Self-Help Titles Teach Variety

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Browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble, I came across an entire three-shelf section of self help books. The variety of titles was astounding, perfect examples of how a single topic can be approached in a plethora of ways:. Here are just a few of the titles:

  • Already Enough
  • Wild Calm
  • Yay All Day
  • Wander the Stars
  • Slow Down, Take a Nap
  • What’s Behind the Blue Door
  • You Meet You
  • Always Change a Losing Game
  • The Other Significant Others
  • Atomic Habits

When it comes to content marketing, all the titles show above could be classified as “Huhs?”, meaning that each needs a subtitle to make clear what the book is actually about. “Oh!” titles, we teach at Say It For You, are self-explanatory, and from an SEO (search engine optimization) standpoint, make a direct connection to the query readers type into their search bar.

For either straightforward or “Huh?-Oh!” titles of blog posts, one way to engage readers is using the sound of the words themselves, repeating vowel sounds (assonance) or consonant sounds (alliteration), so that searchers use their sense of hearing along with the visual.

Just as titles “grabbed” me as a bookstore browser, it’s important to have “ringing” in blog post titles, we teach. Titles matter in two ways:

  1. For search – keywords and phrases help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.
  2. For engagement – after you’ve been “found”, you’ve gotta “get read”! (Of course, no clever title can substitute for well-written, relevant content that provides valuable information to the readers.)

But when blog content writers try being too clever, too general, or too cliched, that’s not good, either, Authormedia points out in “Top 5 Blog Title Mistakes Authors Make” The overriding criterion is whether you can deliver on your headline promise in the body of the post.

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Capturing Conflict in Your Content

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“Every great story depends on conflict to propel it forward, Jane Cleland writes in Writer’s Digest. The conflict can be one of four types:

  • actual or threatened physical attack
  • emotional
  • spiritual (loss of faith or shaken beliefs)
  • mental (a puzzle or intellectual challenge)

However, Cleland cautions, “if someone doesn’t care about a situation, you don’t have a conflict.” That means, she says, “We need to understand what makes people care“.

When it comes to content marketing, “conflict is a problem that the customer is motivated enough to resolve,” Truss Creative adds. In brand marketing, though, it’s not about the business owner’s origin story or their “disruption story”, but about the customer’s story. Writing effective content, therefore, means identifying the customer’s:

  • everyday annoyance
  • burning desire
  • quiet wish
  • tower foe
  • existential threat

In other words, what does your audience notice, value, want to protect, and want to project to others?

Years ago, my friend and admired sales training expert Tim Roberts told me that, while salespeople try to develop good problem solving skills, he challenges them to  first find, then solve. Finding a problem that the prospect hadn’t considered is what makes a salesperson valuable.

In blog posts, we teach at Say It For You, the opening paragraph is there to make clear not only what need, issue, or problem is to be discussed, but also what “slant” the business or practice owner has on the issue. Then, it’s crucial not to end in a “fizzle”,  leaving web visitors trailing off in a disappointed move. The ending has to resolve the central conflict, issue, or problem you’ve raised, leaving readers with a path to action and positive expectations.

Capturing conflict in your content might be the secret to success.

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Op Ed Piece Nails Allusion and Metaphor

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In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a box to care for, and when she opened it, all the world’s evils came out, including curses on humanity. The term “Pandora’s box” has become an allusion to something that seems valuable but turns out to be a curse… 

 In her opinion piece on leadership published  in the Indianapolis Business Journal, Samantha Julka uses the Pandora’s Box metaphor to encourage workforce leaders to go ahead and” open the box” by asking the kinds of difficult questions that are the only path to “hope” of improved performance…

The point of using cultural allusions in content marketing is to cement a bond between the writer and readers based on shared experience and knowledge, I wrote back in 2016. But if readers happen not to be familiar with the underlying tale or reference point, the danger is that the content will be frustrating rather than illuminating. “Know your reader when using allusions in business blogs!” I cautioned, advising marketers to gauge readers’ level of education, to avoid having “Huh?” be the reaction to their chosen metaphor.

Julka handled this very content writing issue superbly, I think. In explaining her thesis that the reason many workplace leaders don’t engage more with workers to learn about challenges and how to address them is that they fear questions might lead to requests they can’t (or don’t want to) fulfill. They fear “opening Pandora’s box” might anger workers rather than engaging them.

