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The Big 5 for Content Writing

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“A writing conference is a perfect mix of all the ingredients you need to grow as a writer,” Scribd.com asserts. Novelists will start out learning the importance of the Big 5.

  1. Who is your hero?
  2. What do they want?
  3. Why do they want it?
  4. Why can’t they have it?
  5. What happens if they don/t get it? (the stakes)

At Say It For You, we teach content writers to help business and practice owners discover the answers to those very same Big 5 questions about their target audience. To a certain extent, online searchers have found the blog. A certain number of them have stayed long enough to assure themselves that the information you’ve provided is generally a good match for their needs. Now, however, you’re hoping those prospects will choose to become your clients, buyers, patients, or customers.

  1. Who is the target reader? What is their education and sophistication level? Where are they “hanging out”? What organizations do they belong to?
  2. What do they want? Status? Health? Knowledge? Technical advice?
  3. Why, in today’s world, is it important for them to find a solution?
  4. What factors stand in the way of their getting their “it”?
  5. What are the stakes? Why is it crucial for those readers to satisfy those needs?

Some special observations are in order about those “what-happens-if-they-don’t-get-it” stakes. People getting “scared” into action is an important topic in marketing, but at Say It For You, we are not fans of business owners using fear tactics in galvanizing customers into action. Instead, our recommendation to content writers would be to aim towards helping readers envision the potential comfort and relief that that using your advice, products, and services can bring.

On the other hand, it’s important in all marketing to convey a certain sense of urgency, using a “why now?” approach. Knowing the “whys” behind the “whats” – what your target readers want and what factors stand in the way of their getting it – allows you to offer marketing content that provides Big 5 answers!

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Interview Blogging

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“Subject matter experts are your key to organizational survival,” writes Peggy Salvatore in Working With SMEs, suggesting best questions to pose when interviewing sources. Writer’s Digest Don Vaughn agrees, seeing interviews as a vital aspect of nonfiction writing. The interview format, we’ve found at Say It For You, can be an efficient way to create compelling content that:

  1. inspires readers based on the success of the interviewee
  2. offers useful tips and tactics the interviewee has used

In a recent Indianapolis Business Journal interview, Albert Chen was asked  a)what he’s focusing on  b) what he’s listening to  and  c) his toughest challenge. In an interview described in Start Your Own Business Magazine, interviewees were asked “What’s on your walls?” and “What do you do for lunch?” One very clever interview format is “Buy, Hold, Sell” , asking  a) Which new business choices are “buying into” now? b) What tactics have served you well that you plan to continue? c) Which are you finding no longer work in today’s environment? After your interviewee has answered the question, Peggy Salvatore advises interviewers, find a nugget in their answer that you find interesting and ask more about it.

Just last week in this Say It For You blog, I quoted a remark by digital marketing advisor Jeff Bullas to the effect that blogging is a platform for self-development. Since it’s so often the founder of a business or practice whom we’re interviewing, what I call “the training benefit” comes into play. The very interview process “forces” entrepreneurs to learn ways of effectively expressing their passion and defining the business lessons they’ve learned.

“Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?” is an excellent question, with the answer serving to “humanize” the subject while offering valuable tips to readers. “What routines do you follow each day?” is a question that can introduce a post containing valuable “how to” tips for readers, Zoe Maggert of Perfectly Planned Content teaches. Usin your blog to interview a leader in a different industry is like having a guest lecturer enliven a college class session. Interviews inspire human connection, Maggert adds.

Every so often, to add vim and vigor to your content marketing efforts, include an interview blog post!

 

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What is Your Reader’s Deal?

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“What’s the deal here?”

Amy Collins, who represents both publishers and authors, says writers need to know “the deal”.  Writing a plot summary involves figuring out the goals and motives of both hero(ine) and antagonist.

  • What situation do we find the character in at the beginning of the story?
  • What do they perceive as their biggest enemy or problem?
  • Who or what is actually their biggest enemy or problem?
  • What is the biggest thing in the story that changes the situation?

The message for marketing content writers? Even if your (or your blogging client’s) products and services are highly differentiated from the general market, that’s not enough to keep content fresh and make conversions happen. It’s knowledge of the target audience that must influence every aspect of your content. “Great business stories are rarely aimed at everyone,” marketing guru Seth Godin stresses.“Your opportunity,” he tells marketers, “lies in finding a neglected worldview, framing your story in a way that this audience will focus on.”

Learning about your target customers includes gathering intelligence, not only about

  • their gender
  • their average age
  • their marital status
  • their educational level
  • their employment
  • their outlook on life
  • where they get their news

but also, just as Amy Collins explains to authors, about what that group of individuals perceives as their biggest enemy or problem. (Is that, in your perception, the biggest problem?) How can your insights, along with your products and/or services, help solve the “real” challenges they face?

