How to Get Your Ideal Clients to Pay Attention to Your Content

Back in 2019, I wrote my wrote my first Medium article. When I went to publish it, I saw this:

I didn’t really think twice about it. I checked the box, figuring it can’t hurt to have others recommend my article to people who might get some value out of it.

It wasn’t until I started reading other articles that I realized what it meant.

Long story short, articles that are part of Medium’s metered paywall are recommended to not only your followers, but to PAID Medium members. If you’re part of their Medium Partner Program, then that means you might actually earn money from your articles.

But that’s not all — UNPAID Medium readers can only read 3 of these articles for free each month. Once you have used up those 3 freebies, you can only read regular articles.

As someone who is budget-conscious, this got my attention. Especially when I found out I had used up one of my freebies on an article that wasn’t really that valuable to me.

I started being more selective in which articles I would even consider reading.

Not relevant to my immediate goals? Pass.

Relevant topic, but obviously not long enough to go in-depth about it? Nah, homie.

Title a little bit too vague for me to know what I’m getting? Not today.

As I kept scrolling past article after article, looking for one worth my time, I had a thought:

What if my ideal clients had a strict limit on how much online content they could consume each month? Would that change the way I create content?

The answer? Heck yes! If I knew that my ideal clients were being super selective about what they read, watch, or listen to, I would be way more strategic. Not just because I want to attract more people, but because I don’t want to waste my valuable time. Time that I could be using to create GREAT content shouldn’t be wasted creating mediocre content. Below are the 5 questions I would ask before I created any new content (whether it is a blog post, video, podcast episode, etc).

IS IT TARGETED TO MY IDEAL CLIENT?

This question should always be at the front of mind, but it isn’t. I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs put out content for a broad audience that INCLUDES their ideal client, but don’t focus on putting out content SOLELY for their ideal clients.

Getting people to engage with your content is great, but I think that every entrepreneur’s goal should be to attract and engage people who can become clients or customers. They don’t have to buy anything right away (in fact, they usually don’t), but you want to focus your time and energy on the ones who are most likely to. Otherwise, what’s the point?

DOES IT ALIGN WITH MY BUSINESS GOALS?

As entrepreneurs, we all have business goals. Most of us have several and they are typically all leading to one main goal — earning more money. Some of my goals include:

• Establishing myself as an authority in my niche
• Growing my mailing list
• Attracting qualified leads
• Booking more sales calls
• Selling my services (and future products)

If a piece of content can’t fit neatly into one or more of these categories, it’s not something I should invest my time into creating.

DOES IT SOLVE A PROBLEM OR HELP MY IDEAL CLIENT GET CLOSER TO HER GOALS?

Although my business was built to help me make a living doing something I love, it’s not all about me. In fact, the way I earn money is by helping other people with THEIR businesses. So, when creating content, I want to be sure that I am bringing real value. My content should be able to help my ideal clients in a practical, applicable, quantifiable way. If not, it isn’t going to be worth the time it takes to create or consume it. And, like I’ve mentioned before, wasting time is a no-no if I want to be successful.

DOES IT HAVE A CLEAR CALL-TO-ACTION?

One thing I’ve learned as a copywriter and a parent is that you should never assume people know what to do next. You have to tell them. Want them to email you with a question, sign up for your mailing list, tag you on social media, book a call, or check out your sales page? You have to tell them! If a piece of content can’t naturally include a specific call-to-action that aligns with one of my business goals, it’s probably not relevant or valuable enough.

IS THE HEADLINE EFFECTIVE?

You could create the world’s best content, but if the headline (or subject line, caption, etc) isn’t powerful enough to catch people’s attention, stop their scrolling in their tracks, and click open/play, it won’t matter. It’s worth asking these questions when crafting your headline:

• Is it attention-grabbing? If it’s not interesting enough to get people to stop scrolling through their newsfeed or inbox, you need to tweak it some more.
• Is it specific? Your ideal client should feel like that piece of content could have been created with them in mind. After all, it was.
• Is it compelling and results-oriented? Your headline has to do more than make your ideal client pause and feel like it’s relevant. It has to make them feel like they will gain something valuable from it.
• Is it clear and concise? When it comes to writing headlines, it’s less important to be clever or more important to be easy to understand. Confused readers don’t often continue reading. Don’t make them have to work hard to figure out what the content is about. Tell them!

TAKEAWAY

Make sure your content is relevant to your IDEAL audience, aligned with your business goals, high-value, has a clear call-to-action at the end, and that you include a powerful headline to get people actually check it out.