There’s a little bit of magic that goes into bringing people back to your website over and over again. Your association’s website should be a valuable resource for members and should promote your profession or industry. It should consistently produce content to renew its continual value. But how can you achieve this retention on your website? Retentive web content all goes back to some basic rules of content marketing: audience, frequency, and action.

Audience

Whether your content is video oriented or blog oriented, it’s imperative to pick a target audience and cater to them. Do not try to appeal to everyone, or no one will be interested. As an association, your niche audience is clearly your membership, but you can take this a little bit further.

First, ask yourself what the goal of your content will be. Are you trying to attract a younger generation of professionals in your industry to grow your membership? If so, what kind of content best attracts that audience? If you’re not sure, ask! Poll your members on what they’d like to see. Everyone is interested in consuming some sort of content, it’s just a game of figuring out what for who.

Once you determine who your content is for and what medium you will use, you need to find your message. Here are three types of messaging that most content is built on:

  • Hero: inspiring, high level idealistic content. This type of content encompasses an idea more than addressing anything concrete.
  • Hub: smaller bits of content that focus on concrete experiences and ideas.
  • Help: this content often has an instructional focus. It’s most often based around ‘how-to’.

Frequency

Be consistent with your content. For example, if you’re starting a blog, post monthly at the very least. Include images and graphics to set your content apart from others’ and your own. Don’t be afraid to repurpose old content and reuse it elsewhere. If your established blog produces content relevant to cyclical events from year to year, it may be useful to revisit posts from past years and consider how you can update that content to be used again.

With a regular content schedule, you have more opportunities to measure your success. Establish a few goals and pick some factors to measure. You can monitor your reach, impressions, engagements, and link clicks on social media. Depending on the content medium, you can watch email subscribers or video views and completion rate.

Action

The thing that sets great content apart is an ask – a call to action. What do you want from your audience? This action is the most important part of creating your content and should drive whatever form this content should take.

For example, if you are encouraging young professionals to follow a certain path that leads to your association’s industry, a blog advertising the benefits of that career path would generate interest and drive the audience to further explore your website. First and foremost, make your call to action very clear. If the desired action is to get the reader to become a member, provide a link to apply. If you are trying to get members to sign up for your weekly newsletter, include section for them to sign up and encourage them to do so.

A more challenging call to action involves an appeal to emotion. The goal of your article may just be to make the audience feel a certain way. This can often be achieved with an inspirational anecdote or providing a sense of urgency. Strong visuals are also an effective tool for emotional marketing.

Personable Personality

Overall, the best way to set your content apart is to be personable. The content media world is oversaturated by innumerable entities, all doing something different. Be unique by being yourself. There is only one you – and that’s the single most unique aspect to your content. With these tools, you should be able to breathe life into your association’s website with consistent, engaging content that regularly brings members back for more.