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Hearing-Your-Happy Results-Driven Content

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As I worked my way through the news stories in my Indianapolis Star newspaper (yes, I still enjoy the print version), my eye was caught by an AudioNova hearing aid ad on page 6. The headline read: “Hear your happy holidays”.

At Say It For You, we understand that the focus in both the headline and the body of content written to market a product or service needs to be on the results of using the product or service rather than on its features. While online visitors may lack experience with the latest processes or the technology in your field of expertise, they know what their own needs are. The creators of the AudioNova ad know exactly what their buyers want – they want to hear! What outcomes are going to mean the most to members of your target audience? Lead with those.

“The psychology of advertising focuses on building empathy towards a product or service to help you become more inclined to buy or use it,” Psych Central explains. “Think of amusement park commercials that show people having fun, riding roller coasters, and enjoying an activity-filled day. This creates excitement around the park and lets you believe that you can recreate this excitement if you visit.” As shown in the AudioNova ad, the concept is to have prospects envision themselves enjoying the results a purchase might bring to them.

Ad executive David Ogilvy said that, on the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar, he would say. In other words, to create a successful piece, spend 80% of your time nailing the headline. storychief.io agrees: “Direct headlines clearly state the purpose of the ad or key offer upfront. They summarize the core benefit or product in a concise, often single-sentence headline and ought to be:

  • attention-stealing
  • informative
  • relevant to the target audience.

Of course, it’s not only the headline of a content marketing piece that must be relevant; the content of the article or post itself must deliver on its purpose, Story Chief stresses, “going to the heart of the reader’s problem – their confusion, their doubt, their ambition…” What content creation is all about is “handing readers tools with which to reach their goals.”

Results-driven content helps readers “hear their happy”!

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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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Content Writers Help Readers Find the Quiddity

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In content marketing, you might say, it’s all about the quiddity, the essence of what you do, what you know how to do, and who you are that makes you different from any other. And, while Merriam Webster offers synonyms such as “center”, “core” and “heart”, vocabulary.com explains that politicians and lawyers sometimes use quiddity as an evasion technique, bringing up irrelevant and distracting points to avoid direct answers. 

“Capturing your brand essence succinctly involves distilling its core values, unique selling propositions, and emotional connections into a brief, impactful statement,” Alex Bundalla advises on LinkedIn. One way of expressing quiddity is Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, Bundalla explains.  Three concentric circles represent the “why” (values and principles), the “how” (methods), and the “what” (products and services) of your brand. Another visual expressing quiddity is the Brand Pyramid, showing levels of customer relationship with a brand, from experiential to symbolic and intangible.

At Say It For You, we often refer to blog posts as the sound bites of the Internet, in which we help business and practice owners convey t readers the essence, the “quiddity”, of their accomplishments and intentions. Hardly a simply task. You know your product, service, or company is amazing, but they don’t know how it works or why it’s so great, Brant Pinvidic writes in The 3-minute Rule. “You need to give them more knowledge in less time,” the author explains.

But what about those vocabulary.com “politicians and lawyers” who use quiddity as an evasion technique? It just doesn’t work for very long, is the answer. Putting a unique “twist” on a topic, in contrast, works extraordinarily well, I believe. Taking some good old ideas and using an individual approach to those ideas is no evasion, but a way to a. mark your content as uniquely yours. 

“The one that stands out is in essence the one that is not like the rest,” onsightapp.com agrees. “When people cannot distinguish brands from each other, they cannot form reliable relationships with those brands.” Not only does an effective brand have a well-outlined target audience, it may even offer a service or product exclusively to that target audience.

The essence of content marketing is finding – and communicating – the quiddity!

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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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