6 Psychology-Backed Hacks to Create Engaging Videos

What do you think makes for an engaging video? I used to think that any video under 10 minutes couldn’t offer real value or be truly engaging. Short videos? Those were for people with short attention spans.

Then, I stumbled upon a four-minute video about productivity hacks. I almost scrolled past it, but something about the thumbnail caught my eye. After watching it, I replayed it, took notes, and shared it with friends.

This puzzled me. How did such a brief video capture my attention? I began noticing that the videos I enjoyed most, regardless of length, had certain qualities.

They started with a hook, told a story, and were visually dynamic. Videos featuring experts or social proof were also more shareable.

I realized that video engagement isn‘t about length — it’s about psychology. And as video marketing continues to evolve, this shift in perspective opened my eyes to the psychology behind creating engaging videos.

I’ll cover these insights in this guide to help you drive more engagement and increase your video’s impact.

1. Spark curiosity.

As I delved into the research on attention and engagement, I discovered something fascinating: curiosity isn‘t just a casual interest — it’s a powerful force that shapes how we process information.

In their study, “Curiosity and the Economics of Attention,” Zachary Wojtowicz and George Loewenstein shed light on this powerful force. As I studied their findings, I was struck by how they captured the mechanisms behind human attention.

They argue that “curiosity, as one of the most significant psychological forces associated with the allocation of attention, plays an increasingly important role in the modern economy.”

But what makes curiosity so potent? According to Wojtowicz and Loewenstein, it‘s all about the brain’s constant quest for sense-making.

“The brain is constantly engaged in simplification and model-building in its quest to process a flood of incoming sensory information into an actionable form,” they explain. This drive for understanding makes curiosity a compelling force in guiding our attention.

I find this next insight particularly compelling because it explains so much about our information-seeking behavior.

Curiosity operates on a dual reward system. The researchers note: “Curiosity likewise features both a carrot and a stick. Prolonged consideration of a difficult riddle can be an excruciating experience, but discovering the answer is often highly pleasurable.”

This push-pull dynamic is what makes curiosity-driven content so engaging.

Through my analysis of this research, I’ve identified three key ways to harness the power of curiosity.

• Craft intriguing titles. Create headlines that hint at valuable information without giving everything away. For example, “Good Isn’t Good Enough: CMO Secrets To Leveling up Your Team | INBOUND 2024” suggests a valuable insight while leaving the specifics tantalizingly out of reach.
• Use the inverted U-curve of novelty. Curiosity intensity follows an inverted U-curve in response to stimulus novelty. Slight exposure piques curiosity, but too much information can satiate it. To maximize curiosity, strike a balance between the familiar and the novel. For example, this “Spread Too Thin” commercial by HubSpot is short and to the point yet leaves much unsaid. It provides just enough information to pique interest without overwhelming the viewer.
• Create strategic information gaps. Pose questions or present partial information that your content will later resolve. This taps into what George Loewenstein calls the “information gap theory of curiosity.”

By implementing these strategies, you‘re not just creating video content — you’re tapping into a fundamental human drive.

As Wojtowicz and Loewenstein‘s study shows, curiosity isn’t just a fleeting emotion; it’s a powerful tool in the economics of attention.

2. Hook your audience.

Capturing and maintaining an engaged audience quickly is crucial. When creating engaging video content, your hook determines whether viewers stay or scroll. Let me show you a perfect example of how this works in practice in the video below.

When I watched this video, I saw several hooks at work that make it highly effective. Let me break them down:

• Emotion trigger. The casual “All right” opening and playful “Boom, nice little happy marriage” create an approachable, positive tone that draws viewers. What fascinated me about this hook is how it creates an instant emotional connection. I’ve noticed that when content balances professionalism with a personality like this, engagement typically increases.
• Relevance. Phrases like “If you’re a business owner or marketer” and “drive traffic and sales” immediately identify the video’s audience and goal. What I find particularly clever is how it then broadens its appeal with “services, software or soy lattes,” showing viewers that this content is relevant regardless of their specific business.
• Immediate value. What strikes me most is how it communicates value. Within just 22 seconds, viewers know exactly what they’ll learn and why it matters to their business.

What I found particularly fascinating about this case was how it validated my theories about psychological hooks in a real-world setting.

Ibis Budget, an international budget hotel chain, created a series of Reels ads for Facebook and Instagram that exemplified these same psychological hooks:

• Visual impact and novelty. They used “thumb-stopping” visuals and unexpected elements, like a hotel “talking back” to a guest, to break through the noise of typical ads.
• Relevance and immediate value. The ads quickly showcased key hotel features (food, bathrooms, beds), immediately demonstrating value to budget-conscious travelers.
• Emotion trigger. By making the content “entertaining” and “relatable,” they tapped into positive emotions and humor.
• Platform-optimized novelty. I’ve noticed that platform-specific content performs significantly better. Ibis Budget proved this by creating content specifically for the Reels format.

The results confirmed what I’ve observed about well-crafted hooks:

• 25% greater reach for campaigns using the Reels placement, compared to usual placements without Reels
• 17% lower cost per booking using the Reels placement, compared to usual placements without Reels

From studying these examples and their results, I‘ve concluded that effective hooks aren’t just about grabbing attention — they‘re about creating an immediate connection between the viewer’s needs and your solution.

Whether you’re creating a simple video introduction or a full marketing campaign, these psychological principles remain consistently powerful.

3. Make it visual.

While studying engagement patterns, I‘ve found that visual elements play a far more crucial role than we realize.

What fascinates me isn’t just their aesthetic appeal, but how fundamentally they align with how our brains process information.

The HubSpot team ran a survey of 328 video marketers in early Q4 which showed the growing importance of visual content.

Similarly, research by Mayer and Moreno on multimedia learning presents a compelling argument for the strategic use of visuals.

The first time I dove into their research, it completely changed how I saw the power of visuals in boosting learning and engagement

Their cognitive theory of multimedia learning argues that “people learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone.” This isn‘t just about preference: it’s about cognitive processing.

Mayer and Moreno explain that our working memory has two channels for information acquisition and processing: a visual channel and an auditory channel.

When we use both channels simultaneously through well-designed visuals and complementary audio, we can significantly enhance learning and engagement.

Here are three critical implications for engagement:

1. Cognitive load management. Visuals help in distributing information processing across both channels, reducing cognitive load and making content easier to digest.
2. Dual coding. When information is presented both visually and verbally, it creates two mental representations, enhancing recall and understanding.
3. Emotional resonance. Visuals have a unique capacity to evoke emotions quickly, fostering a deeper connection with the content.

To leverage these insights, here are some tactics I recommend.

Use Complementary Visuals

When creating a YouTube video or explainer video, ensure your visuals enhance rather than simply repeat your narration.

For example: In an instructional video on time management, rather than just showing a talking head explaining tips, the video could show visualizations of a clock ticking, calendar pages flipping, or a “to-do list” being checked off.

Why it works: These visuals complement the narration by adding context and reinforcing the concept, which can make the abstract idea of “time management” more concrete and relatable for viewers.

Employ Visual Metaphors

I’ve observed that you can also make abstract concepts concrete through carefully choosing visual representations.

For example: If a video discusses “growth in business,” rather than simply stating statistics or facts, visuals like a plant growing or a balloon expanding can represent this growth.

Why it works: Visual metaphors turn abstract ideas (like growth, transformation, or innovation) into something tangible, engaging the viewer’s imagination and helping them form a stronger conceptual connection.

Balance Complexity

Use visuals to simplify complex ideas, but avoid overwhelming viewers with too much visual information at once.

For example: In a video explaining data analytics, show a simplified, animated flowchart rather than a complicated screen full of data points. Visuals can introduce one element at a time, with each step building upon the previous.

Why it works: This gradual progression helps viewers follow the logic without becoming overwhelmed by details. Simplifying complex ideas makes the information digestible and keeps viewers engaged without causing cognitive overload.

These visual strategies help you engage with the audience more effectively, whether you’re creating short-form video content or longer presentations.

Pro tip: I’ve found that there are a lot of tools to help create balanced, professional visuals. For example, with Clip Creator, you can transform a simple text description into a complete video, automatically balancing visual elements through customizable slides and transitions.

