Perhaps it’s the journalist in me, but when it comes to “content,” a blog post, a social post, an email newsletter, I fall back on an editorial calendar to guide my decisions throughout the year.
We’ve all been there: Staring at an empty scheduler, a blank canvas, or heaven forbid, an open LinkedIn dialogue box, and thinking: “What should I post?”
As much as yelling into the void will get the job done—and check posting off of your to-do list—creating content that prospective clients or community members hear requires fine-tuning. Let’s get into how to build content that resonates with your ideal audience.
What It Means for Content to ‘Resonate’
Resonance Is Recognition
Resonance is the ability for your story to be seen, connected with, and shared. Content that resonates when your ideal audience feels like:
- “That’s me.”
- “They understand exactly what I’m dealing with.”
- “They’re describing my problem better than I can—and offering me a solution.”
Content that resonates reflects your ideal audience’s lived experience, language, priorities, and stage of growth. To put it more succinctly, content resonates when it meets their needs. When you meet those needs consistently, you and your brand build an ongoing rapport with a group of people one might call a community. (It’s me, I’m that one.)
Resonance is Relevance + Placement
Content that resonates needs to be relevant to your ideal audience for engagement. An editorial calendar outlines the strategy of this audience communication to ensure you are providing value in alignment with your goals.
An editorial calendar should outline your priorities for the year into a publishing schedule consistent with your goals. For example, a Realtor’s editorial calendar includes seasonal home-purchasing tips, interspersed among calls to action to view her listings and attend her open houses, which exist among shares of events from within the community she serves.
Developing the details into a fully realized calendar would allow the “What am I going to post” you to start strumming right along to the beat you’ve already set out.
Content That Connects
When storytelling for audience engagement, the ideal client should be able to draw a clear line from you and your brand to the message that you’re conveying. In short, as you look for pieces of content that will connect with your audience, always answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” on their behalf.
A successful piece of content marketing will offer something of value to its intended audience, while also being consistent with your organization’s story and values. Plotting these items out alongside calls to action on an editorial calendar is what I find to be the most effective way to stick to the strategy throughout the year.
In order to publish content that connects with your ideal audience, you have to have an idea of who they are and what they want.
Problem #1. Vague audience definition.
Although your message could be one that is picked up by everyone, to realize the results we want to get specific about what success looks like. In marketing that’s Who am I talking to? What problems am I solving? (Review and download a worksheet for how to identify your ideal audience here.) Based on the organization’s goals this year, define the ideal audience that your content marketing should be speaking to.
Problem #2. Content built around expertise instead of the audience.
Without consideration to the goals of your organization or business, your content and its messages can fall outside of the rhythm and flow. In the ongoing conversation you foster with your ideal audience, sharing information should be mutually beneficial and your reader or viewer should have a clear view of how this piece of content connects to your value proposition.
Problem #3. Inconsistent narrative.
We are creatures of habit and, quite frankly, it takes a little bit to move us in any direction. Reiterating a consistent message creates an environment where content can resonate, be talked about around coffee tables, and shared digitally and in real life. Decisions guided by an audience-first content marketing strategy make the What are we going to post? dread at the flashing cursor quite a bit easier.
Clarify Your Ideal Audience at the Decision-making Level
In designing your editorial calendar, reflect on your ideal audience and consider in what context your solutions would find them.
Identify Where Your Ideal Audience is
To create content that resonates with your ideal audience, consider the different action items that surround the decision you would ultimately like them to take.
Is your ideal audience in a work setting (B2B) or in a home setting (B2C)? When in their day are they likely to be confronted with making decisions about your product or service? Where do they spend their time when thinking about the problem you solve or the service you provide? These answers get you closer to a solid content strategy.
Identify the Friction They’re Experiencing
When asking someone for their precious time, provide them with value for that time. Consider how you can best help your ideal client based on the services you provide and the raw materials you have access to. Here we’re looking to demonstrate not only a value, but your value, to the audience member, and thus why they should continue to engage or seek out your services.
