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Saying Less, Getting More

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From the time an entrepreneur is introduced to the time one of the sharks says “I’m out” (on the TV show “Shark Tank”), it is almost always three minutes, writes Brant Pinvidic in The 3 Minute Rule. If you can’t distill a sales presentation down to three minutes or less, the listeners will begin to make their decision without all the pertinent information, he cautions.

Ironically, what we’ve learned at Say It For You, saying less actually translates into more work and more prior thought in creating content that has a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of a business or practice. At the same time, each article or post should have three examples or details supporting the main idea.

Short is not easy, USA Today founder Al Neuharth liked to say. “It takes longer to keep things short.”  Yet being short and to the point is the most important thing to keep in mind, he wrote. For content marketers, I offer advice that’s a compromise – make blog posts as long as they need to be to get the point across, but not a single sentence longer. At the same time, our content needs to be personal and conversational rather than terse.

The number “three” in the 3-minute rule is significant in another sense.  Since we tend to process information using patterns, threesomes (think “stop, look, and listen” or “the good, the bad, and the ugly”, or “I came, I saw, I conquered”) not only make titles more memorable, but are a good model for organizing ideas within an article.

Among writing mistakes, K.M. Weiland admits, one of the most common is simply over-explaining. We distrust our ability to explain things well enough the first time around, she says, so we stick in more content just to make sure readers get the point. Don’t, is Weiland’s advice.

Of course, we freelance content writers have to overcome the challenge of the short attention span of online searchers (if we say more, we literally stand to “get less” across!) At the same time, in our efforts to make our marketing content personal, we need to be short AND sweet!

Over the years of creating content for a variety of clients, I’ve arrived at a 3-part standard of sorts for considering ourselves “done” composing a post:

  • We’ve covered one aspect of a topic in some depth.
  • We’ve offered value in terms of advice or information.
  • We’ve offered a visual to complement or symbolize the main point.
  • We’ve verified our research and facts and properly attributed quoted content to its author.

Whether you’re pitching a project on Shark Tank or composing marketing content, saying less can mean getting more!

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Emotion Has Everything To Do With It

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“As a highly data-dependent field, marketing requires us to absorb information about industry trends and buyer preferences. That can seem like a very logical endeavor if all you’re doing is letting the  data dictate your moves,” Rebecca Rick, content strategist at CIDDesign writes, “but that’s simply not enough. There has to be human insight and emotional truth at the heart of the messaging for anyone to care about it.”

Audiences crave authenticity from brands and are quick to notice when it is missing. “In a competitive landscape, ContentMarketing.com agrees, “customers aren’t interested in being sold a product; they are interested in finding solutions to everyday problems. “Modern consumers aren’t loyal to products, but to brands’ stories and experiences, intuitmailchimp.com adds. By tapping into emotions such as joy, nostalgia, and empathy, brands can create authentic experiences.  On the other hand, negative emotions can have a lasting impact, acting as a deterrent to customer engagement.

At Say It For You, we found great inspiration in Jeremy Porter’s “Using Emotion to Persuade”. “Remove the metaphorical barriers between you and your audience,” Porter cautions. In content marketing, one goal needs to be presenting the business or practice as very personal rather than merely transactional, reminding readers that there are humans providing the product or service.  “Don’t put on an act or ‘lecture’ the audience; infuse a sense of humor.” But, can emotional marketing be effective in B2B situations?  To be sure – no company is faceless.  Behind every decision there is always a person involved, and that person has feelings.

During the pandemic, when we were all exhorted to practice “social distancing”, I remember being impressed with a reminder offered by Dr. John Sharp of Harvard to not practice emotional distancing. As a content creator, I understood that emotion trumps fact for people, and that it is compassion and emotional intelligence that must drive marketing initiatives.

“Stories and narratives are particularly effective at evoking emotions because they engage our brains in a unique way, activating not only the language processing areas, but also the sensory cortex and motor cortex,” the Unity Environment University website explains. “Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story,” observes Seth Godin in his book All Marketers Tell Stories.

What we’ve learned at  Say It For You is that blogging is a very personal form of communication, and our clients’ messages need to be translated into human, people-to-people terms.

In content marketing, emotion has everything to do with it!

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How to Use Numbers Without Being a Numbers Nudnik

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With both of this week’s Say It For You blog posts representing my reaction to Ryan Law’s very provocative piece “The Four Forces of Bad Content”, today our focus is on what Law mocks as “deference to data”.  Yes, Law accedes, content marketing should be data-driven, but “the way most writers use evidence…actually undermines their argument.”  Three specific practices he mocks are a) injecting a tired-out statistic into an opening sentence  b) using questionable, outdated data points  and c) dumping quotes from experts with only a thin narrative to link them to the argument.