The tool handles the complexity of visual arrangement — from font styling and image placement to audio tracks — while letting you maintain creative control.

4. Tell a story.

While researching audience engagement, I discovered that storytelling isn‘t just a nice-to-have — it’s fundamental to how we process information.

When I explored Matthew Dicks’ work in Storyworthy, his assertion that “we are hardwired to tell and listen to stories” resonated deeply with my findings about creating lasting impact with content.

Let me analyze a video that beautifully demonstrates these storytelling principles in action.

What struck me most about this creator’s approach was her masterful blend of personal experience with practical insights.

Here are three key principles I’ve identified for effective storytelling.

Focus on emotion.

I‘ve noticed how the creator’s genuine excitement about business class travel and feature demonstrations creates an authentic emotional resonance. This authenticity consistently outperforms scripted enthusiasm.

Create conflict and resolution.

What I find particularly effective is how the video structures its narrative arc. The creator presents the algorithm challenge, and then methodically walks through five strategic solutions, each supported by real examples.

This clear problem-solution structure keeps viewers invested in the story.

Show transformation through specificity.

The most compelling aspect, from my perspective, is how the creator demonstrates transformation through concrete examples. From specific DM strategies to actual customer testimonials, she shows rather than tells her journey.

5. Leverage social proof.

I first learned about social proof when I noticed how I tend to check reviews before buying anything online.

Social proof, as defined by Robert Cialdini in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, is a psychological principle that encourages people to conform to the actions and beliefs of others, particularly in situations of uncertainty.

When unsure of the best course of action, we instinctively look to others for guidance, assuming that if many people are engaging in a behavior, it is likely correct.

This phenomenon is illustrated by examples like laugh tracks on TV shows, which make viewers more likely to laugh themselves due to the perceived behavior of others. I’ve caught myself laughing more at shows with laugh tracks too, even when I try not to.

Social proof taps into our deep-rooted survival instincts. Throughout human evolution, conforming to group behaviors often led to better outcomes in uncertain situations.

This tendency remains relevant today, as we frequently base our decisions on the behavior of those around us. Cialdini supports this with insights from notable studies:

• Solomon Asch’s conformity experiment: In Asch’s experiment on conformity, individuals often gave incorrect answers to simple questions if they saw others doing the same. This shows how social proof can drive people to align with group behavior, even against their own better judgment.
• Hotel towel experiment: In one of Cialdini’s studies, hotel guests were more likely to reuse towels when they were shown a message indicating that “75% of guests in this hotel reuse their towels.” This simple social proof message increased towel reuse, demonstrating how awareness of others’ actions motivates similar behavior.

Social proof is particularly powerful in conditions of uncertainty and similarity:

• Uncertainty. When you feel unsure about what action to take, you‘re more likely to follow others’ lead. I notice that social proof works especially well when you face complex or unfamiliar situations.
• Similarity. You‘re more likely to follow someone’s lead when you feel they‘re similar to you — whether that’s your situation, needs, or background. For example, when you see testimonials from customers similar to yourself, you connect with their stories more strongly.

When creating engaging videos, use social proof to enhance engagement and build trust.

Here’s how to integrate it.

Customer Testimonials

Featuring real customers sharing positive experiences creates relatable and credible endorsements. Testimonials form a powerful narrative that resonates with potential buyers by providing concrete examples of positive outcomes.

Showcasing a range of testimonials can make the content more inclusive, helping various audience segments identify with the stories shared.

Statistics and Numbers

Highlighting metrics, like user counts or satisfaction rates, provides tangible evidence of value. Visual elements, such as animated numbers showing growth or trends, capture attention and reinforce a message of widespread adoption.

Expert Endorsements

Featuring respected industry figures or influencers amplifies the credibility of social proof. Expert endorsements combine the persuasive power of group trust with the authority of specialized knowledge. Displaying their credentials can further reinforce the value of their endorsement.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

When videos include real social media clips or customer reviews, I find them more believable. It’s like getting recommendations from real people instead of just watching a polished ad.

By thoughtfully integrating these elements of social proof into video content, you can create a persuasive narrative that leverages your audience’s psychological tendencies.

This strategy enhances the credibility and trustworthiness of your message, leading to increased engagement and conversions.

6. Interrupt patterns.

Pattern interruption is a powerful psychological technique that can significantly enhance the impact and memorability of video content.

At its core, it involves breaking expected patterns or routines to capture and maintain the audience’s attention.

In the context of creating engaging videos, pattern interruption serves as a tool to combat viewer fatigue and information overload, ensuring that key messages cut through the noise of constant media consumption.

When we encounter familiar patterns, our brains often switch to autopilot, potentially leading to decreased attention and engagement.

However, when an unexpected element disrupts this pattern, it triggers a surge of attention as our brains scramble to process and understand the new information.

In video content, pattern interruption can take many forms, each designed to jolt viewers out of passive consumption and into active engagement.

Take a look at this video:

When Jamal breaks from instruction to say, “Oh look, memes, that’s what you’re competing against” (3:46), it instantly recaptures attention by acknowledging the viewer’s real-world experience.

We also see this when Jamal breaks from the standard tutorial format with “Often when I log into Facebook, which is every hour on the hour” (0:28) — forcing our brains to shift from learning mode to relate to this admission.

Here are some great ways to incorporate this concept into your videos.

Visual Transitions

Unexpected visual transitions are also one of my favorite methods to recommend.

Shifting from one style to another — say, from live-action footage to animation — refreshes the viewer’s interest and can be strategically used to emphasize key points or mark different sections in the message.

Audio Pattern Interruptions

Audio pattern interruptions work well, too. Sudden changes in music, sound effects, or even narration style can re-engage audiences.

Imagine an important message with the background music cut off abruptly — that audio shift instantly grabs attention and underscores the message. Switching narrators or adding unexpected voice-overs also keeps viewers on their toes.

Playing With Video Structure

I also like how changing a video’s structure can make it memorable.

In the same tutorial video, Jamal uses the “meatball menu” sequence in a playful way. He introduces the horizontal three-dot menu as “the meatball menu” (5:25), then later joking, “Looks good, doesn’t it? Uh, the page, not the meatballs” (5:34).

That kind of running joke ties different elements together, creating something humorous and memorable.

Humor and the Unexpected

Using humor or surprising elements can also serve as effective pattern interruptions. The video demonstrates this through multiple techniques:

• Fourth-wall breaking: “Looking at you, Jeremy” (4:30).
• Self-deprecating humor: “No friend requests need to be engaged, which is good for me ’cause no one has sent me one of those in a while” (0:59).
• Unexpected literary references: “We don’t want to hear the whole soliloquy that you’ve prepared from you know, pyramids and Thisbe” (1:46).

Adding Interactive Elements

Interactive elements represent a cutting-edge approach to pattern interruption in video. By incorporating choose-your-own-adventure style decisions, clickable hotspots, or other interactive features, you can transform passive viewers into active participants.

This level of engagement not only breaks patterns but also creates a personalized viewing experience that can significantly enhance message retention and impact.

When implementing pattern interruption in video, it’s crucial to strike a balance. While interruptions can be highly effective in maintaining engagement, overuse can lead to confusion or frustration.

The key is to use these techniques strategically, ensuring that each interruption serves a purpose in enhancing the overall message or viewing experience.

Transform Ordinary Videos into Must-Watch Content

Understanding these psychological principles has transformed my relationship with engaging video content.

I‘ve discovered why certain YouTube videos captivate me while others don’t, and how masterful creators maintain audience engagement through strategic techniques.

What fascinates me most is spotting these elements in action — from hooks that stop my scroll to pattern interruptions that keep me glued to explainer videos and short-form video content.

These psychology-backed strategies help creators craft engaging videos that truly resonate with their target audience, whether they’re making YouTube videos, explainer videos, or short-form content.

The key takeaway? These psychological principles shape how we absorb and retain information in video content.

Understanding them can help you get the most out of your viewing experience — and reveal how to make videos that keep viewer engagement at a high.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The post How to Make Engaging Videos – 6 Psychology-Backed Hacks appeared first on Marketing & Business News.

