5 ways to create content your customers actually want

People will read the blogs and tweets that brands write, and they’ll look at the pictures and infographics they share, if the people producing this content give consumers what they desire. 

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A report from Forrester five years ago revealed that people didn’t trust corporate blogs. It was the evidence that many skeptical executives needed to shut down their companies’ blogging efforts. Not so fast, Forrester exec Josh Bernoff wrote in his blog. It’s not because it’s a corporate blog that people don’t like it.

“Blogs exclusively about companies and products are what I think generate these low trust ratings,” Bernoff wrote. “So don’t do a blog like that.”

If your corporate blog—indeed, if any of your content efforts—are just more channels for pushing messages you want your customers to get, it will fail. The overarching concept behind content marketing is to deploy content your customers will seek, consume, engage with, and share. Another product announcement just doesn’t inspire that kind of excitement.

Your content has to focus on what your customers want, not what you want them to know, while still delivering measurable results for your brand. So how do you go about figuring out what your customers (or other audiences) want to read, watch, or listen to?

Learn the questions they’re asking

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