Add the Power of the Photo to the Power of the Words

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“Consider the power of a simple photo,” Bill Shapiro writes in Entrepreneur Magazine. “Those few inches of paper, those few drops of ink — or, you know, those few hundred thousand pixels – have an almost magical ability to transport you back in time, to connect you to your deeply held values, to inspire, to motivate, to thrill…”.

A study carried out by PR News found that content with good images get 94% more views than those without, Bernard Schroeder points out in Forbes. But it’s not good enough to use just any photos, he cautions. The sheer number of images being displayed on product packaging, websites, billboards, ads, and social media can be overwhelming to consumers, so it’s important to select quality and impactful images for your business, he stresses.

At Say It For You, we certainly don’t need to be sold on using images in content marketing. (This very post is actually #2140 of this blog, and in every single one of those, you’ll find a photo or image of some kind.) As Debbie Hemley observed years ago in her post about blogging, pictures have the power to pique interest, aid in learning, and evoke emotions. In any written (or oral, for that matter) presentation, there are three elements – information, “slant” or opinion, and visuals.

To use images and media to their best effect, a Harvard article advises, don’t use them to “spice up” a page; include only those that support or add to the concepts in the text. (Years ago, I chose the image shown above to illustrate the point that the way we dress broadcasts who we are and how we respect others – I felt that image reinforced the opinion I’d expressed in the text of the blog post.)

Side notes: There are technical advantages to consider in using images, in that the “alt text” identifies to search engines what the image is about (formal man dressing for a celebration, event, job interview or wedding on a wooden hanger); incorporating keyword phrases aids in SEO (search engine optimization). There are concerns as well – the use of AI-generated images poses ethical concerns and the danger of copyright infringement.

As content marketers, we can add the power of the photo to the power of our words.

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Minding Your Metaphors in Creating Marketing Content

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“When CEOs use war metaphors, analysts worry,” Joao Cotter Salvado and Donal Crilly point out in this month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review, citing Oracle executive chairman’s statement about “bulldozing” competitors or First Solar’s description of an acquisition as an “offensive”. Business should never be perceived as a battleground, the authors opine.

I thought of this article when, earlier this week, in her guest post about building “killer sales pitches”, Chantal Briggs made use of some very powerful metaphors. (“A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by stating that one is the other,” Alice Underwood explains in grammarly.com.)

Chantal Briggs’ metaphors of note:

  • “You need tactics that punch above your size.” This expression comes from boxing.
  • “messaging that doesn’t just land, it sticks.” (In gymnastics, a perfect landing means maintaining balance and control without any movement of the feet after hitting the ground.)
  • “You’re not just a boutique coffee roaster; you’re the shop that sponsors open mic nights and buys beans from farmers by name.”
  • “If your sales muscles feel flabby…”

“Metaphors are commonly used in the marketing space due to their ability to communicate complex topics in relatable ways,” IntuitMailchimp points out. In fact, certain metaphors (think “hold your horses”) are used so often they lose their original meaning and become part of our language pattern, the authors note.

In marketing content, we teach at Say It For You, one technique to engage readers is using an unlikely comparison in order to explain an aspect of a business or professional practice. Given the short attention span of the typical web searcher, “startling” comparisons can turn out to be good teaching tools, and suggesting, through an “off-the wall” comparison, a totally new way of using a product or service —  well, that has the power to open up new possibilities of doing business with you.

Putting ingredients together that don’t seem to match is not only an excellent tool for creating engaging business content, but also a good teaching tool. Going from what is familiar to readers to the unfamiliar
area of your own expertise, allows your potential customers to feel smart as well as understood.

As head of a content marketing team, I took a somewhat different “thought path” down one of Chantal’s metaphors. She uses “Sometimes the best advice is a mirror” to encourage entrepreneurs to go back to business school: “When you see someone who looks like you —same hurdles, same goals—succeeding through education…”.

To me, the core message of the “mirror” metaphor is that, as content marketers, we need never stray from reflecting, in our content, the needs and preferences of our “target market”, those who may not “look like us”, but who do face common hurdles and who have similar goals. “Envisioning your likely target market is part of the process of creating and refining a product. It informs decisions about its packaging, marketing, and placement,” Margaret James writes in Investopedia.

Minding our metaphors is key in managing content marketing. After all, none of us want our messaging to merely land – we want to stick the landing!

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Core Content Question: Sez Who?

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Earlier this week, in her guest post on our Say It For You blog, Erin Jernigan stressed the importance of choosing one’s niche audience before creating content. “Niching, she stressed, allows refining your message and rendering it much more powerful, creating a deeper connection.”

I thought about “niching” the other day, when, at one of my online networking groups, the discussion leader posed the following question: If you were to start a podcast today, what would you name it? My answer: “Sez Who?”. That’s because those “deeper connections” to which Erin alluded run in both directions.

When online readers find your content, not only is it important for you to have understood them and their needs and preferences, they need to know “who lives here” and be helped to understand you. That means that, in marketing a business, practice, or organization, we content creators absolutely must make clear “who lives here”, using opinion to clarify not only what differentiates that entity from its peers, but also what guiding principles are “held dear’ over there.