Humanizing AI Content – Strategies to Rank, Engage, & Get Shared in 2025

I still remember my first taste of artificial intelligence (AI).It was “SmarterChild,” a chatbot available on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and Windows Live Messenger in the early 2000s that you could have a “conversation” with when your real friends weren’t online.

But honestly, even as a preteen, I could see that it needed a lesson in humanizing AI content.

While SmarterChild could ask how I was and tell jokes, the exchanges felt, well, robotic. It couldn’t learn or remember information over time, and it had trouble navigating human quirks like slang and shorthand. It also seemed to always throw out the same canned phrases, like it was the star in an ‘80s sitcom.

Thankfully, much of this has improved today, but the challenges (and importance) of capturing human candor and understanding remain — especially for marketers.

Let’s unpack how to maintain your human touch while still reaping the benefits of AI content as a marketer.

Table of Contents

• • The Rise of AI Content
  • So, should you use AI content?
  • Why does AI content need humanization?
  • How to Humanize AI Content
  • Free AI Content Humanization Tools

The Rise of AI Content

According to Pew Research, 55% of Americans use AI at least once a day.

It’s running our wearable fitness trackers and curating our Daily Mixes on Spotify. It’s giving us product recommendations on Amazon and sending those pesky emails we never read to the spam folder. And the impact doesn’t stop there.

HubSpot’s State of AI found that 62% of business leaders say their company invests in AI and automation tools for employees.

In fact, the number of marketers who use AI in their roles has jumped from 21% to 74% year over year, with more than 74% believing most people will use AI in the workplace by 2030.

But why exactly?

Source

Simply put, AI can help people in various industries automate or expedite repetitive tasks (e.g., email automation), increase efficiency, lower costs, improve analysis, and be more productive overall — especially marketers.

So, should you use AI content?

The short answer is yes — but I say this with many asterisks. Let me explain.

As a writer and marketer, I pride myself on being able to spin up copy that converts, emails that engage, and blog articles that get readers nodding their heads. But that doesn’t mean it comes quickly or easily.

Keeping up with a full marketing calendar is hard. Every piece of content has a workflow that includes planning, research, writing, editing, staging, promotion, and analyzing.

AI content can help expedite this process, with 83% of marketers saying AI helps them create significantly more content than they could without.

Image Source

What kind of content are marketers generating? Check out The Top Types of AI-Generated Content in Marketing [New Data, Examples & Tips].

A good friend, former HubSpotter, and Head of Content at Ashby, Anum Hussain, agrees, saying, “I‘m not sure I’ll ever see AI go from 0 to 100 on a content initiative, but for all of us who face empty page syndrome, getting from 0 to 50 is a huge productivity unlock.”

But that doesn’t mean you can just mindlessly copy-paste whatever ChatGPT, Claude, or even HubSpot’s Breeze gives you. It needs to be edited and “humanized.”

Why does AI content need humanization?

Our research shows that 86% of marketers using AI take time to edit the content it produces. (And I can’t tell you how much of a sigh of relief it was to read this.)

Despite the operational positives we discussed, AI is plagued by concerns about plagiarism, bias, data security, and the potential for government regulation. In other words, raw AI content can be very problematic as it is derivative by nature.

You see, AI content generators are built on existing content commonly gathered from the Internet. This is how they “learn.” Every time you enter a prompt or query into a tool, AI simply reaches into this knowledge bank and picks out what it thinks is most relevant to what you want.

That means it just compiles things already out there. There’s no guarantee that your results will be different from what the tool produces for another user or even from what’s already published online.

It also certainly won’t be written with your brand’s voice or differentiators in mind, or offer the expertise, experience, authoritativeness, or trustworthiness (EEAT) Google SERP demands of the pages it ranks.

Smart editing or taking the time to humanize your content can put all these concerns to rest. So, how do you do it?

How to Humanize AI Content

Whether you’re a social media manager writing captions or a content manager writing articles and website copy, learning how to humanize AI content is critical to future-proofing your content strategy. Here are seven tips on how to do it well.

To help illustrate them, I asked ChatGPT to write me a blog article about how to write a great social media post.

1. Add personal stories and insights.

AI knows many things, but you know what it doesn’t? Your personal thoughts, insights, and experiences.

When you ask it to create content for you, it may respond in a casual tone, but it’s likely just stating facts — like a textbook or instruction manual.

That said, personal stories, references, or lessons can not only engage your audience with something relatable, but they add depth and originality to your content. It’s all about thought leadership.

Melanie Deziel, Content Consultant and Co-Founder & Chief Learning Officer of Creator Kitchen likes to share both personal wins and losses when editing AI content.

She shared with me, “We can take the raw materials we get from a tool like ChatGPT and infuse not just valuable lessons we’ve learned but also relatable mistakes we made along the way. We can add context to our revelations, realizations, failures, and pivots by sharing the emotions that surround those experiences.”

Let’s look at our example. In my sample article, ChatGPT gave me the following for an intro:

Pretty generic, right?

I’d humanize this AI content by bringing in a relatable anecdote about doom scrolling when I can’t sleep or talking about a successful social media strategy I’ve worked on to establish credibility. I could also add a section on the current state of social media with my own predictions and opinions.

ChatGPT laid a foundation, but all of these personal touches would give it flair. Something they can’t get anywhere else.

Pro tip: Have fun with it!

Deziel continued, “While ChatGPT’s LLM may have a good handle on the prescriptive rules of grammar and syntax, we have to know when and how to break those rules for maximum impact.

“We can include puns, sarcasm. We can make plays on words and include humorous asides (or… asides that we think are humorous, anyway.) We need to  intentionally manipulate sentence length with melodic mastery and break the monotony with unexpected word choices.”

“We have to get loosey-goosey with our punctuation choices, inserting ellipses to force a breath and peppering our pages with em-dashes to mirror the stop-and-start nature of our chaotic thought patterns… and we say things like ‘loosey-goosey.’

In short, we have to do what hasn’t been done. And an LLM, by design, cannot. ”

2. Incorporate original, visual examples.

Like personal insights, examples give AI content more substance. But they can also make the information shared easier for your audience to understand, especially if it’s educational.

Returning to our sample, ChatGPT listed this as one of its steps for creating a great social media post:

“Use visuals to boost engagement” is pretty self-explanatory, sure, but showing real-life examples where this was done well would really drive the point home. Plus, it would help break up text, making your piece easier to skim and also giving readers something more fun to engage with.

To humanize this section, I’d embed actual social media posts from brands my audience admires and explain why they were successful. This is something I do frequently in my articles:

I’d also be careful not to repeat examples included in competing content and be mindful of diversity and inclusion as I made my selection.

The idea here is to avoid the obvious and show my audience something fresh to inspire their own social posts.

Pro tip: Pull examples from your own body of work whenever you can.

Consider your brand’s case studies, testimonials, or portfolio and what can support the content. These examples are unlikely to appear in similar content by your competitors, and, once again, they help showcase your personal expertise on the subject matter.

3. Edit into the first person.

Third-person writing is a tell-tale sign that you used AI.

This style can read as formal, boring, and impersonal, hurting you with Google’s EEAT regulations. To avoid all this, try rewriting your AI content into the first-person perspective — meaning using pronouns like I, me, and we.

My teammate and managing editor of the HubSpot Website Blog, Jamie Juviler, actually turns back to AI to help him do this.

He explains, “Sometimes AI helps me make my writing sound more human. For example, if I have a paragraph written in the third person, I’ll ask ChatGPT to convert it to the first person with minimal changes to the copy itself.”

This saves Juviler a great deal of time, especially since he can use the same tool that generated the content in the first place — no need to hop around other documents or tabs.

Pro tip: Put your title in the first person as well.

Juviler continues, “I also do the same with post titles and email subject lines — run them through ChatGPT and prompt it to make the wording more unique to my voice. Doing this makes readers more likely to engage with the content if the headline is from my perspective, versus a generic title.”

In the case of my social media article, ChatGPT turned “How to Write a Great Social Media Post: Engage, Inspire, and Convert” into:

• “How I Write Engaging Social Media Posts That Inspire and Convert”
• “My Guide to Crafting Social Media Posts That Engage, Inspire, and Convert”
• “How I Create Social Media Posts That Stand Out, Engage, and Drive Results”

This is also a great hack for brainstorming titles for your editorial calendar. Learn how to create yours.

