You might be worried about getting in (and sticking to) the habit of sharing content consistently. Or maybe you’ve been hiding in your business for a while now and you’re really trying to be more visible and using content to do so. 

It can be so easy to get caught up in the schedule of writing and producing content that you can easily miss something that’s important to increasing your content’s value.

Have you ever thought about the way you start the articles or posts you create to share as part of your content marketing?

What? You might be saying. What does that have to do with anything?

A lot.

Jumping right in

Maybe you launch right into your article outlining your topic and moving swiftly to presenting your perspective or solution. Or maybe you usually start your articles with a personal story that happened to you this week and tying it closely to your topic - like how a chance encounter made you remember how important gratitude is, for example.

It’s so understandable. People are suffering and you have a real way to help them.

The problem with this approach is you set the tone of your article and you might be missing a powerful element to your writing. Empathy.

waiting and listening

Years ago, my husband and I moved into an apartment after just moving back from overseas. We’d bought a bunch of furniture at a secondhand store and had spent the day lugging boxes and awkward pieces up through the narrow stairwell. We hadn’t bought a mattress yet, so that evening we went to Target and got an inflatable mattress. You know the ones, they have a pump and cost, maybe $29.99.

After using the tiny pump to fill the mattress, we collapsed into an achy coma like sleep. Somewhere around 3 in the morning, I woke up. Back hurting, I tried to turn only to realize the mattress had somehow leaked most of the air out overnight.  I was a quarter of an inch from the thinly carpeted floor, my arms floating a bit higher. Ugh.

The next day, bleary eyed, I lugged the box back to Target.

“Is there anything wrong with it?” the team member intoned looking at her computer

“Well, yes…as a matter of fact…” I started in with my story…the furniture, the bone-tiredness, the…

“Here’s the receipt for the refund.” She associate cut me off mid sentence. .

I stood there for a few moments, blinking. She’d never made eye contact, or said anything. I’d gotten my money back but felt disgruntled. I didn’t expect her to apologize for the leak, but a bit of empathy would have been nice.

Your potential clients need the same thing from your content. They need your empathy.

Seeing Your Potential Clients

When your potential clients read your articles (or any of your marketing materials, for that matter) they need to feel as if you see them first. That you understand what it is they are struggling with and how those issues make them feel, behave, or be.

That’s important to establish before you go into solving the issue or even before providing a fresh perspective. If you jump right into the solution, you could end up solving the problem, you run the risk of alienating your reader. Making her feel like how I felt returning the air mattress to Target.

So how, exactly, can you create that sensation in your marketing? After all, you aren’t there in person.

If you were, you’d convey seeing and empathy through all sort of verbal and nonverbal communication and cues. You’d nod, affirm your listening, interject with emotion, you might even reach across the table and hold their hand. All of those things translate into you seeing the person, hearing them.

But how do you convey that in an online world? One that’s virtual and the communication is one directional?  

Creating An Empathetic Connection

One of the most powerful ways to do that is to share stories and examples in your copy that are told from the point of view of your ideal clients.  

You can do this by telling a story from your own past that closely resembles something your potential clients are facing. Telling the story, not in a great, long drawn out way, is a way to demonstrate you’ve been inside that exact moment in time where they might be experiencing the same things you did, or something really similar. It makes them feel as if you understand them.

Another way is to share examples (made anonymous and with permission) from real clients. And you tell the story through their eyes. You bring in details of what and how they may have been struggling and through that level of care in the telling of their story, your reader can feel as if you see her, that you empathize with her.

If you have a tendency to jump right into the perspective or potential solution sharing in your articles without letting your readers feel seen or heard, you may be missing an important way to connect with them and have them see your content as valuable. Creating connection by using stories and examples lets your readers know you understand them. It lets them feel witnessed and validated, and it creates an opening for them to better appreciate and hear the help you’re able to offer.

Find four more steps to making your content valuable to your ideal clients in my upcoming free eBook. Sign up to my mailing list to get it when it’s released. You’ll receive my weekly blog posts, along with other tips, information, programs and inspiration. If you no longer find the content useful, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Photo by Rob Pumphrey on Unsplash