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The Reader’s Digest Approach to Content Marketing

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Although reading is a way to keep you mind sharp, finding time to read can be a challenge,” Jason Buhrmester, Chief Content Officer for Reader’s Digest concedes. We can help,” he assures readers, alluding to the service Fiction Favorites, groups of four novels, hand-picked and shortened, delivered to readers’ homes.

As content marketers, I teach at Say It For You, we can take the same approach in offering content to our clients’ target audiences. I encourage freelance content writers and business owners alike to curate, meaning to gather OPW (Other People’s Wisdom) and share that with their readers, commenting on that material and relating it to their own topic.

Truth is, to sustain our blog and newsletter content writing over long periods of time without losing reader excitement and engagement, we need to constantly add to our own body of knowledge – about our industry or professional field, and about what’s going on around us in our culture. Business blogging can serve as a form of market research in itself, and through curating material we find and then adding our own original thinking about what we’re sharing – that brings our readers the best of both worlds.

Three cautions concerning content curation:

1. Communicate armed with facts from reliable, trusted sources. 
Linking to a news source or journal article, for instance, adds credibility to the ideas you’re presenting in your post. Having guest bloggers explain their point of view and share their specialized knowledge. Make sure to include material only from trusted sources.

2. Communicate seeking to inform, comfort, and connect. 
The tone needs to be relationship-building and interpersonal communication. as your content helps visitors judge whether you have their best interests at heart.  Even if you’ve come across as the most competent of product or service providers, you still need to pass the “warmth” test.

3. Always attribute.
While quoting someone else’s remarks on a topic your covering can be a very good thing, reinforcing your point, showing you’re in touch with trends in your field, and adding variety, it’s crucial to give “credit where credit is due” by attributing the quote or comment to its author. Even if you’re not quoting an author directly, but using another person’s thoughts or ideas that are not your own or mentioning statistics you didn’t collate yourself, it’s crucial to acknowledge the source.
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Add value to your content by using the Reader’s Digest approach!

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The Long and the Short of it When it COmes to Content

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“The best content is the right length, includes keywords, and is relevant to the reader”, Intuit Mailchimp explains. You want your blog posts to engage readers and improve SEO, and the length of your posts is an important metric.

Fill with no fillers.
As a content creator at Say It For You, I particularly appreciated Mailchimp’s observation about length: “There’s a lot to learn about some topics, but others are simple and straightforward…Some blog posts need to be short and sweet… The moment you feel like you’re adding filler content, you should start trimming down your blog post to the important parts.”

Having composed blog posts (as both a ghost writer and under my own name) numbering well into the tens of thousands, I’m still finding it difficult to fix on any rule about length other than “It depends!” I like to remind writers of what Albert Einstein said: “Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

Compose to fit.
Factors to consider in deciding the length of a post, MailChimp reminds marketers, include:

  • the target audience’s sophistication and prior knowledge of the subject
  • the purpose of each blog post
  • the complexity of the topic itself
  • the frequency of posting
  • the actual metrics of past postings (how much time have your readers been spending on the site?)

Position the owner or practitioner as a Subject Matter Expert.
Establishing trust and credibility by offering usable information and insights is not directly related to length. Once readers feel assured that you know your stuff and that you care about offering good information and good service, they might be ready to take action before they even read all the way into the blog post!

Consider SEO.
“Search engines tend to prefer longer content, so go with longer content if you’re trying to improve your search engine rankings,” Intuit Mailchimp advises.. The “golden” blog post length, according to WIXblog, is actually 2,300 – 2,500 words: Articles of this length, the authors state, are “typically thorough and educational, and therefore have a much higher chance of ranking on search engines.”

When it comes to length of blog posts, the long and short of it might simply be “it depends!”

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Reminding Readers of Things They Already Know

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To appreciate a story’s narrative, readers must be constantly updating their sense of where they are in the tale, Amor Towles points out in Poets & Writers. Of course, Towles concedes, as we begin to read a novel, we already know something of what it contains (we’ve read the dust jacket, heard about the book from a friend, or have read other books by that author).

The same is true, of course, for content we post online. Readers will not have found their way to our content unless they have an interest in learning more about that very topic or need help related to our area of expertise. The delicate task facing us in “bringing readers up to speed” before moving on to the new information involves knowing just how much of an update is needed. Too little might cause puzzlement as we offer new information. Too much “review”, conversely, might be seen as repetitive or – worse – disrespectful of our readers’ sophistication level.