4. Shift to an active voice.

Along with third-person, AI content generators tend to lean on passive voice. And like my old friend SmarterChild, it sounds extremely robotic.

For example, in my article, ChatGPT passively wrote: “If you’re celebrating a milestone, express excitement. If you’re discussing a tough topic, show empathy.”

This could be more dynamic and engaging if shifted to active voice becoming: “Express excitement when you celebrate a milestone and show empathy when you discuss tough topics.” Review your AI content for these opportunities.

5. Fact check everything.

As we discussed earlier, AI tools pull information from all over the place. Who knows if what it tells you will be credible or up-to-date? In fact, they recognize this.

Why do you think most tools even come with a disclaimer like this one from ChatGPT? “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.”

Heed their warning, people. Fact-check everything AI writes for you.

That means both quantitative (dates, statistics, etc.) and qualitative facts. Also, be mindful of how old the information is. While a statistic may be true and from a reputable source, it’s likely no longer relevant if it’s from a decade ago.

A quick hunt in a search engine should be all you need to confirm or deny information AI gives you, but you can also try tools like Google’s Fact Check Tools or Longshot to speed up the process.

Pro tip: If you have original data or research, incorporate it. This is another example of information no other competitor or AI will have.

6. Get more specific with your prompts.

Ok, so. So far, all of the advice I’ve shared is reactive. They are things you can do after AI’s generated your content, but there are proactive actions you can do as well.

I can pretty much summarize them all by saying, “Get more specific with your prompts.” But that’s not helpful, so let’s unpack things a bit.

I often compare using AI to working with a freelancer. Whenever you hire a freelance writer, you give them a creative brief of what you’re looking for, right? You don’t expect them to deliver the desired results if they don’t know what you want. The same should go for AI.

Improving your AI writing prompts — telling the tool exactly what you want to see — improves the chances that the results will match your needs and brand voice.

In our conversation, Anum Hussain drove this home, saying, “Ultimately, training AI tools can be similar to new hire onboarding. Providing examples, editing work, and asking for specific edits/changes helps train the tool to work more and more in your style over time.”

“At the end of the day, it’s a tool, and we are the humans to guide it.”

Here are five key things you can do.

Give AI a persona to adopt.

If you want AI to write in the first person as an expert, you must tell them who they are. In your prompt, include who the author is, what they do, and perhaps even a bit of their experience.

It’s also smart to include details about your brand or business, such as:

• Your product/offering
• What makes it different (specific features, capabilities, etc.)
• Company Mission
• Company Values

This information will help your AI tool better understand the perspective it should adopt when writing.

Describe your audience.

Next, you also need to tell your tool who the audience is. Who are you trying to reach with this content? You can share a full buyer persona with your AI tool if you’d like, but at a minimum, you want to include:

• Age
• Location
• Company, job title, industry (if B2B)
• Goals
• Personal challenges
• Pain points you solve

Describe your brand voice.

How should the content AI creates sound? Should it be friendly? Authoritative? Funny? Detail it in your prompt so the tool can act accordingly.

Read: How to Create a Content Style Guide [+ Free Guide & Examples]

Include examples.

Better than just telling AI what you like, show them. Do you have a certain piece of content that you really admire or would like to emulate? Perhaps there’s a piece that performed well that you’d like to recreate the magic of.

Share them in your prompt. Include links or upload files as inspiration with your prompt. Hussain is a fan of this feature available on ChatGPT Plus.

She shares, “Relying on an AI tool to know your voice without any intelligence to go off of but the web will likely result in a tone that isn‘t a fit for you or your brand. When starting a new prompt, I upload documents of past work I’ve written.”

“That way, it can model the format, structure, and tone I want. There’s still editorial work to do, but it helps get us much closer to what we’re looking for.”

Share terms and phrases to exclude.

It makes sense to tell your tool what you want, but explaining what you don’t want helps make the parameters even clearer. If there are particular phrases or topics you’d like to avoid (i.e., the name of a competitor), state that in your prompt.

No information is too much when it comes to your AI prompt. While it may take you longer to prepare these details before going into production, you’ll be much more likely to save time editing because of it.

Pro tip: If you’re a HubSpot user, using Breeze can eliminate much of the work involved in prompting.

While Breeze’s inherent purpose isn’t to create “human-like” content, we built it with a particular marketing and sales context in mind that makes it better at doing so.

Source

Our team focused on prompt engineering, so the tool knows how to provide more details from your portal about the customer, company, or use case at hand when generating content, even if you don’t specify it in your prompt.

This goes for blog articles, emails, social posts, website copy, and even SMS text messages.

7. Use an AI humanizing tool.

Ok, I know. This is a lot of manual effort. If you don’t have the resources, there are some AI tools dedicated to humanizing content to execute these tasks for you.

In the next section, I’ll share four of the best.

Free AI Content Humanization Tools

Note: These AI tools are not for generating new content but specifically for making the content better.

If you’re looking for tools to create content from scratch, check out our article, AI Content Generators: I Tested 5 of the Best; Here’s What I Found.

1. Ahrefs

According to Ahrefs, its AI text humanizer is built on a language model that learns communication patterns, grammar, and vocabulary from text data fed into it.

It then uses that insight to generate human-like text based on what you enter, producing one, three, or five variants at a time. I tried it out with my article from ChatGPT, and here’s what I found.

The good:

• The edits weren’t dramatic, which makes sense since the original article was pretty casual in tone, but the changes it did make were impactful. For example, it changed “Start by understanding who your followers are and what they care about.“ to “Begin by identifying who your followers are and what matters to them.” It’s a small but clarifying edit.

The bad:

• I could only enter about half of the content, meaning there is an undisclosed word or character limit.
• Formatting is removed when you enter text, so you’ll have to reformat it before use.
• The tool detects AI-generated content. It gave me a note at the top of my results that read: “80% of your text is likely AI-generated.” This seems unnecessary because why would you mean “humanizing” your content if AI didn’t write it?

Overall, it is a helpful, easy-to-use free tool, but the user experience could be better. With the undisclosed word limit, it’s also most useful for shorter content needs like website copy, social media posts, or specific passages.

2. Writesonic

Writesonic’s free AI text humanizer works similarly to Ahref’s in that you simply copy and paste your text and hit a button to get results—but with some nice little extras.

The good:

• After entering my text, I could choose from 14 different tones of voice (i.e., engaging, persuasive, friendly, etc.). This option makes the tool that much more useful for a variety of content marketing purposes. Not every tone is right for every campaign or medium and being able to specify what you need definitely makes you feel more confident in the results it will deliver.
• I could also choose from 24 languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Turkish, and Hindi.
• There is a 200-word limit, and it showed me how many I was over or under. The tool wouldn’t run unless I was under this limit. The transparency of the word count was great to see and doesn’t leave you wondering if you did something wrong like Ahrefs.

The bad:

• I tried two different tones: simplified and luxury. At first, I was fairly impressed. The simplified version definitely removed some more formal language and replaced it with more universal alternatives (e.g., replacing “audience” with “followers”). However, when I switched to “Luxury,” the results were pretty much unchanged.

• Writesonic maintained more formatting than Ahrefs when entered, but it was all removed after editing. This makes it difficult to skim and evaluate the results.
• There were some grammatical issues (i.e., missing commas) in the results.

Regarding UX, Writesonic’s AI text humanizer is a step up from Ahrefs. I appreciate their transparency about the word limit, and the results are decent, but the customization options seem to be more for show at the moment.

I also got hit with a form after my third test generation. You need to sign up to keep using the tool for free.

3. Surfer

Next up, I tried Surfer’s free AI content humanizer, which is currently in beta.

The good:

• Out of the options I tried, Surfer has the highest word limit at 500 — but this appears to be a lifetime limit. Like Writesonic, Surfer is transparent about the limit, so I wasn’t left guessing.
• It maintains and preserves text formatting throughout the humanization process — Huge win! This includes header and paragraph tags.

