Content creation is crucial part of any author’s content marketing plan. It helps strengthen your author brand by building an author platform, engaging with your readers, and showcasing your writing skills. Effective content should be more than just words on a page – it should be entertaining, educational, engaging, inspiring, and persuasive.
Let’s dive deeper into what you need to know to incorporate something extra into your content creation processes.
Let’s quickly define content creation!
What is Content Creation?
Every content idea you see online, whether it be on social media or on your website, has be created. Each content idea has to have a purpose, even if you don’t plan it. So what then is content creation?
Content creation is the process of identifying a topic or subject that your ideal reader would be interested in, deciding which format they’d like it to be in, creating that content using strategies to create it and optimize it, and then actually publishing that content.
In the process of creating your content, you’ll define its purpose (educate, entertain, engage, inspire, persuade) and where to use it in your marketing.
Take a look at this graphic to show the content you can create can be used in your content marketing!
Why You Need All Five Types of Content
Content is the driving force behind content marketing, as without content there is no content marketing. It’s essential to have a content marketing strategy that includes all five content categories: educational, inspiring, engaging, entertaining, and persuading.
- Educating your viewers with content provides them with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions.
- Inspiring content can be used to start conversations and build relationships between you, the author and your readers.
- Entertaining content creates an amusing experience for readers that hopefully leads to further engagement with your brand or books.
- Persuading or convincing content is those pieces of content that persuade your readers to take action and either sign up to your email list and/or purchase one of your books.
- And finally, you need engaging content. Questions, comments, conversations and building your community are all examples of awesome content that encourages engagement.
All five categories of content create an attractive package when combined, each one working hand in hand to reach different parts of your audience and provide them with value on multiple levels.
How to Use Categories in Your Content Marketing Plan
Content categories are a great way to structure and focus your content marketing strategy. Educating content can provide helpful information to customers, inspiring content encourages them to think in creative ways, entertaining content allows them to engage with your brand, and persuasive content further encourages sales.
By categorizing content under each of these umbrellas, you can build an effective content marketing strategy that develops relationships with customers, increases website visits, and ultimately boosts your conversion rate. Content is key when it comes to digital marketing so take advantage of content categories as an organized way to create content!
Let’s look at these categories a little closer:
Educational Content
Educational content can be a powerful tool when you’re looking to explain certain features or benefits of your book and story. This type of content helps your readers understand complex topics or issues in an engaging way and allows readers to feel more informed about your book and story which increases the likelihood of a sale.
Think about it this way: if someone understands what they’re buying and how it benefits them, they’re much more likely to make a purchase than if they don’t understand why they should buy it in the first place.
For example, as a romance author, you could write blog posts on the history of love stories throughout literature or how writing techniques have changed over time.
Plus, it makes learning fun and exciting rather than feeling stressed out! With educational content on your side, no feature or benefit should be left undiscovered.
Inspiring Content
Inspiring content is an excellent way to start conversations and create connections between different channels. It can boost user engagement and draw attention from your target readers. With the power of interesting and creative content, you can cut through the noise online and really make an impact. Not only that, but it’ll also keep your followers truly engaged in your content, so they’ll stay updated with everything you’ve created.
Inspiring content encourages readers to think outside the box and tap into their creative sides. It often leaves readers feeling inspired and motivated after reading it—which makes them more likely to take action on whatever message you are sending through your content.
By providing helpful tips for aspiring authors or ideas for spicing up romantic scenes in books, you can make sure readers keep coming back for more inspiring material from your website!
Check out how you can use your Behind-the-Scenes Content to Inspire your readers.
Entertaining Content
Entertaining content engages readers by making them laugh or sparking conversations through social media outreach. It allows readers to connect with your brand on a personal level while also helping build relationships with other people who share similar interests as yours.
For example, as a romance author, you could feature fun quizzes or polls related to romance novels on Instagram or Twitter that allow readers to interact with each other while also connecting with your brand!
Added bonuses could be multimedia, visuals, lively colors and humor that encourages readers to come back for more. You want your listeners or readers to feel enticed by your content, endeavoring to bookmark it or share their newfound knowledge with others.
Ultimately this will make the subject matter more approachable and enjoyable while still bolstering credibility with reliable facts!
Click here to learn how to use your Rich Character Extras to entertain your readers.
Persuading Content
And finally, persuasive content further encourages sales by directly asking readers to take action after reading the post. This is where calls-to-action (CTA) come into play; persuasive content should always include some type of prompt such as “buy now” or “sign up today” which encourages people to take action right away instead of waiting until later (or never!).
It should speak directly to an individual’s reasons for wanting a book and why it specifically benefits them. Refrain from making vague assertions and focus on adding specific persuasive reasons that leave no doubt in their mind about their decision.
Encourage them to convert into a customer and become an advocate for your brand through positive assurances that you can offer satisfaction. Get creative and innovative with packaging your content – presenting facts in interesting ways is sure to help with increasing attention and eventual conversions!
For instance, as a romance author, you could feature reviews from satisfied readers on your website and then include a call-to-action encouraging others to purchase the book so that they too can read it and form their own opinion!
Learn to persuade your readers with Bonus Content that’ll absolutely convince readers to sign up to your email list!
Engaging Content
Engaging content is the lifeblood of any successful website. It can attract visitors, spark conversations, and turn casual readers into committed followers. Unlike standard blog posts or one-dimensional webpages, engaging content connects with readers on a personal level, sparking a shared verbal connection between author and reader.
Through effective storytelling, thoughtful analysis, and humor, you can capture your audience’s attention and encourage meaningful dialogues that draw people in.
The key to creating engaging content is identifying topics your readers will be passionate about and finding creative ways to deliver the material.
With engaging content comes influence, influence that can help you reach or exceed your goals whatever they may be.
To help you get started, here’s a Conversation Starters Kit to easily create the content you’ll need to keep in contact with your readers!
Click the graphic to see what’s included!
In conclusion, understanding the immense power of each type of content category is a huge benefit. Being aware of the unique characteristics and potential of blog posts, visuals, audio files and videos can give your author business an edge in putting together effective strategies.
By learning these basics and implementing them into your campaigns, you can take advantage of one of the most powerful business tools around.
Understanding that content is king when it comes to digital marketing because without quality content that stands out from the crowd, there is no way for potential readers and loyal fans find out about your book!
By using these five different types of content categories—educating, inspiring, engaging, entertaining, and persuasive—you can create an effective strategy for building relationships with readers while also increasing website visits and ultimately boosting conversion rates!
Start categorizing your content today so that you can start seeing results tomorrow!
What’s Next…
If you’re ready to take your website to the next level, check out how you can Build Your Own Content Library and pick a content template that fits your readers.
Check out the Ultimate Guide to Building your Content to get tips on how to do-it-yourself!