Identify the Outcome They Want
Define what success looks like for your ideal audience and the opportunities that there may be for you to provide it. Does your ideal client want to be happier, healthier, and less stressed? Understanding the pain point helps you meet the community authentically by offering to help get what they want.
Build Content That Resonates With Your Ideal Audience
Now it’s time to create an editorial calendar that will help you to design all of your messages to resonate with your ideal client.
Listen for Repeated Questions
Consider what questions clients ask you over and over in sales calls, discovery forms, and expressions of frustration when in the community. What value do you bring to what you do? How do you communicate that value in a way that educates your ideal audience to that fact?
Turn Patterns Into Strategic Themes
Now, instead of answering that question once, with one client, consider ways that you can answer that question repeatedly for an audience of people.
- A headhunter for governmental organizations publishes a monthly newsletter to current and previous clients that showcase interviews with high-value applicants and encourages ongoing thoughts about HR needs.
- An education company consistently publishes short-form clinical tips to LinkedIn and showcases expertise within the space by inviting on-going learning.
- A nonprofit operates a Facebook group to facilitate communication among fundraisers and publishes weekly user-submitted content where fundraisers have a platform to describe their why.
Speak to Real Friction, Not Hypothetical Pain Points
It’s only through understanding of your ideal audience that you can create opportunities for authentic connection.
Build a Narrative System (Not Isolated Posts)
Sending one good newsletter is good, but creating a system that makes it easier for you to execute your editorial calendar over and over throughout the year is even better. This is where your marketing becomes strategic, reinforcing, and resonant.
Define Success
If this content marketing system works at an optimal level, what will it do for your organization? Will it engage more people, result in more sign-ups, garner more subscriptions, or result in more opens? Double check with all members of the team to be sure that the content you’ve created speaks to the ideal audience and incentivizes the action item that’s in alignment with your current goals.
Repeat, Deepen, and Connect
Resonance compounds through repetition. Once you’ve got the newsletter up and running, are there parts of it that can be repurposed and placed on social media throughout the month? Once you’re publishing short clinical tips from education, could the most engaged posts be pushed to email subscribers monthly? Our attention is finite, and one post could miss its target. But an entire campaign executed across digital media channels is not likely to do so. And it’s even less likely for an audience expecting your publication to miss a message.
Create Clear Pathways
While your content is informing and providing value to your ideal audience, you also want to make it nice and easy for them to convert to a client. So invite them for continued conversation by making the ask to follow you, join your newsletter, listen to your podcast, etc. Talk about the resources on your blog, talk about your email list, talk about your services. Tell your story so much that it becomes the catchy jingle that persists in your ideal audience’s head until they finally take that last step to say: “Help me!”
You must tell your story and connect the dots for your ideal client so that they can find you.
Bang the Gong: Let Your Story Resonate
A clearly defined ideal audience, a message that provides value, and a strategic narrative delivered consistently are how to build content that resonates. An editorial calendar can provide the solid framework from which your message vibrates all year with a few preparatory steps.
If your content feels like it lacks resonance, it may not be a creativity issue — it may be a positioning issue. Let’s clarify your ideal audience and build a system that resonates consistently.
FAQ
How do I know if my content is resonating?
Content that is resonating with your audience is viewed by more individuals. If it’s an email, it has a higher open rate; if it’s a social media message, it has higher engagement quality. Further down the funnel, you should see the uptick continue in increases to comments, saves, replies, and inquiries.
How often should I post to build resonance?
Post consistently in whatever way you can, and then increase incrementally until you’re at a posting schedule that works for you and your audience. Authority builds through repeated, aligned messages, so focus on consistency.
Can content resonate if my audience is broad?
Your creative content certainly could garner additional engagement or opens with a broad audience; however, in my experience, without a specific call to action that is incentivized for that audience, additional action steps up-funnel are harder to acquire.
What’s the difference between engaging content and resonant content?
Engaging content gets attention. Resonant content builds trust and momentum toward conversion.
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