Did you know that content marketing is expected to have a 16% year-of-year growth for 2021-2025?
Yes, you read it right. This means that content writing is not going anywhere. Actually, it’s even more important than ever in the marketing strategy of companies and marketers.
With 600 million blogs and 82% of traffic coming from YouTube videos, content marketing has won the mainstream audience’s heart. Consequently, more and more companies have set up a content marketing strategy to answer their audience’s needs and show their expertise.
Nevertheless, if you’re a beginner, you may feel overwhelmed in creating content. You may even think that the content you’ve written is not performing the way it should. If this is your case, this article will guide you. After the 4P approach of copywriting, I am presenting you the 4C approach to improve your content writing.
What is content writing?
Besides copywriting, companies and marketers publish content that doesn’t sell anything. Instead, this content will provide useful information that will help the reader. Moreover, it will solve their audience’s problems and generate interest in their products and services.
And this is where content writing intervenes.
What are the main types of content writing that you may encounter?
Do you think that content writing only concerns your own blog posts? In that case, you are wrong.
Because content writing encompasses many types of written medium aiming at helping their readers and raise their interest. Here are some examples of content writing:
- social media posts
- guest posts on other people’s blogs
- web pages
- press releases
- reports, checklists, and FAQs
- e-books and free guides
- YouTube videos
- snack content (e.g. TikTok videos)
- and more!
What is the goal of content writing?
Content writing has several goals:
- attract the attention of potential customers to your products/services
- make your audience aware of problems they may be struggling with, and introduce your product/services as the solution
- get your potential customers to know your business
- showcase your expertise to your readers
To sum up, content writing doesn’t sell but it’s a major part of any company’s marketing strategy. However, the main challenge for companies and marketers is to produce high-quality content that will mesmerize their audience. Fortunately, there’s an infaillible approach to improve your content: the 4C. Let’s examine what this approach looks like!
The 4C Approach to improve your content in a minute
Indeed, like copywriting, content writing must persuade the readers. However, when copywriting must persuade the reader to take a specific action, content writing prepares the reader for your offer.
You must give away useful and precious information to your readers so that they will be interested in your product in the end.
That’s why the 4C approach will help you to write any content you need:
- Capture
- Claim
- Convince
- Close
Capture
Your readers are busy and are sought after by many of your competitors. Moreover, according to research carried out by Sitecore Product Marketing Director in 2021, 47% of consumers experienced digital fatigue. This leads them to seek downtime from the Internet.
Consequently, you need to stand out from the crowd. How? By capturing the attention of your readers.
You can do this by using several techniques:
- use a startling statement
- start your content with a short phrase or an opener that doesn’t finish a thought – stir your reader’s curiosity!
- open your content with a quote, especially when it is not very well-known
- use a surprising or impressive statistic related to your topic
Claim
Have you got your reader’s attention? Fine! Now, you must hold onto it – and that’s the role of the claim.
The Claim is what your content is just about. Thus, you tell your readers what you will address in the rest of your content.
The Capture and the Claim will be part of your introduction. However, the Claim is more important because it generates interest in your topic and promises useful and valuable information to your audience.
Convince
Actually, the Convince phase is the body of your content. You are convincing your reader to agree with you on the topic you address. To do so, you can change your audience’s way of thinking or persuade them to take new action.
You can convince your reader with the following ways:
- building a logical argument to get approvals for a new idea
- sharing lists
- telling stories and relate them to your Claim
- giving the steps to properly accomplish a task
Writing a long-form content (e.g. an e-book) will require you to use all these techniques. However, for shorter content forms (such as 500 to 1,500-word articles), you might just use one or two of these techniques.
And don’t forget to back up your statements…
Moreover, to convince your reader, you must back up your statement with proof. Otherwise, your content won’t help you to build trust and credibility.
You can prove any of your statements in your content with these three simple ways:
- statistics from a reputable source
- quotes from renowned experts
- case studies or stories from real life
Does this sound like the Proof of the 4P approach in copywriting? Yes, it does. And you’ll be right to assume that because content rating also needs to persuade your readers to be interested in your products/services.
Close
Now that your clients are interested in your content, what do you do? Most content writers just fizzle out after delivering the promise they introduced in the Claim stage. But you don’t have to be like that. Consequently, the Close stage is very important, since it’s one of the most difficult to achieve in content writing.
Therefore, you must know what you want before choosing the appropriate closure. Do you want your reader to follow you on social media? Do you want them to be interested in your products? Or something else? Once your goals are clear, your closure will come up easily.
Some other rules to improve your content writing
Have a conversational style
Your content must be read like you have a chat with your friends. This will not be applicable if you work with B2B companies, though.
Break grammatical rules
Do you remember when you were told to always respect grammatical rules in your essays? Well, in content writing, you’ll put this recommendation behind you. Because you’ll use lots of contractions and short sentences…begin your sentences with “but” or “and”…or end your sentences with prepositions.
In addition, please note that I didn’t say that you mustn’t write proper English. Nevertheless, you must write just like you talk everyday – hence the conversational style in written form.
Focus on the readability of your content
Keep your sentences short and don’t use big words, unless you work on technical content. Your content must be accessible to everyone, even to an elementary school pupil.
Ready to improve your content writing? Contact me!
Do you want to take your content writing to the next level? Then, I am your go-to content writer! From blogs to e-books, I have significant experience to help improve your content writing. Therefore, I’ll be able to help to reach your marketing goals. If you are interested in my content writing skills, feel free to contact me.
