Creating content: five questions you can ask to get started

I’ve been creating content for many years and, as many might agree, one of the toughest things to do is simply getting started. The old adage is true: there’s nothing more intimidating than the blank page.

The second most difficult thing is creating content on a subject without much information or direction. Perhaps the only thing worse than a blank page is someone telling you, ”You’re creative, can’t you just create something for us?”

Well, I can. But it probably won’t serve you well.

The key to creating effective content is the intake process.  A consistent process for starting a project can truly help develop content that achieves everyone’s goals…not just getting likes or favorites.

Advertising agencies learned this long ago and created a document called the Creative Brief to capture what the advertising they are building needs to accomplish. My journalistic background has taught me that asking the right questions at the beginning has helped me a great deal. I hope it will help you, too.

There are five questions I always start with when creating content.  If I can get authentic, meaningful answers to these five questions, I’m confident I can create something effective.  Okay, enough with the build up, here are the five questions:

1. Who are we talking to?

Please don’t answer this one with demographics alone. While demos can help, ‘women, age 18-54’ doesn’t really tell me much about your audience. Who are these people, really? Are they families with kids or are they mostly older folks who may have more time (and less disposable income) on their hands? What brands do they buy and what can that tell us about them? Help me get inside their heads!

2. Why are we talking to them?

Surely, we have a reason for asking people to stop what they’re doing and listen to us. That hopefully includes a benefit to them…so, what is that benefit — what’s in it for them?

3. What are we communicating?

What is the one point we want people to take away from our message — what are we telling them? This question helps with prioritization and tells me what should come first and what might be important enough to say in more than one way. Remember that people learn differently; find different ways to deliver the same message so everyone gets it.

4. What do we want them to do?

This is our call to action. There has to be a point to our message. What is it that we want our audience to do as a result of reading/watching/consuming our content? Make it easy for them to respond.

5. So, why aren’t they doing that now?

These are the barriers to our message. Are they aware of our brand/message/product/service? If not, then we know we need to make them aware.  If they are aware of us but aren’t choosing us, why not? What are the reasons — perception or reality — for not choosing us?

Okay I’m realizing there are a lot more than five questions here, but I think you get the point. Start your next content creation project with answers to these critical questions and you’ll be well on your way to creating great content that reaches your goals!

Be a different engine

Once upon a time, there was a young locomotive engine who was eager to grow. He was told that, back in the good old days, engines would simply blow their horns and railroad cars would line up behind them, making the train bigger.

But that was long ago. These days, so many engines are blowing their horns that the cars simply don’t know where to go. Trains aren’t growing. Cars aren’t getting anywhere either. It’s becoming quite a problem.

That’s when this engine decided to be different.

He didn’t blow his own horn, but decided to talk to the cars about where they would like to go. The cars, desperately looking for help, genuinely appreciated being asked and many were eager to line up behind the engine, helping him grow.

Soon, he was one of the largest trains in the yard.

Even when larger, more powerful engines blew their horns, the cars paid no attention. They wanted to line up behind the different engine — the one that listened to them and showed an interest in where they wanted to go.

Still, the other engines continued to blow their horns louder and louder. Some even added more and bigger horns, but nothing seemed to work. They couldn’t understand why the cars didn’t line up behind them anymore.

Finally, one of the largest engines swallowed his pride and asked the different engine for his secret.

“I don’t understand why the cars line up behind you,” the larger engine steamed. “I’m bigger than you, faster than you — I can take the cars wherever I want in half the time you can. Why do they follow you?”

The different engine replied simply, “I ask them where they want to go.”

“But, what if they don’t want to go where you are going?” asked the bigger engine.

“I know I can’t help all of the cars get where they want to go. But there are enough cars going my way to make me one of the largest trains in the yard and I’m happy with that,” the different engine said. “A few cars have even told me they decided to go where I was going, which was a nice surprise.”

“But, but…” the larger train trailed off.  He just couldn’t understand.

“It’s Content Marketing,” the different engine said. “You should get on board.”