Your audience doesn’t really care about “just the facts” anymore. [Rose-Colored Glasses]

Last week I spoke to a healthcare client whose team wanted to create a new customer experience using digital content. But they felt frustrated.

Five years ago, with the help of some consultants from advertising agencies, they had the idea of ​​launching a digital platform that would allow easy access to facts. All they needed, they figured, was to set up a digital library that could answer any questions existing customers might have.

They would “let the facts speak for themselves” and win the battle for customer loyalty.

: “It did not work.”

You see, facts almost never speak for themselves (they’re so shy). And they almost never win an argument.

Think of the last time you presented a set of facts that you thought would support your argument. Boom. You dropped the microphone and the knowledge bombs. you won, right?

nope Presenting facts does nothing to correct an erroneous belief, and it usually causes your opponents to double down on their belief.

A group of researchers actually studied this so-called “backfire effect” and found that correcting someone “actually increases [emphasis mine] Misunderstandings in the group concerned.”

The backfire effect suggests that correcting someone actually reinforces misperceptions in that group, according to #research by @UMich and @GeorgiaStateU via @Robert_Rose @CMIContent. Click here to tweet

In a big data, deep fake world, we have more “facts” than ever before. The question is: Does anyone care what we have to say?

A few years ago, researchers in Wharton showed people different algorithms. Most study participants found them interesting and valuable—until an algorithm made a mistake. Once people saw the bug appear, it was “very, very unlikely that they would use it and they didn’t like it anymore”. Study participants seemed to judge algorithms more strictly than humans, one researcher noted.

But when these people had input into the algorithm or were allowed to adjust the predictions, not only did they like the algorithm better, they didn’t lose nearly as much confidence when an error occurred.

These results bode well that the role of human engagement persists in an increasingly automated world. But it also speaks volumes about how delicate faith and trust are.

So the content question in 2022 is not about how to present “just the facts”. The question is how to get people to care about any facts. And this is not just a marketing question. It’s a basic communication issue.

Facts are increasingly becoming commodities. They’re easy to get to, so we don’t value them. And because we don’t value them, they can be ambushed with… well… “alternative facts.”

Facts are easy to come by, so readers don’t appreciate them, says @Robert_Rose of @CMIContent. Click here to tweet

As I told my healthcare client, companies need to give people something to believe in (to quote the classic Poison song). You have to give the audience more than just facts that interest them.

If you don’t, you risk recreating a version of this scene from The Simpsons TV series: Lisa is sad because one of her favorite teachers is gone. Her father Homer doesn’t understand why. “I knew you wouldn’t understand,” she says. “Hey,” says Homer, “just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t get it.”

Ultimately, with any piece of content, you should ask, “Do we want people to care?”

If not, it’s no problem to rely on the cold company template and “let the facts speak for themselves”. If you want people to care about you, you better give people more than content to believe in. Better give them content they can believe in in – even if it means you have to try harder.

Creating faith is about understanding intent

So how do you start creating content that goes beyond simple fact-based research, data and information?

Go back to that argument you had on social media or with that co-worker or boss who never seems to “get it”. Think about the customers you want to convince to buy from you or advocate for you.

You will never win these battles with facts – you have to understand why they argue, search or decide. You have to understand their intention.

To understand intent, you must first create mechanisms—content-driven experiences—that allow your brand to more effectively listen to the signals generated by their interactions.

Build #content-driven experiences to understand audience intent and listen to signals generated by the interactions, says @Robert_Rose of @CMIContent. Click here to tweet

As you might expect, this requires more effective use of data than is likely available to most organizations. A thorough content strategy is required to provide data that helps the business understand the nature and purpose of each piece of content and how it is contextually applied to each step of the customer journey.

What does this content strategy look like?

In my research and consulting practice, I have seen how marketing organizations have created a self-empowerment process to achieve this skill level. It usually involves a three-step process:

1. Set up the data house

Make a dictionary or interpretation to understand the intent. Simply put, you need to identify the most appropriate response to the customer’s interaction with your content.

This is where a metadata structure and content tagging system come in to track behavioral context (or intent). For example, a white paper titled Discover How Digital Marketing Is A Good Thing For Your Business might be tagged with “Beginner” or “Learn” intent. Someone who consumes this white paper will NOT be considered a lead but will be nurtured as an engaged audience.

2. Develop the best next skill

Once you have an intent signal, you need to understand what the “best thing next” is so that that customer understands and is interested in the answer.

Businesses need to create content-driven experiences to provide content consumers with a “Best Next” experience. For example, this targeted message to the beginner or learning audience should make them want to read an article with instructions on how to change.

That’s oversimplifying, of course, but you can see how many nuances need to be captured with more than just answers to one question. Through additional content consumption, a poll, or a poll, you can find out if this beginner is confident or anxious about change. By learning about the nuanced aspects of the customer journey, you can automatically provide that customer with the best next experience.

Likewise, it’s not just about technology and dynamic content. It also has a human component. You may share this information with others who may provide additional experiences that are outside the realm of digital content. For example, you could share insights into the prospect’s behavior with sales. Once sales understand what the prospect needs, their role can evolve from a persuader to an advisor, helping the prospect find the best path to the next step.

3. Connect the experiences

This step provides the greatest insight. Once you map your content to understand what you need to deliver based on intent, you need to develop the ability to aggregate that data and deliver the content (and intent) contextually across the different experiences. You need to find a way to connect the experiences into a unique view of the audience’s progress on their journey.

For example, when the beginner persona eventually buys your services, you might want to connect their profile to the onboarding or training module of a series of Level 101 training courses. The insights from a statistically more relevant data set improve these activities or make them possible in the first place.

This third step is possibly the most difficult part of the process, as it often involves integrating multiple technologies to create a unified view of the customer.

But you can start small. Even if you can just connect the intended upper/beginning part of the journey (awareness) with the middle part of the journey (sale), you’re already getting much better.

It’s the content, not the data, that people care about

Data gives you the power to get people interested in what you have to say. To go beyond “answers,” you need to create compelling content that integrates those answers (facts, numbers, data, information) into compelling experiences that engage the audience’s feelings.

A common marketing misconception is that buyers want factual answers about the products and services they are considering.

It is not true. In most cases, the brand that provides the least amount of information, facts, data, etc. about a product and offers the greatest inspiration, conviction and emotional connection will be chosen.

You need to convince customers that they are choosing a brand they can believe in. To do that, you need to give them an experience they believe in.

Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute