time, you’ll need to make it worth their while. You’ll need to make sure the information you’re providing is valuable to them—and it’s information they can’t readily get anywhere else.
So what do your prospects want to know? Even if you think you know your audience well enough to guess, it can be worth it to do some research into this topic periodically. The answers you find may surprise you.
Survey your customers. Tools like SurveyMonkey make it easy to ask your customers questions. Just set up a quick survey asking the people you want to read your white paper or see your webinar—the decision-makers you’re trying to target—what questions they want to see answered.
Check out social media. Twitter makes it easy to sort content and follow conversations using hashtags. You can also check out discussion groups on LinkedIn, industry-relevant forums, and other areas online where your prospects hang out to see what conversations are hot and what information is trending. Look for areas of misconception or confusion where you have the opportunity to step in and provide needed guidance that directly impacts your prospects’ bottom line.
Read the news. Has your industry been changing? Are there new laws or regulations? Is a big case currently in the news that has the potential to make a big impact on your prospects’ business? It’s possible that you could find a lot of ideas for topics by following what’s happening in current events.
Listen to the conversations. Whether online or in person, listen to what your prospects are talking about—what questions about their industry or business keep them up at night. If you can find areas where their biggest concerns and worries dovetail neatly with your company’s expertise and the value you offer clients, you’ll find plenty of ideas for powerful white paper or webinar topics that will attract your target audience.
Your content topics might seem obvious—but even if you have a strong feeling about what your audience wants to know, it’s good to check your intuition every so often by talking to members of your target audience and listening in to the conversations taking place where they gather online. If you do, you’re more likely to be able to develop strong content marketing materials—and attract the audience you’re looking for.
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