Style Guide: JustFly’s 5 Tips For Writing Great Online Content

Marketing has evolved tremendously since you got your first mailing list email or clicked the red x on your first pop up. Marketing departments have learned over the years that many of the ideas they had as the internet infiltrated the modern home simply don’t work anymore. Ad-blockers put a stop to many impressions and frankly studies have come to show that a majority of ad clicks now are done simply by mistake, helping your metrics but not translating to a successful purchase. What the marketing world is turning to now is content marketing, branded content, and advertorials. To learn more about producing content for these kinds of campaigns, I spoke with JustFly. An online travel company, JustFly has been increasing their presence in both the content marketing and CRM space and had some guidelines for those looking to improve their marketing efforts.

Writing Great Online Content [GUIDE]

1. Original Content Is King

First things first, according to JustFly’s review, is that you need to make sure you write original and compelling content. Your readers like it, Google’s search crawlers like it, and you should challenge yourself to do it every time. This means no copy and paste, no rotating headlines, and, mostly, a whole lot of creativity. Good content will always be king in the online world, especially in the dawn of the social age.

2. Catch Them With Great Headlines

The gateway to your content, think of your headline as a bridge. You could have a beautiful island, but if you have some rickety old bridge with half broken boards and a pit of gators looming below, no one is going to see your awesome island. Make sure headlines are snappy, give people a reason to click, and are, if possible, evergreen. Don’t tie your content down to a date unless it is very intentional or an extremely timely piece of writing.

3. Don’t Sell Your Product, Lead Your Customer To It

Readers are smart. They know when they are being sold to and not spoken to. That’s why you need to not place a product in front of them, but instead, show them the trail. If you have ever watched the film Inception, the concept is similar. The only thing better than showing someone a great product, is tricking them into thinking they discovered it themselves and need to get it.

4. Don’t Tell The Whole Story

Similar to the previous point, it’s important that you don’t tell the entire story of your product. You want to give potential customers a reason to do their research and to become comfortable with your offering. While you need to make it clear how what your selling can help them, you need to leave a certain mystery to it, provoking the desire in your target audience to seek you out.

5. Keep It Short And Sweet

Perhaps most importantly, it is critical that your content is not overbearing. Unless you are writing a case study or a white paper, your content should be easy to digest, not require a huge time investment, and not be too technical. You need to write content for your audience, and the general online audience is not an SME when it comes to exactly what you do. So, make it easy for them to learn, to gain interest, and reach out.