Music Promotion & Marketing

Writing Good Cookie Content

Posted on October 5th, 2009 in Online Marketing & Promotion, Writing Content.
Tags: cookie content, rewarding visitors, Writing Content

Continuing from my previous post on the idea of treating your website visitors like dogs, I’m going to go into more detail on this idea.

Remember, every time one of your website visitors does something you want them to do you want to offer them a kind of reward – a cookie, just as you would a dog treat with a dog when it has followed a command.

Applied to your website or other area of the online world it’s what is known as ‘cookie content’ and it has three characteristics.

Cookie Content Makes Life Better

Cookie content makes the reader’s life better somehow. It might be a funny image, a useful tutorial, or just a really good production or DJing tip or sample. But in some way, large or small, cookie content makes the reader glad they took a few minutes to consume it.

Reference and how-to content make great cookie content. Inspiring, funny, or heart-warming content can work too, if you’re good at it.

If your readers print out your content so they can refer back to it, or bookmark it on Delicious, you’ve got it right.

Cookie Content Can Be Used Right Away

The ’60-Year Plan for Getting Your Music Noticed’ doesn’t tend to make for good cookie content. ’10 Things You Can Do This Weekend to Improve Your DJing Skills’ does.

No, you don’t want to overpromise quick ‘magic bullet’ schemes. But cookie content isn’t about the long term and it’s not about hard work. It’s about fast, simple solutions that people can use right away.

It’s fine to talk about the longer term too. But be sure you have enough quick cookies in your content to keep things palatable. Your readers have enough complexity to contend with. They’re not looking for more in your content.

Cookie Content Tastes Good

Cookie content is highly readable. It brings the reader pleasure. It’s often entertaining. It’s well organised, which makes it digestible.

Cookie content uses your best writing skills. Not to show off how smart and talented you are, but to make the content more delicious for your reader.

Forms of Cookie Content

Good cookie content can be found in the form of articles, short ebooks, how to’s, images, videos, short recordings and quick guides/introductions to a product or service.

Have you found cookie content useful? Have you offered cookie content to your readers and seen any improvement from it? Let us know your comments below.