As we all know in this business that content is key and that is why millions of people are on the internet each day seeking to find the solution that the content has to their issues. Therefore it is so important to know which content to write for what audience and how to package that content because this is the only way that we will be able to engage with our readers. As content creators, we can all use some help no matter how long we have been in this business. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome Norman!
Thank you for sharing how to improve content writing with the 4C approach!
As we all know, content is king in this industry, which is why millions of individuals use the internet every day to look for answers to their problems.
Since this is the only method we can interact with our readers, it is crucial to understand which content to create for which demographic and how to package it.
No matter how long we have been in the industry as content producers, we could all use some assistance.
I appreciate you sharing.
You’re welcome!
Wow, thanks for such an interesting post! I enjoy researching and creating content for my website. I imagine there’s room for improvement and your site looks like it has a lot of good tips and advice to offer. I will certainly bookmark and do some browsing around. Yes, I agree content writing is vital for growth and is only becoming more popular as a marketing strategy. I enjoyed reading about the 4 C’s in your content. Very useful information. Thank You!
Wow, thanks for such an interesting post! I enjoy researching and creating content for my website. I imagine there’s room for improvement and your site looks like it has a lot of good tips and advice to offer. I will certainly bookmark and do some browsing around. Yes, I agree content writing is vital for growth and is only becoming more popular as a marketing strategy. I enjoyed reading about the 4 C’s in your content. Very useful information. Thank You!
You’re welcome Serena!
Content writing has its own rules and dynamics. Just because someone can write does not mean they are strong at content writing. Or they may be strong at some points, yet not others.
In my opinion, convince and close are the 2 of the most important yet 2 of the hardest to do. You certainly need the other 2 , capture and claim to pre-empt the conclusion but I feel quite often it is the latter 2 that needs work.
In saying that, taking time out to do training on this is extremely important. Also I have to remind myself to keep my sentences short and my words shorter.
Have you ever used “ barefoot writer” yourself and what could I expect from them.
Thanks
Stephen
Yes I’ve used Barefoot Writer myself, with great success. You’ll have all the elements you need to live with freelance writing.
Your article on copywriting is well read and understandable. Quality content is the key to our success in make money online journey when it is well constructed and engaging to the reader.
A lot of articles are written everyday in the online world and an affiliate marketer or a blogger has to crack his or her brains to come up with an engaging content to a particular keyword chosen around his or her niche which may take him hours or even days trying to write these articles or content.
My question is , are there copywriting tools that can aid us humans to come up with engaging articles as well?
Yes, you do have AI tools to help you with content. However, I am quite old-school…I don’t believe that the machine can ever replace raw human emotions
I have been write for years creating blogs on all types of niches and this approach to copywriting is by far the most precise and concise method to ensure you maintain the attention of your readers.
Perhaps the biggest problems beginner content marketers have is not having a template or strategy. They focus on just writing or maybe not even keywords and then a few paragraphs in they get writers block.
Following the template outlined in this article will help content marketers beginner and seasoned write quality content that will keep their readers coming back for more.
thanks!
I agree with you; content writing is not going anywhere. The recent increase in video content monetization makes it looks like videos will take the stage. But the reverse is the case; content writing is going to improve. Writers should horn their skills to attract and retain their readers. Thank you for offering to make a difference. We will contact you for help as appropriate
thanks! don’t hesitate to contact me if need be!
I love this post. The 4c approach is a great way to learn how to create interest and capture the reader. We all know content is King but not all content is created equally.
In this post you have broken it down so even a new writer should be able to follow and write great content. You have also produced statistics to help prove your points.
With everyone so busy nowadays it is imperative to capture interest right away. Not only are people on the move quicker they tend to focus less on things than they used to.
So, we have to stand out from the crowd.
Great writing keep up the good work.
thanks Kevin!
As a content creator I am always looking for ways in which to improve my content and assist me in creating better content. As I have not come across the 4C approach to content creation before, I found this post to be fascinating and very helpful .
Quality content is key to getting ranked, and it does seem that if one uses the 4C approach, it can certainly help you. I can see that closure is the final step that I often lack on my blog posts, so will be incorporating it my next.
thanks!
A great article that breaks down the 4C’s and how we can all benefit from knowing and using them.
Totally agree that we need to create content that attracts the reader to start with. Then it’s keeping the reader interested with helping them with their problem.
This is why readers go to the internet to search for information so it should read as though we are talking to a friend. People move on quickly if they don’t understand big words in the content so it much be suitable for everyone to read,
You’re right Louise!
Excellent article on writing blog content. I like the 4C approach. I enjoy the writing part of blogging. I also like the researching part. There is always room for improvement. You offered a lot of good ideas, advice and tips. The way I read articles is to copy them into a Word document and listen with read along speech. This is the way I save what I think are important articles that I want to keep. I am definitely going to keep yours and bookmark your website. Thanks!
thanks carol!
Thanks for breaking down the 4C approach to content writing. You have given some really helpful tips on how to improve your content writing. I really wish I had known how to write for my audience when I first started content marketing a few years ago. When I look at my very first blog posts, I cringe!! The paragraphs are lengthy, and the style of writing is essay-like, definitely not conversational tone. The good news is, that I have improved my writing and I have since changed a few of my older posts. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect!
Exactly!
This is wonderful advice for someone like me who is a budding blogger. I appreciate the level of information and willingness to share some tips and tricks in content writing and creation. I never really considered myself a great writer, rather I used it more as an outlet of expression. This framework will help me going forward in my own content creation. Thanks for the info!
You’re welcome!