As a content writer and trainer, I actually believe that numbers, which can be used to “build belief” are often underutilized.  Statistics, I explain to business owners and professional practitioners, are not merely attention-grabbers, but can be used to demonstrate the extent of a problem their product or service helps address. If there’s some false impression people seem to have relating to your industry, or to a product or service you provide, I explain, you can bring in statistics to show how things really are. Using data in content marketing relates to the theory of social proof, meaning that, as humans, we are simply more willing to do something if we see that other people are doing it. I agree with Law that, when using statistics in marketing content, it’s important to include the source, providing the answer to readers’ unspoken question: “Why should I accept these statistics as proof?”

A few years ago, I remember reading an Indianapolis Business Journal article titled “In the workplace: Data is a commodity, but insight is gold”. When numbers are tossed around, people generally view it as vital information, she says, but people may not want to read raw data; they want someone to tell them what the data means. When explained effectively, her point was, it can make people think and then move to making decisions.

Pedro Cardoso of Enterprise Apps Today has some very relevant commentary about data. Typically, websites are used to provide data, he says – what products and services the company offers and in what “packages”, who the players are, in what geographical area the company operates. (I believe that, on the better sites, there is also data presented pertaining to the owners and the history of the company). The real value, though, Cardoso points out is in the information behind the data.:

Go ahead and use numbers, we recommend at Say It For You, but avoid being a numbers nudnik!

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Plainspoken Content Marketing

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I always enjoy Richard Lederer’s columns in the Mensa Bulletin; the author’s “Stamp Out Fadspeak satire in the January 2025 issue was particularly relevant to content marketing. English parlance is in a “cringeworthy state”, Lederer complains, all because of “fadspeak”, consisting of clichés and way-overused terminology. “Work with me on this,” Lederer mimes. “I’ve been around the block…I’m not the elephant in the room or the 800-pound gorilla.” Lederer ends his rant with “Now that I’ve been able to tell it like it is in real time, I’m outta here.” 

When writing web content, the Bureau of Internet Accessibility advises, the best option is to avoid jargon. If you’re using a professional term, is it giving your audience essential information, or are you using it to make your content sound more important? Plain language is usually the best tool for getting your message across.

“At one time, the cliché you’re using was likely a creative and precise way to make the point, but no more,” says Megan Krause of clearvoice.com, listing 35 of the most overused phrases in content marketing, including “low-hanging fruit”, “circling back”, “in a nutshell”, and “at the end of the day”. Ask yourself what you’re really trying to say and then say it with dynamic, decisive language, Krause recommends.

But what about using jargon in blog writing for business? In general, jargon is a “handle-with-care” writing technique, because readers are impatient to find the information they need without any navigational or terminology hassle. On the other hand, we realize at Say It For You, industry or profession-unique terminology can be used as a way of establishing common ground with a select audience of readers, increasing their sense of being part of a group sharing specialized knowledge.

Marketing clichés can be so overused that you’d be hard pressed to know what company is offering to “take you to the next level”, Brooke Sellas writes in BSquaredMedia. Instead of touting how “efficient” or “effective” your product or service is, she advises, “get real” with case studies, testimonials, or other outcomes or results. Stop saying you’ll “go the extra mile” or “above and beyond”, which just makes you sound like every other provider on earth. Instead of presenting your company as “outside the box; say something that actually describes how you’re different.

“Business cliché’s were fresh and meaningful once upon a time,” concedes Dave Baker of Super Copy Editors, “but their best days are long behind them.”

As content marketers, we often find industry terminology to be useful and informative. Cliches, in contrast, should be “outta here”.

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Spicing Up Content Using Word Story Tidbits

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Just as spices can be used to enhance a standard meat-and-potatoes meal, at Say It For You, we’re always on the alert for ways to “spice up” content marketing text. Explaining the origin of unusual words and expressions can enhance content, making the information which providers of goods and services “serve up” to their readers a tad “tastier”.

 “Ghost words”:

Some words that appear in the dictionary actually originated from typos or linguistic errors, and marketers can describe these happy mistakes as part of their web page or blog post content.  Apparel vendors, for example can share with their readers the tidbit Angela Tung explains in Mental Floss: the word “tweed” may have come from a misuse of the Scottish word tweel,  which was how the Scots pronounced  “twill” (woven fabric).

Content marketers for tutoring or for academics programs might want to explain the mistake that resulted in the word  “syllabus” – Roman philosopher Cicero wrote about sittybas,  referring to the label on a papyrus roll. Somewhere along the line, this was misprinted  as syllabus.

Expressive expressions:

“All that and a bag of chips”, an expression from the 90s (meaning that something is especially  impressive or attractive), first appeared in a 1994 issue of People magazine, WordSmarts explains. Grocers, fast food restaurants and snack food companies might use this tidbit in their marketing materials.  A second expression that food providers might want to include is “spill the beans”.  In the ancient Greek process of voting, putting a white bean in the jar meant “yes”; black or brown ones signified “no”.  If someone spilled the beans, Melanie Curtin writes in Inc., the election results would be revealed.  

Sales trainers and  networking advisors might explain the origin of the expression “break the ice”. Before road transportation was developed, ships were the means of trade.  When ships got stuck during the winter, small ships would be sent to clear a path by breaking up the ice, as Anais John explains in Grammarly.

Spice up your content marketing using some of these word history tidbits!

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