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Yes, it is possible to train your content creators to create viral content.

If you're in the process of creating content but aren't getting the numbers you're looking for, we know exactly what's wrong.

• You don't know your customer avatar well enough
• You're not creating content for the right parts of the customer value journey
• They don't know the difference between a viral article and an average article

Erin MacPherson, General Manager of DigitalMarketer, knows what it takes to drive traffic and conversions. Even if it looks like you're starting out with the content, we're going to take a step back first.

First, we need to know who your content is intended for.

After that, we'll make sure you're creating the right content based on where your customers read it in the customer value journey.

Finally, we can train our content creators to create viral content.

As much as you want to go ahead and figure out how to make your content viral, that's a bad idea. If you don't know who your content is for, or if you are displaying the right content at certain points in the customer journey, you won't go viral.

We know it is tempting to go straight to the last section of this article, but trust us. You will save time, money, and resources by making sure your content is viral by following the first two steps first.

Who is going to make your content go viral?

The aim is for your content to go viral with your customer avatar. This means they have to be created in order to use them. In Erin's workshop, she explains that knowing who your customer is must be the first part of your content strategy.

And that can take some time. It can take you a full day to sit down with your team to capture the details of your client avatar. We use the Customer Avatar worksheet to get as much detail as possible about our customer avatar.

We want our content to relate to them more than any competitions, and we do this by knowing them better. This is what the customer avatar worksheet looks like:

Note that we went much further than saying what challenges do our customers face that we solve? That's just the tip of the iceberg. We also need to know:

• What are their pain points?
• What are their values?
• What are your goals?
• Why should you refuse to buy our products?
• Can they choose to buy our products or do they have to get someone else's permission first?
• What books have you read that we can refer to in our content?
• What podcasts can we mention that they are familiar with?
• Who are you inspired by?

Then we will learn more about them. We want to turn the customer avatar worksheet into a real person. That's why we give them a name. We find out if they are single or married, where they live, what their job title is, how much they earn and much more.

We don't take it easy to get to know our customer avatar lightly. And neither should you. When we know who our customer avatar is so good, we can create content that they actually like (AND get conversions).

The key to achieving the desired conversion is to create certain types of content at certain points in the customer value journey. Let's explain.

Do you meet them where they are on the buying journey?

We use the customer avatar worksheet to find out who our customer is so that we are reminded that they are real people. This means that our relationship with them must grow like a normal relationship. We don't want to ask an avatar who just found our blog to buy our highest priced product right away. We want to help them know, like, and trust us enough to make the decision down the line – and not put them off by asking about something this big at the beginning of our relationship.

We use the customer value journey for this. The CVJ helps us find out what content needs to be created at certain points on the buying journey. Someone who has just become aware of our brand has to see very different content than someone who has already bought our products and is now turning into a brand ambassador.

The Customer Value Journey is an 8-step journey that customers go through when they become aware of your brand and ultimately become avid fans who they promote for you. This is how it looks:

Here are the different types of content Erin created for your client avatar in her workshop.

Content to make customer avatars aware of your brand:

This content was created to make people aware of your company or initiative. In general, you want a lot of this content to be published regularly so you can meet as many potential customers as possible. Select TWO areas online to create your content when you first start based on where your customer avatar spends their time. For example, create content for Twitter and Instagram and add more spaces as needed.

Examples of this content are:

• Instagram stories
• Facebook memes
• Short blog posts
• Humor posts or videos

Content that customer avatars can use to engage with your brand:

This is the content specifically created to get your audience engaged with your brand. It is more detailed than the content you saw in the awareness phase of the YMCA or offers more value (like a competition or giveaway).

Examples of this content are:

• Long form articles
• Videos
• Infographics
• Competitions
• Giveaways

Content to get your target audience to subscribe:

This content entices your audience to share their email address with you in order to subscribe to more. The goal of this content is to get your audience to think: "Wow, I can't believe I can get this for free."

