CONTENT IS KING - AND THEN SOME

Clichés often become clichés because they are so true. Take “content is king”, for instance – a phrase repeated so often that, for a long while now, the eyes of the reader have glazed over when encountering it.

But in this instance it’s not true, simply because it does not go far enough. Content isn’t merely king. It’s king, queen, emperor and supreme ruler of the universe.

So many brands, however, still don’t seem to get it. It is astonishing how often the message that you have a great product does not get through to your existing and potential customers because it is delivered in a sloppy and inaccurate manner.

Your content plays a critical role in the simple equation x + y = z, where x is your great product, z is your market – and y is the content you use to tell the market about that product.

Focusing particularly on digital content, and specifically on websites, some of the most common mistakes I see can be characterised as follows:

• “And what do you do?” You would be astonished how often companies’ home pages do not have a simple statement telling the world what products and services they supply.

• “All I want to know is…” Your navigation should be simple, even simplistic. Always imagine someone is coming to your site for the first time; are you sure they will be able to find easily what it is they are looking for?

• “Spell it out.” People really do notice if your content is riddled with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. If you can’t get that right, they are entitled to think, what else are you going to get wrong?

We have, surely, moved beyond the stage where merely having your own website is enough to persuade customers how irresistibly must-have and cutting-edge you and your products are.

Making a difference, standing out from the crowd who may not know their licence from their license, is not difficult.

All of the above three issues can be addressed easily by employing the services of an experienced content professional who can, with their expert eye, identify the ways in which your message can be delivered as compellingly as possible.