Relationships are tough. Just ask any couple and they’ll tell you maintaining long-term, mutually fulfilling relationships takes work. The same is true of the relationships content marketers build with their customers and prospects. Too often, content strategies get stale and predictable resulting in a failed relationship. With so much competition for attention and content, today’s content creators and strategists must figure out ways to keep the romance alive. If you’re looking to spice up your content marketing relationships, consider these ideas.

Reignite the fire
To ensure that your customer is in it for the long haul, get reacquainted. Only by truly understanding who your customers are—their interests, their behaviors, their preferences—can you craft content strategies that are personalized and targeted. To do so means going beyond typical behavior metrics and digging deeper into content personas in order to create content that is catered to customers specifically based on what they need at the moment and using the device of their choosing. It’s not enough to know that a customer likes to engage on Facebook but rather what types of posts resonate the most? Also, keep in mind that what interested your customer five years ago when you initiated the relationships may not be the case today. People change and so does the content they are interested in, the channels they prefer to engage in and the devices on which they consume content. Content marketers need to be in constant curiosity mode when it comes to their customers.

Keep on courting

In successful relationships, the courtship never ends. Brands need to constantly court their customers by demonstrating their interest in their customers lives and interests. That means putting the customers’ needs first and not using every content opportunity to talk about yourself. That means getting friendly with your customers or prospects in ways they are not used. Content marketers that make the time to appear to customers’ interests that sit outside their brand’s traditional business scope will ensure they will get past that first date. For example, pop culture events like the upcoming Summer Olympics or Oscar award show provide opportunities to prove that you not only understand them but actually share common interests. Focus less on products or services and more on selling brand attributes and values, more on storytelling and less on selling.

Lighten up

If your target audience is no longer really into you, it might be time to lighten up. Don’t take yourself so seriously and toss in some well-crafted humor and fun into your content strategies. Shareable content like memes, infographics and short-form videos provide great opportunities to infuse some fun in your content. Or, think outside the fun zone as Market did when it released the 33-page “The Big Marketing Activity Coloring Book.”Users could download a PDF of the coloring book or receive a physical copy of the book (complete with its very own box of crayons) in the mail when they shared a link and getting 5 others to download the eBook. They key is to understand what would amuse your audience and deliver it in engaging ways.

Keep it fresh

When it comes to content that engages, experimenting with new channels and formats can create a much needed element of surprise for your audience. For instance, many brands are incorporating custom emojis into their content strategies. Digiday reported that last year alone, 250 brands created their own emoji keyboards. Chevrolet wrote a press release in emojis, Burger King rolled out a chick-themed emoji keyboard and Coca-Cola, Star Wars, Dove and Toyota all have custom emojis on Twitter. To promote its #EmojiScience campaign, GE tied its emojis to science experiments while L’Oreal took the next step by creating branded frames instead of emojis on picture editing apps.

Ensure it’s love at first site

If you want to keep the content love alive, don’t neglect your website. Make sure your site has fresh content that delivers on the promise of unique, interactive experiences. Is your site delivering a personalized experience to visitors based on their interests and needs? Have you refreshed key landing pages recently? Does your site’s content offer a variety of content formats (short-term, long-form, text, video, infographics, etc.) to meet the multiple needs of your target audiences? Are you utilizing traditionally mundane areas of you site such as “About”, “Contact Us” and other areas to infuse some uniqueness and reinforce your brand’s voice.

Maintaining long-term relationships with customers through engaging content takes time and effort on an ongoing basis.  Dig deep to understand your customers, their content needs, their interests and behaviors.  Only then can you craft content that continually engages, surprises, converts and succeeds.

What other methods do you use to keep long-term customers engaged? Share your thoughts here.