The bad:

• There are some grammatical issues (i.e., missing commas and inconsistent capitalization) in the results.
• No customization options for tone, language, etc.
• Like Ahrefs, the edits were minimal, with the tool noting that the copy already read as a human wrote it. This is understandable, but if I’m coming to this tool, clearly, I’d like to see it improved further. I’d like to have to seen the tool do more.

4. Scribbr

While not designed as a “humanizer” like the other tools, Scibbr’s free paraphraser tool can used for these purposes in a crunch.

The good:

• I could copy and paste text or upload a document to be paraphrased.
• I could paraphrase in 26 different languages.
• The tool has two modes I could choose from: standard and fluency.
• Toggling the “synonyms” options allows you to control how much of the specific language you’d like to change.
• Preserves most formatting throughout the process.
• Allows you to choose specific words to “rephrase” in the results. When you click on the highlighted word, you can then select the alternative you like best.
• Edits are substantial.

The bad:

• This has the lowest word limit out of those I tested, with a limit of just 125 words.
• With this tool’s significant edits, there is a higher risk of losing focus keywords when using this for content marketing.

Master the Balance Between AI and Humanity

As we enter a future where AI becomes an even greater force in content creation and marketing, the key to success is balance.

AI offers incredible speed, efficiency, and scalability, but it’s the human touch — our personal voices, wins, losses, and experiences — that makes content great. It’s what breathes life, personality, and authenticity into your message and builds trust with an audience.

It’s the X factor that makes them want to follow you on social media, buy from you, and recommend your brand.

By blending personal insights, unique examples, careful editing, and more thoughtful prompting, we can create content that resonates deeply with our audiences while leveraging the best that technology has to offer.

The post How to Humanize AI Content for Better Rankings, Engagement, & Shares in 2025 appeared first on Marketing & Business News.

How to Write Content That Generative AI Search Engines Will Reference

There’s no doubt that in the last few months, you’ve run into Google’s new AI search tool. Often, the tool provides a helpful summary (though sometimes it’s laughably wrong).

While the tools themselves are evolving every day, it seems generative AI search engines aren’t going anywhere. Since Google launched its AI search, it’s already made leaps in relevance and accuracy.

I’m a big fan of not having to scroll through a page of results to find a quick answer, so I’m excited to see how it continues to evolve.

But as a writer, I’m curious to discover what this will mean for the future of digital content. How will this affect the type of work we do, and how will we need to adapt our writing for AI-driven search?

In this article, we’ll explore the insights we already have about writing for generative AI and raise questions we still need answered.

Table of Contents

• • How AI Search Has Changed Content Marketing
  • How to Write for AI Search
  • 7 Helpful Tips on Writing for AI Search

How AI Search Has Changed Content Marketing

1. New Information Retrieval

AI-powered generative engines have majorly shifted how users are retrieving the information they’re searching for.

Instead of providing sources for the user to read, generative engines are providing summaries to answer questions in less time.

Recently, I was trying to plan a movie date with a friend to see A Quiet Place: Day One. She was about to leave on vacation, and I wanted to see if the movie would be in theaters when she got back.

I searched “how long are movies usually in theaters.”

I got an answer without clicking on a single page.

2. Less Spam

Earlier this year, major search engines like Google started cracking down on what they considered spam or unoriginal content — many of which were AI-generated.

AI search engines don’t respond well to spammy content and, instead, are looking for high authority, highly structured articles that the bots can easily scan.

As a result, it seems that quality is above quantity when it comes to what’s most important with your content (though many argue that was already the case).

Let’s talk about one of my favorite examples: recipe blogs.

In the past, if I wanted to find a pad thai recipe through Google, a lengthy article using the phrase “pad thai recipe” dozens of times would rank highest.

I’d scroll through long personal anecdotes I didn’t care about with no tips for actually cooking the dish.

Now, the top recipe is from Recipe Tin.

I still have to scroll before getting to the recipe. However, the content focuses on genuinely helpful tips. Nagi, the writer, discusses what makes pad thai authentic, her brand recommendations for ingredients, and techniques.

This information helps me cook the dish better.

I don’t have to parse through spammy content. I get real tips that I know came from a human.

Image Source

And to clarify: This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use AI to support your content creation. It just means you need to make sure the content is beneficial to readers.

3. Lower Web Traffic

As AI-generated answers start popping up on search engines, websites have seen lower levels of web traffic overall. Top-ranked websites have seen traffic dips as significant as 10%.

This makes sense, given that many users are stopping at the summary instead of proceeding on. This adjustment means the goal of content might not be to rank highly but, instead, to be used by AI and cited in summaries.

I’m not immune to this, even as a content creator. I considered running a half marathon and wanted to see what a training plan might be.

I could Google to see what experts suggest. Instead, I shared a little bit about my skill level and constraints. Then ChatGPT made me a plan.

That was an easy experience that took way less time than searching for an answer.

4. A change in traffic source.

The above point has a bit of nuance. Most content can expect a dip in traffic, but for content that’s highly visible to large language models (LLMs), you could see an increase in engagement by upwards of 40%.

That’s because the goal of writing for AI search is to be cited as a source. When you’re cited in a summary on Google AI Search, users can easily click on your content to learn more.

My HubSpot editor, Kaitln Milliken, recently had her dog spayed and directly benefitted from AI search. She looked up “how do I take care of my dog after she’s spayed.”

“The AI overview had some helpful tips out the gate, but I wanted to learn more,” Milliken says. “I clicked on the articles in the overview first — partially because it was easy, but also because I trusted that these sources had authority.”

5. De-emphasis on SEO.

What makes an article great for search engines is a bit different than what makes an article great for AI bots.

Whereas SEO is focused on keywords, backlinks, and searchability, generative engine optimization (GEO) emphasizes highly structured articles with lots of sources. This guide on GEO can be a helpful resource as you learn the differences.

How to Write for AI Search

Now that you understand the way AI search has changed the content landscape, let’s look at a step-by-step guide for writing for AI search.

I also asked Kaitlin Milliken, who assigned hundreds of articles a year from the HubSpot blog, for her perspective.

Step 1. Find original ideas with high search traffic.

If I’m tasked with writing a blog and I don’t receive a brief, I’ll start by trying to find an original idea around a topic.

In an ideal world, I’d discover a topic with high search traffic and low competition, but often, I settle for making sure that there’s plenty of traffic driven to the topic.

If I receive a brief and the topic isn’t original, I try to find a unique spin on it. Is there a way I can introduce new information here? Can I tie together two topics that haven’t been related to one another before?

Milliken says that today’s search landscape focuses on EEAT, or expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness.

While AI can give general best practices, the content that performs best has insight that can only be learned through lived, human experience.

“We know what search terms people want to know, so that’s always on our assignment docket. However, I need the writer to bring a unique, trustworthy perspective to the piece,” she says.

She describes a hypothetical blog post about solving customer service.

“Let’s say you’re the writer and you work in customer service. What’s the de-escalation tip that you use regularly? Then, give me an anecdote about why it works. A bot can’t do that. That’s what readers actually want,” Milliken says.

Step 2. Research, research, research.

Then, I start by digging into research. I’ll focus on finding primary sources with statistics and data that add credibility to my piece.

You can’t always control the ideas you’re writing about, but you can make sure there’s new and fresh information in it to set your article above the rest and provide a comprehensive answer to AI search bots.

“At HubSpot, we’ve noticed that original data from surveys we conduct rank well in our search landscape. We want our writers to use this data plus whatever the latest data online might be. That bolsters trustworthiness, which reads well in AI search,” Milliken says.

Step 3. Organize your content clearly.

The key to writing for AI search is a great structure. When I research first, I can organize my content clearly without having to go back and rewrite.

I’ll start by identifying H2s and then find spots where I can use lists. Often, there are parts of the article that lend themselves to lists, so I take some time to organize the list items before I start writing.

Want an example? Take a look at the article you’re reading. I have subheadings and organized lists throughout.

Step 4. Ask experts.

A significant way to set yourself apart from AI bots that are scanning your content is by including novel, expert information. This is a best practice for SEO, too, and it helps to boost your article’s credibility.

Send some emails to experts asking for their opinions, tips, or advice. Your readers will love hearing directly from folks with deep knowledge of the topic they’re reading about, and AI bots will be more likely to cite your content.