Like novelists, in creating regular blog and newsletter content, we attempt to create a cumulative effect. Some articles review the basics; others offer news of recent developments – new products or services, new changes in the law affecting our customers, new community involvements. The option of linking back to former content can be helpful to readers.

But, whether or not you decide to use linkbacks in your message, because blog content remains permanently on the website, with formerly posted content moving “down” a spot to make room, the cumulative repetition of key words and phrases increases the chances for the content to “get found”.

Public speakers should ask themselves how they can “make it personal”, John Maxwell teaches public speakers in his book, The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, and the best way to do that, he advises, is “to pair what they do know with what they don’t know.”The first part involves learning about the organizational culture of the group, their personal experiences, even their national origin. Then, the “what they don’t know” part describes the insights you’re communicating today about that already acquired knowledge.

For us online content creators, then, the challenge is finding ways to respect readers’ intelligence and knowledge while reminding them of things they already know, setting the stage to offer exciting new insights.

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Target Content But Leave No One Aghast

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The Certified Financial Planners Board ‘Perfect Job” ad campaign has apparently left Certified Financial Planners aghast, Tracy Longo reports in Financial Advisor Magazine. Meant to encourage young people to embark on “perfect” careers in financial planning, the ad depicts prospective CFP®s as snoozing, taking bubble baths, and competing in burrito-eating contests. The apparent intent was showing that careers in financial planning offer life-work balance, but the content ended up offending rather than informing.

As a CFP Board Emeritus® and now owner of a content marketing company, I view this “Perfect Job” marketing fiasco as a cautionary tale. Certainly, when building a plan to connect with an audience, we need to consider not only age, gender, and nationality, but where members of  the target audience are “hanging out” on social media, Interviews, and focus groups. The creators of “Perfect Job” were obviously aware of the high value the younger generation places on work-life balance. But, because they were clumsy in using exaggeration to create a humorous effect, their ploy failed.

A number of years ago, I found material on some research done at the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences on the impact of humor in advertising. The researchers concluded that, while humor is an effective method of attracting attention in advertisements, it offers no advantage at increasing persuasion.

For the content writers at Say It For You, our “employers” are business and practice owners whom we work to connect with their target audiences, positioning those owners and practitioners as Subject Matter Experts in their respective fields. Because we are figuratively “putting words in their mouths”, it is they who must embrace the messaging prior to our “sending it out” to their target readers.

In the case of the “Perfect Job” campaign content, the marketers failed to consider the very financial planners they were positioning as models in the eyes of future entrants into the profession.

In defense of the campaign, CFP Board officials said the ads were “facetious portrayals” intended to help student audiences think about “what their dream job might look like”.

As a longtime content creator, I have learned that “facetious” marketing content too often combusts. As content marketers, the “trick” lies is targeting our content while leaving absolutely no one aghast.

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Test Their Content Reading Smarts

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“Test Your Hearing Smarts” is the title of a page in the Winter Wellness issue of Prevention Magazine. What helps with tinnitus (ringing in the ears)? Is it earplugs, mindfulness, or surgery – or does nothing help (you’re stuck with the problem)? The answer: There’s no known cure, but mindfulness training (using a white noise machine) can actually help in many cases. Which of these foods are good for your hearing? Coconuts, walnuts, and wild rice all contain nutrients that support good hearing.

At Say It For You, we’ve found, quizzes like this are a very good a content marketing tactic. Online readers tend to be curious creatures and “self-tests” tend to engage and help them relate in a more personal way to the information being presented. What’s more, since one of the biggest challenges in writing to promote a business or practice over long periods of time is keeping the content fresh, quizzes help “vary the menu”.

Other positive aspects of quizzes and tests include:

  • “Self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to the information presented.
  • Quiz questions and answers can offer a different perspective on fact sets readers have forgotten.
  • When readers strain to remember something and then find the answer, they tend to repeat that fact set in their conversations with others (perhaps driving those others to check out the website).
  • Our curiosity is most intense when we’re testing our own knowledge, making tests, games, and quizzes hard to resist.

Research done about ads is relevant to quizzes and tests, I believe. A study done at the University of Bath in conjunction with the Nielson company came up with two ways to score ads.

  1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
  2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

In a sense, quizzes like the Test Your Hearing Smarts are powerful on both counts – important, actionable information is being conveyed to readers, and that information is very personal in nature.

“All bloggers would like to get more interaction and participation from their readers and visitors,” says vandelaydesign.com.  Tests and surveys engage readers,  we’ve found at Say It For You, making them feel they are part of a conversation with my business and practice owner clients.

 

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