There are two sides to the coin: content writers need to understand their clients’ own “deals”, too. Business and practice owners cannot be positioned within the marketplace without studying their surroundings, formulating their own position statements, then making their “deals” clear to readers. Each “visit” to the blog should conclude with readers understanding exactly what the owner’s unique philosophy or mission is, and why that approach can be beneficial to them.

One concern business owners have expressed to me is they don’t want to come across as self-serving or boastful in their blog posts. I explain that it’s crucial for prospects to find real reason to work with you rather than with your competition.

They’ve arrived at your blog site, in large part, because you’ve nade clear you understood their “deal”‘. Now that they’re here, help them understand yours!.

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Blog Like You Have an Illustrator

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As a professional illustrator, Ebony Glenn offers advice to book authors in a Writer’s Digest piece. Your story, Glenn says, will help the illustrator pair art with text.

Have a compelling theme
To get an illustrator’s wells of creativity overflowing, Glenn says, have a compelling theme. The theme is your story’s North Star. If you have too many poorly defined themes, it will be a challenge for readers to connect with you. Readers need to be able to find the why to your text.

In a sense, focus is the point in blog content writing. At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the Power of One, which means one message per post, with a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, geared towards one narrowly defined target audience.

Provide resources
Provide your illustrator with resources and notes if your story requires additional research (it’s about a historical figure or takes place in a foreign setting), Glenn tells picture book authors. In blog content, links are part of the resources you’re providing for readers, Amy Lupold Bair says in Blogging for Dummies. At Say It For You, we see collating information from different sources and then organizing that information in a different way provides great value to readers.

Use art to arouse curiosity and evoke emotion
It is the job of the illustrator to engage readers with their imagery, Ebony Glenn admits, enriching the content with intrigue and stimulating curiosity. While words are the most important part of blogging for business, visuals, whether in the form of “clip art”, photos, graphs, charts, or even videos, add interest and evoke emotion.

Personally, in blog marketing, I like clip art. While these commercial images are not original to my client’s business or practice and they don’t actually depict a practice’s or a business’ products services, colleagues, or customers, often clip art is more effective than anything else in capturing concepts, helping me as the blog content writer express the main idea I’m articulating in a post.

Read, read, read
Asked for a top piece of advice for aspiring illustrators of all ages, picture book mentor Kim Rogers answers, “Read, read, read some more. It’s the best way to see how books are written, which ones work and which ones don’t.”

Ditto for blog content writers, I’ve been teaching at Say It For You. In order to create a valuable ongoing blog for your business, it’s going to take equal parts reading and writing. You need to keep up with what others are saying on your topic (What’s in the news? What problems and questions have been surfacing that relate to your industry or profession?) You need a constant flow of ideas.

So, no, you may not have an illustrator, but keep these valuable tips in mind in order to keep producing focused and inspiring marketing content.

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Don’t Know Your Tools? Know Your Gems!

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The way Jeff Bullas sees it, “Blogging is a platform for self development,” People start blogs, Bulas says, for all sorts of reasons – to educate, to have a voice, to make money. Content writing drives you to learn , to document, and to connect. It is your passion that will act as your guiding light, helping you find and connect with “your tribe”, even with no technical expertise. In terms of connecting, Bullas emphasizes, you must understand your audience’s fears, dreams, problems, and challenges, learning whom they respect in your niche.

But what about that “technical expertise” piece, including setting up the blog, choosing a domain name, selecting a host, and securing the site? Recalling the beginnings of Say It For You, now in its sixteenth year of content writing, I’m reminded of a favorite saying of an attorney friend of mine: “Don’t know your tools? Know your gems.” In other words, the advice I’d offer new content writers is this: Call on advisers who can help with the technology piece while you focus on the messaging.

Meanwhile, needless to say, the technology piece isn’t standing still, but changing and developing at an astounding pace. Still, as Emily Nix of Nectafy observes, “excellent content requires a human touch”.”Tools are nice,” Danny Sullivan of Third Door Media remarks in a Start Your Own Business magazine piece, alluding to all the buzz about artificial intelligence. “but we’ve had tools for years to build houses, yet we haven’t completely automated house building.”.”Despite the fact that ChatGPT can develop conversational AI tools, it cannot take the place of human content creators”, the Med Responsive digital marketing agency believes.

As content writers, our primary function must be learning all we can, not about the “tools” and mechanics of the internet, but about our target audience (or, in the case of Say It For You content writers, the target audience for each of our clients)..When it comes to the technical aspects of delivering that content, we’ve turned to technology maven “gems” for ongoing advice and guidance, while our writers focus on the message.

“Don’t know your tools? Know your gems,” is the byword.

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