That’s part of the reason I asked Milliken to share her insights for this piece.

Step 5. Use unique and clear language.

Finally, avoid literary clichés and overused words. Instead, focus on straightforward language.

This is an important editing step, too — cut out all the fluff and unnecessary complexity. AI engines favor content that is both unique and easy to understand. Clear messaging makes it easier for them to generate solid summaries.

Step 6. Measure your content’s performance.

HubSpot is making it easy to see how your content is performing with the AI Search Grader microapp. This is one of the first tools on the market that can help you track how your content is performing on AI search engines.

7 Helpful Tips on Writing for AI Search

A lot of AI search best practices are still emerging, but some rules of thumb for AI search writing are becoming clear. Here are seven tips for writing for AI search.

1. Provide comprehensive coverage.

Generative engines prefer content that offers a comprehensive overview and answers potential follow-up questions, so take time to cover topics thoroughly and from multiple angles.

Keep in mind what the AI bot is trying to do — find a way to fully answer the user’s query with a useful and relevant summary. The more comprehensive you are in your content, the easier it is for the AI bot to do its job.

2. Cite your sources.

Credibility seems to be a major determinant of what AI bots are using to fuel their responses, so citing your sources is an absolute must.

Use primary sources and statistics whenever possible, and make sure to include links to where the information came from.

3. Lean on industry experts.

Novel, human information seems to be frequently picked up by AI bots, so be sure to incorporate expert opinions and advice into your content.

Google isn’t penalizing AI-written content, but it is penalizing content that isn’t rich in information. Use the expertise of SMEs to make sure your content stands out to both readers and AI bots.

4. Emphasize scannability.

Structure and scannability seem to be two of the most important factors in whether or not your content is optimized for AI search. That means you need to:

• Incorporate lists whenever possible
• Limit large chunks of text
• Prioritize H2s and H3s that guide the reader through the text

It’s also suspected that AI bots have a few preferred patterns of text. This isn’t verified yet, but I recommend experimenting with various formats and structures.

5. Write conversationally

AI summaries are written conversationally, so it’s helpful to the bot if its original sources are written conversationally, too.

Avoid industry jargon whenever possible and keep your writing to a 7th-grade reading level in most cases. You want your content to be easy to read for both your users and AI bots.

Leigh McKenzie, an SEO expert, shares his insights on this tip.

“Writing in a more conversational manner is becoming increasingly valuable. In an era where automated content can often sound robotic, we crave authenticity,” McKenzie says.

“Content that includes anecdotes, personal statements, and real-life problem-solving resonates more with readers, and I believe we will see a continued shift towards this style.”

6. Use AI writing tools

Writing tools can help you reach greater visibility through SEO and GEO.

Tracking your metrics can show you if your content is being used by generating engines, and microapps can suggest improvements for search engine visibility and even grade GEO.

7. Keep up to date on AI search information

AI search best practices are constantly evolving. While these recommendations are emerging as ways to improve your AI search performance, it’s best to keep an eye on AI search engine updates.

McKenzie stats that keeping up with new information on AI search is incredibly important when it comes to keeping your digital content up-to-date.

“From my experience, the biggest takeaway in navigating the generative SEO landscape is the importance of adaptability. SEO is not static, and being flexible and open to new strategies is crucial for success,” McKenzie says.

Writing for Bots and for Humans

Whenever there’s a shift in the digital content landscape, I get excited. I love learning new things and, with something as game-changing as AI, there’s a lot to discover.

Test formats. Play with expert quotes. Use different kinds of structures. Now’s the time to get really creative and see what works.

AI changes so much every day, so I’m excited to see how digital content changes in the next year or two. Will we still be using SERPs? Will we only be searching through AI engines?

I’m not sure — but I’m excited to see what happens.

The post Crafting Content That AI Search Engines Will Cite appeared first on Marketing & Business News.

How to Build a Content Map That Guides Your Audience Through the Buyer’s Journey

When prospects first come to your business page, they probably won’t just click and buy your offering immediately.

In fact, they may have different goals for visiting your page — some might want to learn about you and your products or services, others may be sold on you but aren’t sure what they need from you. Still, others have a different goal in mind.

That means you’ve got to ensure that they can easily find the content they need. I’ve found one of the best ways to make sure you’re getting the right information to the right prospect is by building out a content map.

Content mapping allows you to create highly targeted, personalized content at every stage of the buyer’s journey, helping to nurture leads and prospects toward a purchase decision.

In this post, I’ll show you what a content map is and how you can start content mapping for your brand. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• • What is a content map?
  • What is content mapping?
  • How to Create a Content Map
  • Website Content Mapping
  • Content Segmentation Grid
  • Content Mapping Tools
  • Tools to Help Implement Your Content Map
  • Content Mapping Tips From the Pros

For example, if your business is building a brand new website, you’ll have to begin creating a content map based on why the customer is going to your page.

If customers are coming to your website looking for a credible solution worth paying for, they need to establish that you’re trustworthy before making a decision.

At this point, your marketing team begins to map out the kind of content needed to build that trust between the company and the customer.

Image Source

Why is content mapping important?

Content mapping helps you plan for content creation that supports the customer journey and creates a more cohesive, personalized customer experience.

When it comes to content, one size rarely fits all. On the contrary, each piece serves a different purpose.

To ensure that your company’s content is effective at generating leads, you need to deliver diversified content that covers different topics that your buyers are searching for at each step of the way.

Content mapping is the process of doing just that.

Let’s say your prospects are visiting your website because they already know you but just need to decide what service to go with. If you don’t have any service comparison content, it may detract them from finishing the process.

That’s not to say that it’s mandatory. Many of my clients don’t have and don’t need this. However, if it’s applicable to your business, you may want to consider this strategy.

Here’s the thing. Coming up with topics for a highly targeted content strategy isn’t always easy. However, content mapping with the audience in mind can help you put together a manageable plan that you can actually follow.

How to Create a Content Map

1. Download a content map template.

To help you brainstorm and map out content ideas for targeting specific segments of your audience, check out our free template resource: The Content Marketing Planning Template.

Download Your Free Template Now

The template includes an introduction to content mapping, a crash course on buyer personas and lifecycle stages, a content mapping template (plus examples), a website content map template, and bonus buyer persona templates.

With the template, you’ll:

• Learn how to understand buyer personas and lifecycle stages.
• Identify problems and opportunities that your audience needs help with.
• Brainstorm highly targeted content ideas that incorporate personas and lifecycle stages.

2. Identify the buyer persona you want to target.

Buyer personas are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers.

They help you understand your customers (and prospective customers) better and make it easier for you to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different groups.

The strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as on insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.).

Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas or dozens. If you’re just getting started with personas, don’t go crazy! You can always develop more personas later if needed.

So, what’s my take on buyer personas? I love them, but my advice is to keep it simple.

When I work with clients to develop buyer personas, we focus on going as narrow and detailed as possible, because it’s far easier (and more effective!) to market to just one person than it is to market to a segment of a population.

And while each persona doesn’t represent every single person in that segment, you can get pretty close.

3. Consider that persona’s path to purchase (lifecycle stages).

The buyer persona you target with your content is only half of the content mapping equation. In addition to knowing who someone is, you need to know where they are in the buying cycle (i.e., how close they are to making a purchase).

This location in the buying cycle is known as a lifecycle stage.

Our Content Mapping Template divvies up the buying cycle into three lifecycle stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

• Awareness: In the awareness stage, a person has realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity.
• Consideration: In the consideration stage, a person has clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity and is looking for a solution.
• Decision: In the decision stage, a person has defined their solution strategy, method, or approach and is looking for a provider.

By combining buyer personas with lifecycle stages, you can hone in on specific segments of your audience and tailor content to resonate with each of those segments.

4. Brainstorm questions the personas have in the awareness stage.

Your awareness stage content should target prospects early in the buying cycle.

People in this segment are just becoming aware that they have a problem.

At this stage, think of how your content can help people become more informed about the problem in general, and you’ll (hopefully) find that they continue moving closer to a purchasing decision.

