I’ve written before on how loan officers can use content to grow their business (here), but this week I wanted to share some thoughts on how LOs can create high-quality content. Not all content will yield the same results, so you have to invest time into producing the highest level of content if you truly want it to be effective. This doesn’t mean that you have to be a professional writer or invest in expensive equipment, though. Read on for a few ideas to help you develop top-notch content to give your marketing a noticeable boost:
Identify (and understand) Your Audience
The first step in an effective content-creation strategy is to identify your audience. Of course, your answer to ‘who is your audience?’ should not be ‘anyone who wants a mortgage’; you should get as specific as possible with this. For example, do you specialize in a particular niche? Maybe first-time borrowers? Whatever your target, you need to understand your prospective clients — what are their common questions and concerns? The better you understand your client base, the easier it will be for you to provide them with the kind of content they want to be reading.
Be Succinct
If you’re writing articles to share with your audience, you want to ensure that they can be read within a couple minutes. If one of your readers want more information, they’ll get in touch with you to hear more — which is the optimal outcome anyway (more on that later). In most cases, your readers are going to come across your posts while browsing through their social-media feeds online, and if they click on an article and it looks like it will take more than two minutes to read, they’ll probably bookmark it for later or skip it altogether. You want succinct, powerful content that makes an immediate impression and that can be devoured in full in a short amount of time.
Experiment with Variety
Articles and blog posts are just some of the many shapes your content can take. If your goal is a top-notch content strategy, you need to experiment with different types of content. Some other types of content that tend to perform well are videos and infographics. Again, think about common concerns and misconceptions among your clients. From there, develop a short video to clarify the topic. Or maybe you can create an infographic breaking down a concept that you find yourself explaining frequently. Varying your content will give your audiences the option to engage with their medium of choice to get the information they’re looking for.
Make Engagement Easy
The hallmark of a successful content campaign is engagement. Your content is a method to connect with your audience, and that connection has to go both ways. It’s great when someone likes or shares one of your posts, but it’s even better when someone reaches out to ask you a question or leaves a comment. Ask questions and make sure your audience knows you’re available to answer their questions. One-on-one conversations are the precursor to new business, so it’s only sensible that you’d try to initiate as many of those as possible. Make sure your comments are enabled on your blog (if you’re using one) and stay abreast of any comments on your social-media pages so you can reply in a timely manner. The more opportunities you provide your readers to engage, the higher your chances are of getting engagement. Don’t be afraid to ask your audience what they’d like to learn more about — it will save you from having to guess. And, as with anything, do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t. The level of engagement you see, and where you see it, will help you chart your content course effectively.
Creating content is helpful, but creating top-notch content will provide you with new opportunities to take your business to the next level.
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