Tips, news and views from Green Light Copywriting

My wishes for business content in the future 29 December 2015

So here we are, on the cusp of a brand new year. These are my top wishes for business content in 2016…

1. Web and mobile become more of a priority
With mobile use on the rise and Mobilegeddon a major landmark of 2015, you could assume that all business-owners would be putting search and online top of their priority list. Sadly, this is not the case. Many businesses are still missing out on the benefits of better search rankings and making it less likely that people will actually read their content once they find their site. I’d love to see 2016 as the year in which businesses adapt their content message and format to make the most of the growing advantages of online search.

2. Customer experience gains more profile
I’ve written before about the seemingly unstoppable rise of User-Generated Content (UGC) and there’s a reason for that. Yet many businesses are still overlooking the value of this type of content. I can already see UCG becoming part of a cultural shift in which customers expect to be able to share experiences with each other. I’d be happy to see more and more businesses of all sizes start to take this on board, on a scale which suits them and their marketing approach. This could be as simple as requesting testimonials with the right to share them on social media or offering an incentive for customers when they share a photo of themselves with a specific product. Let’s make 2016 the year in which the customer has more of a voice!

3. Make the move from telling to selling
OK, this one is on my new year wish list at the end of every December, but you can’t blame a copywriter for trying! Let’s hope that 2016 really is the year that more companies make an active effort to bring their products or services to life in a way that’s entertaining and engaging. Let’s also hope that more and more customers will begin to see how great those companies are with case studies, examples, testimonials, User-Generated Content etc.

4. Wave bye-bye to jargon
Yes, it’s another classic new year wish from me! I’d love to see less content relying on jargon in an effort to sound authoritative. There are ways to achieve that kind of impact without sounding as if a dictionary of gobbledygook has been consumed! It’s great to hear about various organisations around the world start to embrace plain English. Isn’t it time we saw more businesses doing the same thing and finally saying farewell to jargon?

5. Cut out the clutter
Closely linked to the above point, will we finally see more business-owners do a content detox in the year to come? I hope so. There still seems to be so much content around that relies in too many words to achieve its aims. I’d like to see more businesses really simplify how they communicate with their customers, with the goal of connecting more effectively with the people they want to reach. Isn’t that what content is all about?

6. Benefit from LinkedIn
Opportunities in marketing content are growing all the time. One of the biggest in 2015 was the new LinkedIn publishing platform. In fact, by the summer there were already more than 1 million unique publishers on the blogging platform! It would be great to see 2016 as the year in which businesses of all sizes embrace the new publishing opportunities offered by LinkedIn.

7. Make more of existing content
Many business-owners see creating content as a never-ending task. I know because I’ve reassured many of them over the years that this is not the case. Yes, creating content demands a strategy and a creative approach. But there is a way to use existing content to make the job easier. I’d really like to see more business-owners take this message on board in 2016 so that they can enjoy greater results with less effort! This means reviewing the content you’ve produced in the past and seeing how you can update it. There are all kinds of ways to review your copywriting strategy to making your existing content work harder.

8. Highlight the real benefits of the business
Again, this point is one that we would all like to think is done and done. Not so. I still see so many companies explaining what they do – without communicating why they are the best choice! It seems surprising, but there it is. One of my wishes for 2016 is that more companies focus on creating content in which every word, every paragraph, every full stop, is focused on telling the world exactly why they are the best choice! I’d love to see more companies look at transforming the facts about what they do into the many important reasons to buy into their service or product.

9. Care more about creating a response
Earning a response from your audience is the whole point of content, right? So why does so much business content still neglect this? Take a look through many a business website and you’ll see web pages without calls to action or incentives to respond. Let’s bid farewell to this in 2016 and say hello to lots of relevant, strategic calls to action!

10. Keep content relevant to right now
OK, so surely the point of content is to be up to date with what’s happening right now, but look around and what can you see? Out of date websites which refer to a business as it was five or even ten years ago, blogs that were last updated six months ago… sadly these kinds of sights are all too familiar. I’d love to see that change in the new year. Not just in terms of keeping content up to date, but also in making sure that content truly reflects the personality, offer and aspirations of a business as it is now. Business isn’t static, so why should business content be? My wish is for more companies to regularly review their copywriting strategy so that it keeps up with their evolution.