Content is king. You probably heard that expression several times over the past few years as companies sought relevancy through blog and social media posts that sought to engage prospects and build relationships with existing clients and customers. You might be wondering if the adage is still true in 2021, considering how much content is available these days. The short answer is yes. A content marketing strategy is still important to your spa or massage practice. But not any content will do. Posting photos of cats “giving massage” might get likes (even loves), but cute photos won’t necessarily get clients to engage. Engagement means building a relationship that is a two-way street. When you engage with clients, they provide information that helps you better understand their needs.
Review your content strategy
If you aren’t getting the likes, shares and comments you want, you’ll want to review your content strategy. Here are some things to keep in mind about ensuring a winning content marketing strategy.
Connect on an emotional level: While you want your content to be interesting, you also want to aim for content that makes your audience connect emotionally. An article about CBD as an in-demand ingredient for massage should be of interest to your readers. But how about using a real-life situation of a client with a shoulder injury who now is finding enhanced relief in CBD massage?
Interact with your audience: Get your audience involved with your content. Ask a question, conduct a poll or survey, or run a contest or game. Create a series of did you know” posts focused on industry stats, information on product ingredients, treatment recommendations or more. In all cases, ask for feedback. The more you interact with your audience, the more inclined they are to keep engaging with you.
Keep style simple: If you want to engage with your audience, get to the point and use language they can relate to. Don’t try to impress them with technical or trendy terms they may not be familiar with. Keep your sentences short and to the point and aim for active not passive voice. Your style should encourage action and engagement. You’re not writing a term or scientific paper.
Multimedia is memorable: Add images, videos, graphs or video content to your text. Visuals provide a more memorable experience. Also, visuals can break up massive chunks of text, which helps to hold the attention of your audience better. Large chunks of text can be boring or frustrating to the reader.
Use quotations: Tie in famous quotations for holidays or special events. Use quotes from other clients and industry representatives. Quotes are very helpful for keeping readers interested in content, especially in longer articles.
Be a reliable resource: It’s pretty challenging to keep up with the volume of news available online so it stands to reason some of your fans may miss important updates as it relates to what’s happening in the world of massage and spas. Set your Google Alerts or other news monitoring tools to subjects you know your followers would find of interest and build posts around them, including your own perspective.
Include call to action: A call to action (CTA) tells your audience what their next step should be, so in this way, they encourage more engagement. CTAs also get people from your social channel to your website to check out your services and treatments and to book an appointment online, if you enable online booking or call. You also can use a call to action to get clients and prospects to sign up for your newsletter, if you have one, or receive email marketing updates on promotions and sales.
Review your content and see if it meets these criteria. Make changes where necessary to keep the engagement strong and ongoing with your audience.