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Unravel Acronyms, Accelerate Engagement

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Some letter combinations are such a familiar part of everyday life that they almost fade into the background. Every day we see markings on food packaging, clothes, water bottles, electronics and elevators, Sarah Anne Lloyd writes in Interesting Facts. Examples include:

UL – The Underwriters Laboratories Company conducts product safety testing on electric plugs, heaters, and smoke alarms.

FCC – Mobile phones, earbuds, and televisions stations are checked by the Federal Communications Commission to make sure devices don’t overexpose users to electromagnetic radiation.

YKK – The Yoshisa Kogyo Kabushikikaisha manufacturing company delivers high-quality zippers, and has become a go-to in the garment industry.

SKU – Stock keeping units are used to keep track of products for sale online, helping sellers be precise about exact color, size, and model of goods.

Many times, authors introduce new acronyms when they develop a novel technique and want to give it a catchy name, believing that this increases the chances of accepting and remembering the technique, Dr. Shweta Murudkar of the Enago Academy.explains. However, one must use abbreviations with caution, Murudkar warns, because overuse may in turn reduce readability, especially for a non-technical or non-specialist reader.

In content marketing, as I explained last month in this Say It For You blog, once you’ve established common ground, reinforcing to readers that they’ve come to the right place, it’s important to add lesser-known bits of information on your subject, which might take the form of arming readers with terminology and acronyms common in your field.  That not only adds value to the “visit”, but increases readers’ sense of being “in the know”.

I remember, more than ten years ago, Vogue Magazine publishing a glossary of terms, teaching prospects to feel like “fashion mavens” who understood the meaning of “boxy” and “dirndl”. Every trade and every profession has its own technical terms and acronyms that are used for the sake of convenience.  Now we content writers can help readers feel part of our client’s “inner circle”, all through unraveling those acronyms and sharing those industry-specific “secret words”.

 

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Differentiate, Differentiate, and Differentiate

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Earlier this week in our Say It For You blog, we took notice of the Aldi tag line “Everything we don’t do, we do for you!”, discussing the importance of pointing out what things a business or practice has decided not to do and why…

Differentiation strategy
A differentiation strategy identifies and communicates the unique qualities of a product or company while highlighting the differences between that product or company and its competitors, Carol Kopp explains in Investopedia.com. The differences might relate to product design, marketing, packaging, location convenience or pricing, she adds. On the consumer end, Kopp goes on to say, vertical differentiation is based on objective, measurable factors, while horizontal differentiation is related to personal preferences. .

Mission statements
Just as Aldi distinguished itself from others by listing practices and policies it chooses not to embrace, many companies choose to express what they believe distinguishes them from competitors through their mission statements.

  • Facebook: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
  • PayPal: To build the Web’s most convenient, secure, and cost-effective payment solutions.”
  • Sony: “To be a company that inspires and fulfills your curiosity.”

Content marketing to differentiate
As content marketers, with the ultimate goal of influencing decision-making, we must help clients differentiate themselves. To build connection with readers, the content must be aimed to create new thinking, bringing meaning to data (as opposed to merely providing data).

Make no mistake about it, in any field, there will be controversy – about best business practices, about the best approach to providing professional services, about acceptable levels of risk, even about business-related ethical choices. Rather than ignoring the controversy, as content writers, we need to help clients weigh in on those very choices and issues. Their readers need to know what’s most important to them, what their vision in in terms of serving the public.

At its core, we’ve found at Say It For You, marketing content comes down to facts, stories, and oopinion. Facts are facts, but stories, and opinion are what helps differentiate and distinguish one provider from all the rest.

 

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“What-Just-Happened?” Content Marketing

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“Write a short story in which a person wakes up to find the world outside the front door has changed dramatically. What can they figure out in the first hour of this new situation?” Writer’s Digest contributor Amy Jones suggests to authors looking for fresh ideas.

Problem solution selling is a sales approach that aims to solve customer problems rather than just focusing on selling a product or service, Breakcold explains. “It requires a deep understanding of the customer’s pain points and challenges, and the ability to present a tailored solution that addresses those specific needs.”

While, in this Say It For You blog, we’ve often stressed how very important it is for content creators to understand the needs and concerns of the target audience, I think Amy Jones’ “What-just-happened?” approach goes a step further. When marketing a product or service that those prospects might very well have a need to use in the event of a future catastrophe or scarcity, the content marketing goal is to spur preventative action now.

