Crafting Compelling Content: A Guide to Attracting and Engaging Your Audience

Content can mean any number of things in today’s online world, from a good old-fashioned blog to a short n’ sweet TikTok. Regardless of your format, though, the purpose of creating content is to engage your audience. You might have other goals, too, like increasing brand awareness and driving conversions, but at the end of the day, none of these will come to fruition if you’re not hooking your target market and making them want to stick around.

Unfortunately, as with so many digital marketing strategies, creating compelling content isn’t a simple task. Not so unfortunately, we’re here to help.

We rounded up our team of experienced content creators at GRM and asked them one question: What makes your content so engaging? Interestingly, most of them stuck to the same key principles, regardless of the formats they specialised in. We’ve rounded up their tried-and-tested methods into these bite-sized tips. 

What Does Your Audience Want? 

Your content should be hitting a point of interest with your audience. Our content creators broke it down into a checklist, and every piece you publish should tick at least one of these boxes: 

• It relates to something your audience is interested in 
• It answers an audience question 
• It provides a solution to a common problem 
• It tells a compelling story 

To understand what your audience wants from their content, you need to get inside their minds. We recommend starting any content strategy with research. 

Ask your existing audience for feedback on what content works for them and why, and what they find less interesting. Collect data on the smaller (but still important) details, too, like whether they like videos with subtitles and what paragraph size is ideal for blogs. These are key principles of user experience (UX) led design, which is vital for engagement and your overall digital strategy. 

Alongside these details, find out what your audience wants to know about. What questions do they come to you with, and how can you make sure your content meets their needs?  

A Note on Keyword Research

We talk a lot about SEO and keyword research, but that’s only because it’s so important. Our content creators know that too (thankfully!), and they all mentioned using keyword research to learn more about: 

1. What your target market is searching for 
2. How you can tailor your content to suit your specific audience 

If you want to answer your target market’s questions, you need to know what they’re asking. Tap into world-class keyword research with our award-winning SEO team. 

Use a Clear and Unique Voice 

Users want content that has an authentic voice. This should be consistent and unique, while reflecting your brand image and the purpose of your content.  

Let’s take a look at Cow & Gate, one of our clients, as an example. Their content has a consistently friendly tone of voice (TOV) that provides clear advice in an approachable manner, making it easy for busy, stressed parents to absorb. It’s also supportive, giving new parents a warm, empathetic resource when they need answers to their questions. 

Cown & Gate haven’t tried to develop a quirky, unique voice, because it isn’t necessary or what their users want. They need to be getting across important information in a way that’s easy to understand, and their TOV enables them to do just that. 

For a wildly different TOV, take a look at Penhaligons. Their TOV is a pivotal part of their content strategy, with an old-school and ostentatious approach to language that fits perfectly alongside their quirky fragrance collection for marketing that’s designed to be fun. With content that’s not quite as serious as Cow & Gate, this is a great way to get an interested audience reading, and to keep them coming back for more. 

Our tips for developing your own brand voice? 

Consider the end goals of your content and who you’re trying to engage, and go from there. It never hurts to take a peek at your competitors, too, though only for inspiration; copying another TOV isn’t a good look. 

Mirror Your Values and USP 

Your content isn’t just about answering questions or jumping on trends; it’s also an opportunity to reinforce what makes you, you. Every post, video, or story you publish should reflect your brand values and communicate your unique selling point (USP) without it feeling forced. 

Why? Because people connect with brands that stand for something. If your content consistently reflects the principles that are integral to your business, you’ll attract an audience that shares those values and help long-term loyalty to flourish. 

Your USP can also guide your content strategy, helping you create unique and exciting blogs or videos that relate to your brand, and yours alone. This is the one thing you do better than anyone else, after all, so make sure it’s obvious. 

Cut Out the Jargon (Unless You Need It) 

Users only read an average of 28% of the content on a web page. Add jargon into the mix, and you’re heading towards low engagement, especially amongst non-professional audiences. 

Jargon just puts more barriers up between you and your audience. They’re looking for content they can engage with, understand, and learn from, but if they need to use a dictionary just to get to the bottom of what you’re talking about, they’ll jump ship. 

Now, there is a time and a place for jargon. It’s perfectly fine, for example, to use technical language followed by clear explanations, as long as these don’t take over the rest of your content. It might also be great to publish snappy videos that quickly explain jargon terms for non-expert users, too, or to use technical terms when showing off your knowledge to professional audiences. 

Aside from these exceptions, though, our content creators advise that you keep jargon to a minimum and, where possible, leave it out altogether. 

Break Content into Bitesize Chunks 

Nobody likes hitting a wall of text or speech. Your users are likely to be skimmers with fairly short attention spans, so breaking your content into small, easy-to-digest sections keeps them moving forward without feeling overwhelmed. For written content, our team’s top tips included: 

• Using short paragraphs for blogs and articles 
• Adding bullet points (like this!) and numbered lists 
• Using subheadings to guide the eye (add proper H tags to boost your SEO, too) 

For other content, like videos and podcasts, try to break your message into clear segments. This could mean structuring a podcast into distinct topics with short intros for each, or editing a video into concise chapters that make it easy for viewers to skip to the part they’re most interested in. This is pretty simple to do on YouTube, letting your audience jump back and forth depending on what they want to know. 

It’s also common for content creators on social media to split longer ‘short format’ videos into smaller, separate videos (Part 1, Part 2, etc.). This is much easier to digest, with three 1-minute videos more suited to a scrolling audience than one 3-minute video. 

Back Up Your Statements 

If you want people to trust your content, you need to prove what you’re saying. Backing up statements with credible sources, data, and examples shows your audience that you’ve done your homework. 

This doesn’t mean everything has to come across like a piece of research. Content that’s essentially just a list of statistics is unlikely to keep your audience engaged. Instead, use sources and stats to back up your broader point – think of them like the cherries on top of a much larger cake. 

You can also use real-life case studies to prove what you’re saying, or add details of your expertise. The goal is to make it easy for your audience to think, “Okay, I believe this” and then act on what they’ve learned. You’re building trust and credibility, which is vital if you want to engage your target market and stand out in the busy online world. 

(Bonus point, this is also great for SEO and aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T principles). 

Encourage Interaction 

From blogs to Instagram posts, a lot of content gives you the chance to interact directly with your audience. As a brand, that’s an opportunity to boost engagement that you shouldn’t ignore! You can encourage conversations, answer questions, and get more people talking about the content you’re publishing. 

Open the door to this sort of engagement by actively encouraging it. End a blog with a question, or let viewers of your videos know they can ask their own questions in the comments below. You might get people sharing their own experiences, too, and before you know it, you’ve got a thriving community on your hands that people want to be a part of. 

Not only does this increase engagement, but it also gives you valuable insights into your audience’s needs and preferences, which you can then use to shape your future content. Win-win. 

Work With Professional Content Creators 

Content marketing not your forte? We’ve got you covered. These are just some of the ways our team of expert content creators drive engagement, and we can bring all of them (and more) to your marketing. 

Book a consultation with our digital strategists today.