Examples of this content are:

• Lead magnet
• Tools
• Discount code
• Case studies
• rehearse
• White lists

Content that will turn subscribers into customers:

This type of content has one goal: to keep the conversion going. Even sales pages count as this type of content as it generates conversions. This content should go into more detail about your product and what you do as a business, and show your subscribers what to expect when they become customers.

Examples of this content are:

• Lookbook
• calculator
• Sales comparison page
• Webinar

Content to inspire customers:

The excitement phase of the CVJ is designed to excite your customers before you move them on to the next phase. The goal is to create hype about what it is like to be your customer. So when you show him the next level of content, they'll be ready to shop with you again.

Examples of this content are:

• Challenges
• Reveal video
• Mini magazine

Content that makes you "move up" to purchase more or higher tier products:

In this phase of the YVC, you transform one-time buyers or buyers of lower products into repeat buyers or buyers of higher products. At this moment, you are really cementing your relationship with these customers and wanting your content to be really impressive.

Examples of this content are:

Content that motivates you to stand up for your brand:

The purpose of this content is to get your satisfied customers to share their excitement. At this point you want to make them particularly happy with their experience with your company.

Examples of this content are:

• Surprise and joy
• Upsells
• Renewal for a free trial

Erin suggests spending at least a day looking at the customer value journey and figuring out where your content fits. After that, you're finally ready to go viral (and make sure your team is on board). This is a great way to train your content creators to create viral content.

How do you get your content to go viral?

Ahh, the moment you've been waiting for. Now that we know for sure who your customer avatar is and what content you need to display it based on where it is on the buying journey, we can finally get it viral.

Viral content is an incredible boost for your brand. We want you to stop being lucky and develop strategies on how to achieve that virality. After helping Elmer & # 39; s Glue and Clorox go viral, Erin MacPherson figured out the secret sauce that makes content stick.

The secret?

Study other viral content.

On Erin's desk are printed articles from the most viral articles of the past year. They have highlights, comments, and underlines all over the place and have been dissected to find out what patterns are in this viral content. As what goes viral is constantly changing, Erin figured out a way to ensure that DigitalMarketer content creators are always creating content that actually has the potential to go viral.

She did this with 2 training exercises.

Training exercise # 1:

1. Select 8 viral articles to study with your content team
2. Have the team read it through for stickiness, not content, and comment on what makes this article so good
3. Discuss any comments

The items you choose for this training exercise don't have to be in your niche. What you're looking for is the items that appear in views, not the ones that are also relevant to your products. When we study viral articles, we look at articles about design and even heroic stories of people saving each other during natural disasters. They rarely contain much content about marketing.

Branch out of your niche to see what is viral in general. Here's a great way to find out how to get that specific niche when you sit down to create your content.

Training exercise # 2:

1. Google is a common term like "marketing tips" or "internal communications".
2. Start with the best results on Google and set a timer for 30 seconds to read each article
3. Once the timer runs out, write down whether you want to continue reading the article or move on to the next one
4. If you want to keep reading, analyze this article as to why you want to keep reading

This is a great way to find out which titles, introductions, and graphics got you reading on. Since you don't have much time to dive into the article in 30 seconds, you'll learn a lot about what makes a great article title, how to create captivating hooks, and why your graphics need updated, simplified, or something else. You can also learn a lot from the articles that didn't get you to read on. You were missing something, what was it (and how can you make sure you always avoid it)?

As much as we'd love to give you the blueprint for virality, it's nearly impossible. For example, pets are a great way to go viral right now. By adding your pets to your Awareness Stage content, we've found that we can get more views than average. However, we cannot say that this will work in 6 months.

When we see a huge drop in our virality, we return to the drawing board and take a fresh look at what is viral these days.

We love that the answer to virality doesn't spend thousands of dollars on ads. It's about knowing who your customer is, at what point in your relationship with them that content is reaching them, and using what has made other articles viral for your benefit.

As tempting as it is to have a team meeting to discuss viral articles, all in the name of fighting viruses faster to have to do the work of understanding your client avatar and at what point in the YVC you are viewing that content.

In that case, you can do a full investigation of what's viral now and how to do a home run for your marketing team.