Certainly, “disaster preparedness “ a set of actions before an event, can “avoid or at least lessen negative outcomes”,  but the challenge in marketing preventative tools – from back-up generators to regular HVAC checkups to long term care insurance — lies in evoking that “what-just-happened?” short story in readers’ minds.

“Agents must get customers to focus on the risks they face and the appropriate coverages, not on the price, Insurance Thought Leadership cautions.” .Without getting prospects to visualize “expensive emergency repairs and premature failures” , the advice given by an HVAC company to its prospects packs minimum power.

As content writers, we cannot position ourselves (or our clients) within the marketplace without studying the surroundings for our target audience. And, for content pieces to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements to let readers know who’s asking for the action. That “action”, however, is unlikely to take place until and unless prospects are able to visualize that “what-just-happened?” scenario.

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Can Nature Journaling Help Your Content Writing?

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“As you begin to explore a regular nature journaling practice, your skills will improve…You’ll aspire to write with more clarity, draw with more accurateness and learn about the flora, fauna, and natural phenomena that you’re observing,” Christine Elder tells kids and teens.

Nature journaling can help your writing in general, Marie Bengston asserts in Writer’s Digest.  “We need to conjure our written world with evocative, multi-sensory detail that immediately resonates with our reader,” she suggests.

For us creators of marketing content (our topic may or may not be related to nature), I think Bengston’s Three Prompts will prove particularly helpful: 

  1. I notice that…..
  2. I wonder if…..
  3. It reminds me of….:

I notice that… it’s essential for blog content writers to focus on a target audience, showing readers you’ve “noticed” them and have taken note of their unique preferences and needs.

I wonder if…In content marketing, the goal is to induce “wonder” in searchers who found their way to your site. Your post should have served up just enough food for thought to make them wonder if, after all, there are even more ways in which what you have to offer is exactly what they have to have! 

It reminds me of…In writing for business, the variety comes from the details you fill in around the central themes. Different examples of ways the company or practitioner helped solve various unusual problems in the past help reinforce the core advantages being offered.

  For content marketers, “journaling” might take the form of an “idea folder”. This could be an actual paper folder which we stuff with newspaper and magazine clippings, a notebook kept in a purse or pocket, or a digital file on a phone or tablet. Since at Say It For You, we train freelance content writers to “learn around”, the material they save up in that folder can help them keep track of what they notice, what they wonder, and what those tidbits call to mind.

Could getting into a journaling habit help your content writing?

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Who Will Taste This Almanac Tidbit?

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“Have you ever wondered what “sugar plums” were? Like every child used to hearing about sugar plums in “The Night Before Christmas” poem, the author of Harris’ Farmer’s Almanac thought sugar plums were fruit.  He was wrong, he later learned. In England in the 1600s, sugar plums were confit candies with a core of nuts or dried fruit encased in layers of crystallized sugar. To make the comfit, a seed or nut would be placed in the center of a pan, with sugar is layered around it. Depending on the size of the candies, a batch could take up to a week to complete. Subsequently, sugar plums were a cherished luxury back in the 18th and 19th centuries, Readelysian.com explains…

I find seemingly inconsequential tidbits of information like this highly useful when it comes to content marketing. Tidbits, I explain to clients and to writers, can be used to describe your unusual way of doing business, or to explain why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem. The time and care that went into producing the sugar plums can be compared to the complex processes that go into producing your own products. The image of a “solid core” can be used as a metaphor for solid business practices and ethical standards upheld in your own company.

 

Content writers need never run out of ideas if they keep a file of interesting tidbits of general information on hand, and including interesting tidbits of information in corporate marketing blogs can help::

  • educate blog readers
  • debunk myths
  • showcase the business owners’ expertise
  • demonstrate business owners’ perspective

There’s another purpose tidbits can serve – softening. One of my favorite business books is Geoffrey James’  Business Without the Bullsh*t . The author showcases a point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions – whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve need to express an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers.  Well, including interesting tidbits softens the effect of the strong opinions the business owner or practitioner might express in the content of the post, while at the same time helping to explain the reasoning behind those opinions.

Readers will savor those “sugar plum” tidbits in your content..

 

 

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