Technology runs the world nowadays – everything from the noise cancelling headphones during your commute, automated electric cars, to your IoT home thermostat.
We also have a plethora of choices that muddy the water of which product is actually best for us. That’s where marketing teams come in. To create engaging content is rather easy, but many miss the mark by not explaining the complexities or leaving necessary details out entirely.
Also Read: 7 Companies Winning at B2B Content Marketing
Content marketing is a technique that answer’s a consumer’s question or that entertains them in order to promote your product and your agenda. So with any kind of marketing, creating great content starts at the core of what a reader wants and needs.
Here are some of the best examples of tech content creators that do well:
- The Verge 2.4M Twitter Followers
- TechCruch 10.1 M followers
- TheNextWeb 1.85M followers
Your content shouldn’t only cater to a single ideal consumer, but rather have sections that appeal to the different target audiences so they can easily pick and choose what to consume.
Business.com says that 77% of people research before they buy a product. Your audience is massive, with almost endless incoming leads. This should mean your job is easy, right? There are a few rules to creating engaging content that will make it easier.
New & Relevant
Consumers are not interested in reading about old software or print marketer’s review of the newest social media tool.
A good rule of thumb is to make sure that you are creating content about something that you yourself would Google. An understanding of the surrounding ecosystem–the types of content that already exist and what customers are searching for–is key to being relevant to the needs of the consumer.
In the tech business, the faster you are able to get your hands on the new software or tool, the better. Marketers should join beta testing programs to gain the scoop on the hot new tool, and connect with product marketers and product teams to learn all the critical value adds. Once you collect this information, get a review or guide into a prospective buyer’s hands quickly to encourage popularity and increases your average consuming time.
Ease of Consumption
A huge factor of bounce rate and whether a content consumer will be loyal to what you are putting out is how valuable the content is matched with the time it takes to consume. Using a productivity tool like ClickUp to organize all of the up-and-coming tech tools along with everything that you need to get the content produced and published is crucial. Outline for each piece of content:
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- What audience it targets
- Where it lives in the sales funnel
General length of the article
Having these items in your arsenal when you start to write your marketing content will help the writer stay on target. When reviewing software, it’s necessary to stay directly to the point without adding too much time-sapping fluff or overly technical jargon. And write for the web: break your content into sections for easy skimming.
Actual hands-on experience
Consumers are likely looking for your content because they aren’t yet using the product. A consumer can read the specifications from the native website just as well as you can. Regurgitating this information adds little value without context to back the specs up.
Provide opinions about what sticks out to you, such as the aspects of the product you personally find appealing. Share tips and tricks that you found personally helpful within the product. These are all very valuable content for your potential consumers.
Describing the ease of use/user experience is the main value software content can give your consumers, followed closely by use cases and how the technology adds business value.
Comparison to other like products
Although nearly every startup in the industry claims they’re disrupting the market, consumers need an existing tech hook to hang their understanding of a new product’s value on. The more detailed your comparison of a product to others that exist on the market, the more understanding your consumers will be able to reach.
Business people today have on average 5 different software tools in their workflow. Meaning if you can compare the new software tool to a product they already know for overall user experience, features, or behavior, their likelihood of valuing and believing your recommendation is increased significantly.
Software content engagement is built off of your credibility and the value that you add to the consumer’s product choice.
Final Steps
Make sure you utilize social media channels to engage with consumers. The tech community is notorious for quickly paced interactions, perfect for spaces like Twitter and Reddit. These could be amazing places for you to promote your page or post!
At the end of the day, the most important step in creating tech content that keeps readers coming back is providing value in understandable and easy to read facts and experiences. If you have all of the information they need without having to go to another website, your consumer retention rate, and therefore engagement, will go through the roof!
Makenna Smutz is the Content Marketing Manager at the Productivity Platform, ClickUp. There she creates and curates a plethora of creative content to make teams of all sizes successfully productive.
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