15 Tips to Create Consistent, Authentic, Engaging Content for Customers

When a potential customer comes across your website, social media channels, or newsletter, you have to be sure to capture their attention. If the content is uninspiring or feels like it’s generic or disingenuous, users will move on.

But creating truly engaging content on a regular basis is easier said than done. To help you get inspired, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council the following question:

Q. What is the best way to make sure your customer-facing content is consistent, engaging, and authentic?

1. Add Value to Improve People’s Lives

When I help a client with their content, I always evaluate the value contained in the content. When a prospect reads that content, did their lives get any better? Were their questions answered? The content essentially costs that prospect some portion of their valuable time, so did the content provide a return on that investment of time? Don’t ever lose sight of what’s in it for the prospect. – Jeff Keenan, LeadsRx

2. Have Your Internal Subject Matter Experts Review the Content

We write a lot of content about application development and startup technology. Whenever we write this content, we have it reviewed by internal expert developers to provide feedback and comments. Comments and suggestions from team members come very handy in making the final content engaging and authentic. – Piyush Jain, SIMpalm

3. Appoint a ‘Content Czar’

Depending on your company size or need, all content should be fed through a consistent process that includes the same individual, team or outside agency. This makes sure there aren’t inconsistencies in messaging, tone, style and more. Once a messaging guide is developed, it’s this person or team’s responsibility to make sure anything going out fits within the established parameters. – Andrew Howlett, Struck

4. Measure Each Piece of Content Against Your Target Criteria

Plan content with authenticity, consistency and engagement as the focus. When creating a content calendar, keep these things in mind and always ask yourself if each topic and outline ticks those boxes. Share these factors with anyone on the team or working remotely who helps create the content. – Serenity Gibbons, NAACP

5. Develop a Customer-Driven Process

Gather your team and set a clear content calendar with a minimum of one post a week. Instruct your sales and management teams to make notes of all the problems and concerns your customers have. Study and incorporate a content framework for productivity. And create genuine, truly helpful pieces that make the most out of your skills and help your clients at scale. Repetition will be worth it! – Mario Peshev, DevriX

6. Show Your Human Side

Being authentic means being real, and nothing is more real than letting customers see behind the scenes and getting to know the people and stories behind the business. When creating content, share your “why,” your thought process and your inspiration for creating the content in the first place so people can get to know the human side of the business. – Justin Faerman, Conscious Lifestyle Magazine

7. Run Content Through a Quality Assurance Process

Put this process into QA. If you have criteria for how your content should be, then you will be able to QA on that criteria, so if the post or article doesn’t meet it, then it’s back to the drawing board. It’s always important to have guidelines for those things so that you can make sure that your content will be high quality. – Nicole Munoz, Nicole Munoz Consulting, Inc.

8. Invite Criticism

If you want to create genuine and engaging content, you should open a dialogue with your audience so you can ascertain what they’re looking for. This way, you can target their areas of interest, generating engagement, while also doing your due diligence when researching each topic, which will ensure its authenticity. – Bryce Welker, Accounting Institute of Success

9. Create an Emotional Connection

If you want your content to reflect your customers, then you need to know how to appeal to them emotionally. Emotions are a great psychological hack that marketers use to appeal to their audiences and drive results. If you know how to tug at their heartstrings and make them feel something, they’ll agree with your marketing messages and convert. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

10. Stay True to Your Roots

The more you work on brand authenticity, the more consistent and engaging your content will be. If your aim is to offer your audience quality, valuable content, then you can provide those things by keeping your brand authentic and staying true to its roots. Pay attention to your mission statement and values, and create content based on those principles. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

11. Know Your Customers Well

Your customer-facing content needs to be relevant to your audience if you want it to be effective. So, you need to figure out who your audience is by creating buyer personas. Buyer personas can include details about your target customer like goals, pain points, income, education level, and more. Each time you create customer-facing content it needs to be created with your buyer personas in mind. – Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

12. Use Conversational Language

People are more likely to connect with your brand if your content is conversational and friendly. A conversational way of speaking is quite universal and will appeal to most people. You can make your content more engaging and authentic by speaking directly to people in your writing. Write to people by using “you” and “your” in your posts. Create templates and examples for your organization. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

13. Focus on the Problem, Not Promotion

Businesses engaging in content marketing often fall for engaging in excessive self-promotion by creating content around the business offerings themselves. Instead of focusing on the product or service, focus on how your offering is going to solve your reader’s problems for them. If you focus on creating value-adding and problem-solving content, engaging your audience will no longer be a challenge. – Rahul Varshneya, CurveBreak

14. Keep It Realistic and Relatable

We have all read content that was obviously designed for the top 1% of a product’s audience. While this might appeal to that select audience, it can make everyone else feel left out. No one wants to engage with a brand if they feel like the business doesn’t understand their needs. When you’re referencing case uses or examples, keep it realistic and relatable. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

15. Develop Content Pillars Around Your ‘Why’

Your customers will come across many products similar to yours, what will differentiate your brand to that of your competitors is the content you generate around your “why.” Why does your company exist? Answering this question will make your brand more authentic, and by organizing a set of content pillars around your “why” your customer-facing content will become more consistent and engaging. – Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.