When you think about content, what do you think of? Long blog posts with tons of information? Videos that are ten minutes long and ask the viewer to watch for an hour or more?

If so, it’s time to rethink your strategy.

The best content has one goal in mind: getting your audience thinking long after they finish reading, seeing, or hearing it. This is sticky content. And this article will teach you how to make your own sticky content!

1. Use a headline that makes people want to click on your content.

The most important thing is the original headline or “hook.” If your headline isn’t catchy, it’s unlikely that you’ll get many people to read the rest of the content.

There’s a reason email writers live and die by their subject lines! Some popular ways to “hack” email subject lines are:

1. plays on song lyrics or movie titles
2. rewriting famous slogans or headlines with your own theme
3. humor (yeah, I need to work on that one)
4. bold statements
5. references anything from Schitt’s Creek (see #1 and #3)
6. curiosity, by far the most common I see

2. Create an enticing intro paragraph

The intro paragrah grabs the reader’s attention and sets up the article for them. (In a social media post you’ll want to combine this with the “hook” or headline.)

The intro paragraph can be tricky. You don’t want to give away the whole article in one post–that’s no fun for your reader! And if you don’t grab their attention right away, they’ll scroll past and miss out on all of your amazing writing.

One of the best ways to combat this?

Be bold. Inject your personality. That leads us to…

3. Make it personal 

Sticky content depends on knowing your best person really, really well and if you’re able to stick to the trifecta, it’ll be successful (brand, offer, and best client).

Your brand depends on a few things: your personality, your core values, and the experience you bring to the table.

Then, your offer: What can your clients get out of working with you? What is the promise you make to your clients?

All of this leads to your best client. 

Sticky content depends on knowing where you, your offer, and your best client meet, and for that you need to know your best client in and out.

Strength in marketing really just depends on three things:

1. Knowing what you’re really good at
2. Being so good at it, you can’t NOT help others with it
3. And finally, learning how to talk about it…

Knowing what you’re really good at comes from know who you are, mixing those three elements together.

Being good at it comes from experience.

And learning to talk about it comes from knowing your best client inside and outside. Who is that person that you can not only help but help so well that the work feels more effortless?

You define this so you can accomplish the fourth step–the most important–in creating sticky content.

4. Get them to think differently about their problem

The best content has one goal in mind: getting your audience thinking long after they finish reading, seeing, or hearing it. If you do nothing else, do this!

Here are a few questions to get you started:

• What does your best client need to hear to help them think differently about their problem?
• How can you start that thinking change so that you naturally become part of the solution?
• How can you meet them where they are at, so your solution can even become part of their world?

The curse of the expert is that we think everyone else is good at the same things we are good at. They’re not! There’s a reason they’re following you, looking you up, ingesting your content.

If you’re going to sell a product that solves a Level 5 problem and your audience is mostly filled with Level 2 people – that is, they’re problem aware but only just thinking about searching for a solution and they’ve got a lot of growing to do – then you need to put out content that:

• Acknowledges where they’re at
• Shows you were also there, not so long ago
• Gives them a quick win and progression to Level 3, maybe even 4
• Shows them that Level 5 (and beyond) are now attainable and not so far off where they’re at right now
• Demonstrates the value of being at Level 5.

You already have your visitor’s attention. Now you can build trust to make a sale.

A simple content system allows you to do all of this consistently.

A robust content strategy will cover all of this.

And finally, sticky content, what you’re actually sharing, will capture and keep those eyes on you.

Next Steps:

• Download the Content Cheat Sheet to see if you’re making content mistakes that are turning away your audience
• Need guidance mapping out your content strategy? Let’s set up a Biz GPS Intensive and map it out for you!