Important questions to start thinking about:

• What problem are they likely trying to solve, and what are the symptoms that are causing this problem?
• What information will help them identify their problem(s) and that our product or service is designed to solve them?
• How can we build trust and provide more value than our competitors from this early stage in the journey?

5. Identify awareness stage content.

Taking your buyer personas’ questions into account, you can turn them into topics for awareness stage content.

The content you want to provide them should speak to their current needs, not jump straight into product-focused content.

This can take the form of insightful blog posts, webinars, ebooks, or social media posts that give information to solve initial concerns and slowly familiarize prospects with how your product can help them.

Looking for advice? I recommend putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and thinking of questions you’d ask in your place.

What information would you look for? And here’s the kicker — you already know these questions because you probably answer them every day!

6. Brainstorm ways to position your solution as your persona enters the consideration stage.

At this point, you’ve provided your prospect with enough information to become fully aware of their problem, and they know it can be remedied.

This is when you should begin trying to move them closer to a purchasing decision and become more interested in your product offering, using consideration stage content.

7. Identify consideration stage content.

Your consideration stage content can more explicitly mention how your product or service could potentially solve a problem.

At this point in the buying cycle, people are still evaluating their options. Your purpose now is to help them narrow down the solution that works the best and provides them the most value.

The types of content used for the consideration stage can look like this:

• Videos comparing and contrasting offerings
• Whitepapers
• Charts and infographics

8. Brainstorm objections that would stop them from buying in the decision stage.

Now that you’ve identified the “why” behind your prospect choosing your solution, it’s time to consider the “why not”.

Some competitors may have a more affordable solution, different methods of remedying issues, or more authority (popularity) in the market.

While some of these aspects cannot be changed, you can still appeal to the prospect and move them closer to purchase if your offering is a real value add, regardless of the rest.

Pro tip: You don’t always have to be the cheapest! Quality wins over quantity. I’ve made choices that have been more expensive or not as well-known due to how well the solution met my needs, overcame objections, or added value.

9. Identify decision stage content.

At the decision stage of the buyer journey, you can primarily lean into marketing your products or services.

If someone has reached this stage, they’ve already identified a problem and a solution, and are now getting ready to pull the proverbial trigger toward a purchase decision.

This is where you can directly present the prospect with examples of positive experiences or success derived from your product or service offering, with decision stage content like:

• Case studies (social proof)
• Customer testimonials
• Product demos

10. Determine how these content pieces work together.

Now that you’ve identified all the different types of content that buyers of each stage are looking for, it’s time to map the ideas.

Content Mapping Template

This content mapping visualization keeps the marketing strategy focused on the goal specified with all the steps necessary to gradually reel in buyers.

Our template can also help you to schedule when you want content published on a monthly or quarterly basis if you want to manage it in one place.

You can approach content mapping to serve more specific strategies this way, too. I’ll discuss content mapping for your website in more detail below.

Website Content Mapping

Website content mapping is the process of planning the pages, blog posts, and offers you’ll publish on your site and identify which buyer personas those pages and posts will serve.

Website content mapping also identifies which pages and posts address different lifecycle stages.

Website content mapping is a key element of website personalization. In essence, you’ll create different pages, posts, and offers to address different buyers at different points in the buyer’s journey.

To give you a better idea of website content mapping, I will walk you through a simple example.

Content Map Example

The buyer persona (and a key problem or opportunity that the persona is struggling with) is at the start of the grid.

Jenny is opening a gym. Her problem is that she needs gym equipment but has a limited budget. She has taken to the internet for a solution.

In the awareness life cycle stage, she’ll be looking for introductory content to gain knowledge about the types of equipment necessary to bring customers into her gym.

In the consideration life cycle stage, she’ll have a better understanding of her need for equipment and price expectations.

She’ll be looking to create a clearer budget for different items and should consider how long this investment will last — seeking templates that outline that information.

Finally, in the decision stage, Jenny has identified her needs and is looking for a provider to fill them.

She will feel inclined to request demos, consults, or quotes from a company that has guided her through her journey to their solution of cost-effective gym equipment.

This type of content map works because it segments personas as they progress through the buyer lifecycle. If you have more than one persona, you can expand your map into a segmentation grid.

Content Segmentation Grid

A content segmentation grid is a tool to help businesses plan the content they will produce based on the different types of audiences they want to reach.

A common mistake I see marketers make when it comes to content planning is that they’ll understand the need to make personalized content for customers as they navigate the buyer stages.

But they’ll ignore the need for individualized messaging.

A content segmentation grid solves that problem as marketers will be able to better serve every customer segment at each stage they reach.

So, instead of writing messaging for one buyer persona, you can potentially increase engagement and conversions across different audiences.

Now that we’ve explored what content mapping is and you’ve seen how to get started, you might be wondering what type of tools you can use to start content mapping.

Content Mapping Tools

Content mapping may seem like a difficult task that requires highly specialized software. It’s not true. All you need to get started are simple business tools you may already be using in your day-to-day.

We’ll start with the most basic tools you need to start content mapping, such as word processors and visualization tools.

Pro tip: When looking for the right content mapping software for your business, take into account the size of your business and your budget.

You’ll also want to make sure you have at least one tool to visualize your content map and one to research your personas.

1. Google Docs

Pricing: Free

First up in your content mapping tech stack is your preferred word processor, Google Docs.

It has the feature to draw and insert different types of diagrams into documents, which can be translated into a content map to align your marketing mix with your goals.

I highly recommend this tool because it makes it easier to share work across your team, and you never have to worry about backing up your content map once you’ve created it.

What I like: Not everyone has the funds to buy software from the beginning if they’re starting a business. With Google, you get access to Docs along with an entire suite of tools that can help you with your content mapping process.

In fact, Google apps may be enough to run most of your business and content operations.

2. Lucidchart

Pricing: Free basic plans are available. Individual plans cost $9 a month. Team plans cost $10 a month. Enterprise plan pricing is available upon request.

If you’re more of a visual person, then a flowchart tool is a must. Also, if you’d prefer to create a content map with lines and diagrams, then you need a more sophisticated tool than Google Docs.

Lucidchart’s flowchart maker is a top-of-the-line tool that also allows you to connect different apps and services.

Like Google Docs, it allows you to work collaboratively, but Lucidchart takes it a step further and provides users with more visually appealing formatting.

What I like: Lucidchart’s integration allows you to directly embed your flowcharts into other tools, and even edit the charts in the external tool like Microsoft Powerpoint, for example.

3. Buyer Persona Tool

Pricing: Free

Before you can even begin to create a content map, you need to identify the buyer persona(s) you’re creating content for.

HubSpot has a buyer persona tool made to build and save professional buyer persona documents with its intuitive generator. The generator is easy to use and allows you to add a name and avatar to humanize your persona.

And if you want to take it a step further, HubSpot also has a list containing even more buyer persona resources to build out your customer profiles for your business, too.

What I like: The persona generator is visually appealing, making it easy to understand. And while there are only 7 sections it has you fill out, you can add and customize your own sections to flesh out your personas on a deeper level.

4. Marketing Hub

Pricing: A free basic plan is available. Starter plans cost $15 a month. Professional plans cost $800 a month. Enterprise plans cost $3,200 a month.

In the Marketing Hub, there is an SEO Topics tool that provides content mapping capabilities to help users organize their ideas for organic-focused awareness stage content.

With this capability, your team will be able to collaborate and execute your content map once it’s ready for deployment.

What I like: The tool also has a performance tab, so you can regularly check how your topics are doing and help you determine if those topics are working for you or not.

5. Miro

Pricing: Free plans are available. Starter plans cost $8 a month. Business plans cost $16 a month. Contact Miro for enterprise pricing.

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Miro is a visual workspace with versatile functionality. I like it for content mapping because it’s easy to use and allows you to lay out your buyer’s journey and its respective content with graphics and other assets to make it easy to understand.

It’s intuitive and easy to use, and I love how colorful it is.

The platform can easily integrate with over 100+ apps and lends itself to collaboration, so you can work with teammates on the project together.

Miro also has a number of tutorials on their site so you can learn how to get the most out of the platform.

What I like: If you don’t know where to start, Miro houses a large library of over 2500+ workspace templates to choose from.