But, prior to illustrating her point using the Pandora’s Box metaphor, Julka actually reviews the story, putting all readers (regardless of their level of cultural sophistication) “on the same page”:

Pandora, the first woman on Earth, lets her curiosity lead her to open a mysterious gift she received from the gods. The gift contained all the world’s evils, which escaped when Pandora opened the box. It was impossible to put the contents back in.

 Having reviewed the reference, the author proceeds to state her recommendation to readers – “It’s better to find a way to open the box and deal with the contents constructively” framing questions in a way that benefits all of us”.

At Say It For You, we tell content writers to add picturesque metaphors to help readers remember the information.   I appreciated the way Julka used planning dinner for her own family as a metaphor for framing questions in the workplace. Rather than asking, “What do you want for dinner, boys?”, she now takes a more inclusive approach, asking the more criteria-based and abstract “What do you boys want out of dinner?”.

Julka’s “hope” is that her menu-planning query will allow mixing in some broccoli. As content creators, we’re hoping to mix in some search optimization terms ,along with are engaging content!

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Create Compelling Content by Using Images!

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Do illustrations, graphics, images enhance content? If you think back to childhood, all your children’s books had many images designed to illustrate the content. Some books were picture books without any “content”. So, we are programmed from childhood to be attracted to visuals. I miss seeing them in adult books! I studied Illustration in art school before I segued into graphic design. It gave me a good foundation in thinking visually when communicating.

After starting my own design business, I was freelancing at the headquarters of an international furnishings and design company. They actually hired me fulltime and I worked there from 2012-2017 before going fulltime into my own business again. While there, I created many counter cards, as they called them. These were like little posters at letter size that would be placed on the counters where the receptionists sat in the design centers.

Here’s one for gift cards. I combined a fun type with the visual of the gift card taken by the in-house photography team. It made an effective ad for gift cards that could be seen by visitors and customers.

 

 

 

Another example is this counter card for a color trends event posted in a Missouri design center. I found and used an image of a paint roller to make it clear what the event would be about before the viewer even read the content.

 

I could bring out endless other examples but these are two of my favorites for showing how visuals enhance content. Without imagery, the message can be passed over in the clutter of content trying to gain our attention. Just think of these two examples without the visuals and you’ll probably agree!

 

 

This guest post was contributed by graphic designer Patricia Creedon.For more information, Pat may be reached at https://patcreedondesign.com or at 203 252-0909

 

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Content Marketing Must Make Readers the Winners

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“Shark Tank likely would not be the household name it has come to embody had it not been for Clay Newbill, Daymond John admits. “it was Newbill who pitched the idea and his choice of ideal cast members to a team of writers and editors”. In his book Powershift, Daymond John recalls a key change to the seating arrangements on the set that Newbill had made in the show, putting the Sharks at eye level with the entrepreneurs instead of on a raised stage. John’s advice to entrepreneurs is to “hone a win-win negotiating style”, striking a deal that works to the benefit of both parties.

In order to bring about a successful result in negotiating any deal, John elaborates, you need to do your homework, set the tone for the discussion, make the first move, and play to win-win. Understanding that people are people, just like you, bring value to the table without expecting anything in return, he advises. Always consider the needs of the buyers, not only those of the sellers.

Think like a buyer in your blog, I tell content writers. As Keith Rand, my late friend and co-member of Circle Business Network put it, achieving success in business means understanding – and focusing the conversation on – not what you have to offer, but on what the other party is seeking. Keith would explain that in a business transfer, the focus needs to be not on why the seller has decided to sell, but on what on what’s going on inside the buyer’s head as he or she pictures owning and running that business going forward. 

In advising professional speakers on ways to drive revenue, Aussie consultant Peter Sheahan advocated being buyer-centric, doing everything with buyers’ needs in mind. Your content marketing, I tell business owners and professional practitioners, will succeed only if two things are apparent to readers: 

  1. You understand their concerns and needs.
  2. You and your staff have the experience, the information, the products, and the services to solve exactly those problems and meet precisely those needs. 

The content  marketing principle emphasized ten years ago in a piece by socialmediatoday.com remains true: “Content marketing should be beneficial to your customer, reflective of your brand, and optimized for Google, in that order.

Content marketing must make readers the winners!

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