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For your customers, your website is not a static viewpoint of your business. It is a touchpoint with your brand where critical decisions take place which ultimately results in a potential customer becoming a lead or making a purchase.
Audience-first content helps your business build relationships with your customers.
This leads to a better user experience of your brand as you’ll be addressing customer queries, guiding them through their buying journey, and establishing a personal connection, which fosters trust and boosts online visibility.
There are 8 key areas to why audience-first content is important for businesses and customers alike.
The benefits of Audience-first content
1. It helps to enhance your users experience
Consider the fact that 88% of online customers wouldn't revisit a website after a poor user experience (Userguiding).
You have to make a good first impression with potential customers. To do that, you need to create an experience that resonates. When you answer queries or pain points effectively, your customers will feel heard and even understood.
Imagine you are trying a new restaurant with family or friends. You’ve been waiting for your main meals for over an hour and your drinks have been empty for the last 30 minutes and you can’t find a waiter to chase. It’s highly likely that you won’t hurry back there any time soon!
Doing this quickly means they're more likely to stay on your website, explore your content, and eventually convert.
2. It helps you better serve your audience's journey:
Beyond addressing your customer’s questions, audience-first content acts as a reliable method of filling content gaps in your audience's buyer's journey so you can better nurture prospects.
It is also a great way to counter any potential objections from your customers. We discussed breaking down customer objections with Amy Elliott on Building, our podcast.
Audience-first content anticipates your customers needs, by being in their mindset and ensures you provide value at every touchpoint. A seamless buyer's journey fosters trust, making your brand a reliable authority on your customer’s path to conversion.
The key is not just to answer questions but to proactively offer insights that ease their decision-making process.
3. It helps build relationships because people buy from people:
92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know highlights the power of personal connection. (EveryoneSocial)
In other words, people buy from people. Your content needs to speak to your customers, where it helps and guides them to decision.
No longer can you broadcast, shouting about product features, because in a busy online world, that is just a turn off for your busy customers.
You need to delve into industry trends, share insider tips, and offer solutions to challenges. By consistently providing valuable information and context, you’ll help position your brand as the go-to authority in your industry or sector.
4. It helps you rank better as algorithms look for people-first content:
In a digital landscape filled with chatbots, AI-generated content, automated responses and clickbait social media, the human touch is a seemingly rare and valuable commodity.
Google recognised this and has reworked and improved their algorithms to now favour content that puts people first, not keywords or search engines.
You need to craft content for humans, not search engines, by understanding your audience's pain points, aspirations, and queries.
In other words, you need to produce helpful content for your audience, not keyword filled pages designed to game the algorithms.
It's about building real world connections over chasing algorithms.
5. It’s helps build authenticity
90% of consumers consider authenticity crucial in choosing brands to buy from. (Nosto)
Authenticity is a driving force in helping customers make decisions.
Beyond just answering queries, delving into the stories behind your brand, sharing user testimonials, highlighting real experiences, and showcasing the people behind your products or services helps convince users that you have their best interests at heart.
Authenticity builds trust in your brand. Once you have trust, you can build loyalty.
6. It helps your brand embrace User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-Generated Content is a shining example of content that is audience-first content. It's more than just content produced by your customers for your customers; it's social proof of your brand building trust with your audience.
It shows your brand is not trying to force the conversation, you are the conversation. People want to be part of the conversation.
You need to encourage customers to share their experiences, showcase their creativity, and become active contributors to your brand story.
UGC not only adds a layer of social authenticity to your brand, but it also extends your reach through the networks of your most satisfied customers in the most organic way possible.
Many brands are now starting to use UGC on their websites. One example is Parachute home, and they found UGC imagery helped improve their click through rates by 35%!
You can immediately see how the professional image isn’t as useful as the ‘use case’ image. As soon as a customer can see a product or service in action, it helps answer questions they may have.
7. It helps with accessibility and diversity:
If we are truly producing audience-first content, it needs to cater for the audience - whoever they are. Therefore it's crucial to consider accessibility and diversity.
To best speak to your audience, once you are in an audience-first mindset, you need to ensure that your content is inclusive, catering to a diverse audience with different needs, preferences, and abilities.
Crafting content with diverse audiences in mind not only broadens your reach but also enhances the overall user experience.
It can help you build trust as it reflects a commitment to a wider audience and positions your brand as one that values and caters to the diverse needs of our customers.
This means for some audiences, you may have to incorporate alt text for images, use readable fonts and colours, and consider various formats like video transcripts, audio descriptions or graphical representations.
8. It helps you futureproofing your website's content:
With algorithms and user demand shifting all the time, audience-first content will always be useful if it answers questions effectively using the right formats.
As long as your content helps your customers, it will remain relevant.
The one thing that will not change, is the innate understanding that people buy from people.
That means specific content that answers a query or pain point - using real world experience will be valued, not only by your audience but by search engines too - regardless of the latest technologies, formats and rules.
In 8 key areas, audience-first content is not just a strategy; it's a way that puts your audience at the centre of the conversation.
When it comes to content, remember: your audience isn't just a target of your latest campaign - they are active participants in the conversation. So to prosper in a fast-changing online landscape and grow your business, you need to be authentic, helpful and focus on your customers. Then they will focus on you.
This blog originally appears on our sister agency website - twelvetwentyfive.io