6. ClickUp

Pricing: Free plans are available. Unlimited plans cost $7 a month. Business plans cost $12 a month. Contact ClickUp for enterprise pricing.

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ClickUp is a project management tool great for businesses of every size. It’s one of my favorite tools and I use it everyday in my own business.

The platform has a feature called ‘Whiteboards’ that can be used to brainstorm and plan out workflows. ClickUp is a great collaboration tool and through the “Whiteboards” function, you can work on the same board at the same time.

This platform also has a native docs feature, so you can also use that to build out your content if you’d like to keep everything in one place.

If you’d like to use it in conjunction with your existing suite of tools, ClickUp can be easily integrated with over 100 tools.

What I like: Since ClickUp is a project management tool first and foremost, you can actually take your “Whiteboard” and create tasks for your team members within the feature. This makes it easy to go from planning to execution.

7. SurveyMonkey

Pricing: Team advantage plans cost $25 a month. Team premier plans cost $75 a month. Contact Survey Monkey for enterprise pricing.

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Before you start mapping out all the content you’ll create for your customers, it’s important you get to know those customers first.

This is where a tool like SurveyMonkey comes in handy. SurveyMonkey is an online software platform designed for creating surveys and data collection.

This is one of the most widely used survey tools and is a great option to gather data about your customers to build out your personas.

I like exploring their extensive library of templates that you can choose from if you’re not sure what kind of questions to ask and features an easy-to-use interface.

SurveyMonkey also offers Market Research Solutions if you need in-depth data.

What I like: To make sure their customers are as educated as possible on surveys and data collection, they provide blogs, a resource center, and a help center.

8. SEMRush

Pricing: Pro plans cost $129.9 a month. Guru plans cost $249.95 a month. Contact SEMRush for business pricing.

SEMRush is one of the most used SEO tools out there.

SEO is very important in the content creation process as it can drive more traffic to your website, but it also has a place in the content mapping stage.

With SEMRush, I like to do keyword research to see what customers are likely to search and use that information to create personas.

This platform features a user-friendly interface and includes a variety of tools like a backlink checker, competitor analysis, and organic research, so you’ll get access to tools you can use during content mapping and in other areas of your business.

What I like: SEMRush has a search intent feature that tells you not only what people are searching for, but why, which is a fantastic bit of information to collect.

9. Qualtrics

Pricing: Pricing must be requested.

While most businesses might be able to use platforms like SurveyMonkey that I mentioned earlier or even Google Forms to collect information from their customers, some companies may require more robust solutions.

Qualtrics is a customer experience company that offers three solution suites: Customer Experience, Employee Experience, and Strategy & Research.

Because of its complex interface and high price point, Qualtrics is best suited for companies requiring large-scale market research and high-level data collection.

What I like: Qualtrics is capable of delivering incredible results because of its ability to be customized and can be integrated with a wide range of tools.

Tools to Help Implement Your Content Map

1. HubSpot CRM

Pricing: Free

HubSpot’s CRM is the one tool you need to compile all of your data from current and prospective customers.

The CRM will allow you to discern different lifecycle stages and pinpoint commonalities between customers who are ready to purchase based on lead scoring.

Your content map can help someone build a lead scoring system to identify high-value leads who have consumed the content close to a purchasing decision.

What I like: HubSpot’s CRM has the ability to create contact lists using customized criteria. When used together with the lead scoring, you can create multiple lists of your personas to deliver content to in a streamlined fashion.

2. Content Hub

Pricing: Professional plans cost $800 a month. Enterprise plans cost $3,600 a month.

A content management system is probably the most important tool for your content mapping efforts.

A CMS will allow you to publish personalized content that targets different site visitors at — you guessed it — different stages of the buyer’s journey.

With Content Hub, you can continue testing and retesting your content for better results.

What I like: Content Hub is fully integrated with HubSpot’s CRM platform and Marketing Hub, allowing you to create a seamless experience for your customers as they receive the content you’ve designed for them.

It will help you execute your content map flawlessly.

So, are you ready to begin creating your own content map? Before you start, let’s hear some tips from marketers who attribute part of their success to this strategy.

Content Mapping Tips From the Pros

1. Educate your audience.

When it comes to content mapping, creating high-quality material is important. Just ask Adanna Austin, a business coach and consultant at Marketing Dynamics Business Solutions.

“We all have to create compelling content to attract our ideal clients, build an active and engaged audience, and get daily sales. Spend time building your audience by educating them and engaging with them,” Austin says.

Austin also emphasizes that variety is key.

“No one has built a business by posting the same image or type of image every day on socials and not having convoys with their audience. It is not just about showing up, but doing so with intention so you can attract your ideal clients who will buy from you,” she says.

2. Give your prospects the information they need before they ask for it.

When asked about the benefits of content mapping, Digital Atlas Marketing Founder Laura Hogan focused on the importance of foresight.

“With content mapping, you can give your prospects the information they are asking for before they even ask for it. Buyer personas and lifecycle stages allow you to be one step ahead of the game by mapping out what your prospect’s next steps are and delivering them the content from numerous different avenues,” Hogan says.

Hogan says her team creates buyer personas as part of their onboarding process.

From there, “everything we do — from content offer to daily tweets — is centered around that document. We also always ask ourselves, ‘Would business owner Bob open this email, click this tweet, or download this offer?’” Hogan explains.

3. Provide different conversion paths for different personas.

No two customer journeys are cut and paste. Everyone’s path looks different. Marc Herschberger, director of operations at Revenue River Marketing, explains.

For example, Herschberger notes, when mapping out content for a site’s visitors, teams have to remember that some personas would rather speak to someone on their terms, rather than fill out a form for a consultation.

“Understanding how they are most comfortable when it comes to making decisions can help you understand what points of conversion will be the most relevant and successful for that persona,” Herschberger says.

He continues, “Optimizing your site pages (landing and thank you pages, as well)…and workflows with direct contact information (phone #, email, etc.) is a great way to ensure that visitors, prospects, and leads who may shy away from form submissions still have readily available, alternate means of converting.”

4. Create specific content that appeals to specific personas.

Mapping out buyer personas and lifecycle stages is extremely important when creating content, shares Spencer Powell, CEO of Builder Funnel.

“In terms of buyer personas, it‘s easy to see that a marketing director will have different questions, information needs, and interests compared to a CEO,” says Powell. “Both of these personas may be searching for your product or service, but they’ll be looking for different topics.”

To get around this, Powell recommends creating content that appeals to each audience. That allows you to be more effective in attracting that specific audience.

“By the same token, each persona of yours may be in a different stage of the buying process, so it’s important to think through and create content that appeals to someone looking for basic, high-level information such as an ebook, as well as specific information like a pricing guide or case study,” Powell says.

Powell also suggests that teams dedicate an entire section of their site to each audience. This allows them to curate content for that specific audience.

“We actually took this concept and went a step further by creating unique brands for each one of our vertical markets. Each brand has its own section of the website, its own blog content, and its own premium content (downloadable offers).

It’s really helped us attract and convert visitors at a higher rate because all the content is more relevant to that persona,” Powell says.

5. Pull content topics from your sales process.

“By taking the buyer and buying stage into account when creating content, you can be sure that you’re designing content to help move them through the buying process,” notes Diona Kidd, a managing partner at Knowmad.

In addition to mapping content to the buyer profile and buying stage, Kidd’s team regularly pulls topics from the sales process.

“Then we offer the content in later sales calls. This helps us not only evaluate the relevancy of the content but also the interest of the buyer. We encourage clients to do the same,” Kidd says.

Content Mapping is Key to Your Company’s Growth

Delivering the right content at the right time can do wonders for your company’s growth.

By meeting prospects’ needs based on their persona and lifecycle stage, you’re delighting them at every turn, boosting your chances of winning a loyal customer and turning them into a brand evangelist.

I’ve walked you through the importance of having a content map and the tools I recommend you use. The most important part of the process, and the one you’ll want to spend time on, is persona building.

Remember, everything you do in the content mapping process hinges on your personas.

If you’re ready to start researching your personas and building your content map but still need a little more guidance, remember you can always use HubSpot’s content planning template.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in March 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

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