Two questions you can ask yourself to create effective content

Use these two questions to guide your content-making process

Be sure that you're making the right content for your company. In public relations, content of all kinds is important. Whether it’s videos, written content, or any other kind of information people can consume, content is one of the biggest drivers for public relations. Content helps you stand out from your rivals.

However, you need to be making the right kinds of content to further your public relations goals. Simply making anything isn’t enough. Use the two questions below to see if your content is actually helping your public relations plans.

1. Is our content helpful to the audience?

When you’re making content, you need to make sure it’s helping them with something, such as solving a problem. People will find your content when seeking help for problems. If it isn’t helping, then they’re going to go elsewhere, meaning you just lost a potential customer. Having helpful content will have your company stay in a person’s mind for when they’re making a decision to purchase something later.

An example of helpful content is a blog post describing the types of solar generators out there so you can attract potential customers looking for a solar generator. Unhelpful content is a blog post detailing the evolution of the outer design of a specific generator. That’s not going to be interesting for people who want to learn the basics of solar generators so they can continue down the purchase decision-making process.

2. Does your content help your audience get better?

Content that lets your audience get better at something works well. This can be anything: looking good in front of their bosses, improving their family, giving them more free time, improving their career, or anything else that would make their lives better. By helping them get better, your company sticks out in their minds, and they’ll remember you later when they want to make a serious commitment or purchase.

Try to divide helpfulness based on who your intended customers are. If you’re a B2B company, focus on content that helps your intended audience at their jobs. B2C companies should focus on content that specifically focuses on helping the individual, such as improving their lives in any way, giving them more free-time, or helping them fulfill something.

Content creation is vital to your public relations efforts. What’s even more important is content that is beneficial to your audience. It’s a good idea to think of your content as helping them get better, even if you’ve been making content for a while. If not, then change your content so you can answer “yes” to anyone that asks those two questions.

Clients love Jacob’s speed. Jacob is an inbound marketing-certified webmaster. He earned an integrated communications degree from Florida State College at Jacksonville. Jacob joined Axia PR as an intern in August 2015 and earned his way into a critical role at our PR agency.