Writing About What Almost Never Was

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Long before the Masters golf tournament became what it is today, Augusta National overcame serious financial woes. Although co-founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones had had extensive plans, many never panned out, David Owen explains in Golf Digest. In three years of trying to build membership, the pair had sent out thousands of postcards, had hired salesmen to travel the country, and had bought membership lists from country clubs. Despite all those efforts, when the first National Invitation Tournament was held in 1934, the club had enlisted only 76 members. Then, just as, in 1939, they were beginning to realize some modicum  of success – the country was entering a war!

As a content marketer, I absolutely loved reading this “failure-turned-success” story. There’s an important lesson here for content creators for business or practice owners:  Writing about past failures is important. In fact, true tales about past mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the enterprise. What tends to happen is the stories of failure create feelings of empathy and admiration for those who overcame the effects of both outside forces and of their own errors.

 

Because the Masters Golf Tournament story relates to people no longer living, the story is told in third person by the club’s historian In posting marketing content today,  I recommend using the personal pronouns “I”  and “we”.  As Brandon Royal explains in The Little Red Writing Book, first person is personal and specific.  Readers appreciate knowing how a situation relates to the business owners or practitioners in terms of their personal experiences.

There’s another important aspect to recalling past failures, I explain — demonstrating that you understand the problems the online searcher is dealing with. To the extent you can truthfully say, “I know how frustrating the problem is, and that’s why I’m devoted to solving that problem through my business or profession,” you are infusing your content with more power.

 

While our Say It For You content writers are often the voice behind the “I” or “we”,  we know that “writing about what almost never was” can help make things happen for our clients – and for their readers!

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Nice Try. Do it Again.

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(image by Mike Hindle)

I invited friend and writing colleague Myra Levine to contribute a guest blog post for the enjoyment of  our Say It For You readers (and my own, of course!)  …

 

 

We were reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Mrs. Painter pointed out that when the author wrote dialect, he wrote the way his characters spoke.

“When you write dialogue,” she said, “the reader
wants authenticity, not perfect grammar.”

Naturally, I wrote my next assignment (Discuss three ways in which Dickens develops the theme of self-sacrifice) as a conversation between two semi-literate high school students.  Mrs. Painter handed it back to me with these words in big red letters:

Nice try. Do it again.

I didn’t mind. The smile on her face was a drug. I had entertained her. And the freedom to ignore comma rules? Intoxicating. The smartest thing I did was tell everybody my new life goal—to write novels. It’s harder to give up on a goal you’ve made so public. Enthusiasm comes and goes; pride is eternal.

But writing a good novel turned out to be HARD. I spent ten summers taking writing classes at the University of Iowa to learn what I hadn’t been taught in high school and college creative writing classes.

Inspiration turned out to be everywhere. The germ of the idea that turned into my first novel came from a bunch of gossipy mom friends. The idea for my second novel came from a health scare. It turned out to be no big deal, but the thought How do you raise your kids after you’re dead stayed with me.

Whatever you do for a living might give you inspiration. Think John Grisham. Or you might be one of those “What if…” writers, like Stephen King. Going through a terrible breakup? Get your psychic revenge by writing a murder mystery. I slip people who annoy me into my novels. No lawsuits yet.

And you know more than you think you do. When I had my first hip replacement, I was surprised to learn that you don’t hold a cane on the side of your bad leg. (If you test this, have someone nearby to catch you when you tip over.) It occurred to me that someone could catch a suspect who’s faking a limp when he holds his cane on the wrong side.

What have you learned in your years as a ________ that would make a character feel real? What personal demons could you turn into inspiration? And what did you never learn in English Class that you can ignore… or hire someone else to fix? Think about it.

 

      Myra Levine is a novelist, memoirist, and writing coach. Her free online writing seminars on Eventbrite have attracted over 2,000 writers from all over the world. She publishes as M. E. Levine on Amazon.com & Audible.com.

Find her at www.MyraLevine.com

 

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Avoiding the Uncommon is a Common Marketing Mistake

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To be considered for representation by an agency, aspiring speakers have to explain who they are, what they want to speak about, and why they’re qualified to do so, James Marshall Reilly explains in the book One Great Speech . While speaking agents don’t want to listen to your whole life story, Reilly notes, they are looking for something that separates you from the pack. Therefore, he advises, when looking for your magic bullet, consider pieces of information that you aren’t sharing with the agency and should be. Prior to becoming a biologist, were you a touring musician? An Eagle Scout? It’s not that you’re going to lecture about these topics, Reilly says.  It’s just that they help define you in a unique way plus make you relatable.

“Relatable” is the key word here.  As content marketers, we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms. People tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when they can relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message. That’s the reason I prefer using first and second person pronouns in blog posts and articles (over third person “reporting”). Marketing content that comes across as intimate, unique, even quirky, makes readers feel they’re connecting with real people. When content is filled with the company’s special brand of energy and passion, it is most likely to engage.

“Getting down and human” is so important, it becomes a good idea for a business or practice owner to actually reveal  past mistakes and struggles. Such revelations are very humanizing adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business.  Why? What tends to happen is that stories of failure create feelings of empathy and admiration for the entrepreneurs or professional practitioners who overcame the effects of their own errors.

Like powerful speaker resumes, the key to powerful marketing content is to present experiences as accomplishments, revealing your personality, not only what jobs you’ve held. Assuming it’s not overdone, you’ll be rewarded for having a unique and authentic voice, particularly if personal stories are used as a means to an end – with the “end” being solving readers’ problems and filling their needs.

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Putting the Personal Before the Factual

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Rules are important in English grammar, especially when using multiple adjectives to describe a single noun, Bennett Kleinman reminds us on wordsmarts.com.  All ten distinct adjective types aren’t required in a sentence, Kleinman reassures us, but, used in the wrong order, adjectives make for very awkward sentences. While most of us pick this up based on common speech patterns, Kleinman reminds us of the correct order, with personal opinion being first, followed by factual descriptions (size, quality, shape, age, color, origin, material, type, and purpose). 

The way Chris Tor explains the “rule” is that “the closer you get to the noun being modified, the more inherent to the nature of the noun the adjective is”. “You can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife, but if you mess with that word order you’ll sound like a maniac,”  @MattAndersonNYT cautions in a tweet. 

Is the same rule applicable to content marketing? You bet. How can you create ads that draw your intended consumers towards commitment? Using emotional appeal advertising is the ticket,‌ Nitzan Solomon reminds us in a wisestamp.com post. When ads evoke emotion, he explains, they are more likely to:

  • be remembered
  • influence opinion
  • drive action
  • build loyalty

Your smart phone may feature a high-resolution display, lightning-fast processor, and long battery life, but don’t start with that.  Instead, begin by describing the phone as being “the perfect companion for capturing and sharing all of life’s moments”. Solomon suggests.

One interesting perspective on the work we do as content marketing professionals is that we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  That’s the reason I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”. I think people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

At Say It For You, we’ve learned, corporate and professional practitioner content is part promo, part advertising, part bulletin, part tutorial, and part mission statement, but the bottom line is that it includes both the personal and the factual – in just that order of importance!

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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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