It’s true that, at Say It For You, I’ve been fond of saying that the “what” needs to come before the “who”, meaning that the first order of business in content marketing is writing about the audience and their needs. In other words, I have often advised, only after you’ve told them what’s in it for them if they continue reading, should you be writing about what you do, what you know, and what you know how to do.

Michelle Noel calls it “brand value”, saying that it’s no longer enough to offer great products and services, To build strong relationships, you must communicate:

  • Your purpose: Why do you exist?
  • Your vision: What do you aspire to do?
  • Your values: Who are you? What do you believe in?

Those “deeper connections” of which Erin Jernigan speaks? They run both ways. That’s why, were I to start a podcast, I’d name it “Sez Who?”.

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Clarity Before Content: Why Trying to Talk to Everyone Hurts Your Message

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“Trying to reach everyone means you reach no one.”

It’s a phrase we hear often in marketing circles, but most business owners nod politely and keep casting a wide net. They fear that choosing a niche means turning down opportunities. After all, if your services can help everyone, shouldn’t your message try to include them all?

As a strategic consultant and the creator of Define Your Light’s Roadmapping Sessions, I see this hesitation constantly. Clients come in with good intentions and great ideas, but they’re stuck in what I call the content fog — producing a mix of blogs, social posts, and website copy that sounds helpful… but doesn’t land.

Why? Because the message is diluted.
And usually, the root problem isn’t the marketing — it’s the lack of clarity.

I’ve Been There Myself

For a while, I wrote almost exclusively to parentpreneurs. I thought that was my niche – other business owners juggling growing companies while raising kids. And while I absolutely care about that segment (I’m one of them), I realized something important: the people who were actually hiring me weren’t choosing me because of our shared family dynamics.

They were choosing me because I brought calm to their chaos. Because I could translate their ideas into action. Because I made strategy feel personal.

The label didn’t matter. The clarity did.

Why Content Needs a Compass

That realization reshaped my business, my content, and it’s now at the heart of the Roadmapping process I offer. I believe in Clarity Before Content — the idea that messaging only works when it’s grounded in a deep understanding of who you’re speaking to, what they need, and what you want to be known for.

One client, overwhelmed by a sea of possible audiences, told me:

“I feel like I can help everyone. I don’t want to box myself in.”

She wasn’t alone — it’s one of the most common things I hear.

So we slowed down and worked through a focused series of exercises designed to bring her audience into sharper view. Instead of staying stuck in vague generalities, she began to see patterns — the clients who energized her, the problems she solved with ease, and the places where her expertise created the biggest transformation.

Through this process, she realized she wasn’t narrowing — she was refining. Her message stopped trying to speak to everyone and started resonating with the right ones. And with that clarity, her content began working harder — not because she was producing more, but because every word had direction.

By the end, her messaging shifted from general to magnetic.
Her website, emails, and even how she described her work in conversation became clearer and more confident — not because she changed her offer, but because she finally knew who she was talking to.

The Truth About Niching

Niching isn’t about cutting people out — it’s about drawing the right people closer.
It’s how you stop chasing and start attracting.
When your content reflects true alignment, the impression not only lands — it lasts.

That’s the kind of clarity I love helping clients discover — whether it’s in a full Roadmapping Session or a more nimble Marketing Sprint. These focused sessions are all about cutting through the noise, finding the message that truly resonates, and shaping content that connects with the right people.

That’s what clarity creates.
Not just better strategy, but deeper connection.
With your work.
With your audience.
And with the business you’re building on purpose.


Today’s guest post was contributed by friend and fellow networker Erin Jernigan, business & nonprofit strategy consultant,  at Define Your Light. 215 804 6870   www.DefineYourLight.com.

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Real Copy Has to Live in the Fridge

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Take a challenging aspect of your brand and turn that into a selling point, advises Donald Miller in “How To Tell Your Brand’s Story” (Entrepreneur, April 2025). Happy Wolf kids’ snack bars, made from real, whole foods, need to be refrigerated, not kept in a pantry, so they used the tag line “Real food has to live in the fridge“, turning what sounds like a drawback into a positive differentiator. “Most of us are so deep in the trenches in what we sell that we haven’t gotten our head around that one basic idea that will attract people to us,” Miller says; that real-food-has-to-live-in-the-fridge is precisely the type of “sound bite” any provider needs need to find and use in promoting – and differentiating –  a product or service.

Annoyance can be turned to our advantage in content writing. One way to form a bond with customers is by commiserating about their daily pain, identifying something that customers hate, empathizing with them, and then offering solutions. People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, told that something they’d taken for granted is in fact a lie, but empathizing with prospects’ annoyance without putting them “in the wrong” is the sweet spot for which writers need to aim. “The real-food-has-to-live-in-the-fridge” line flies in the face of a delicate “compromise” approach.

“Whatever your situation, Say It For You helps your company or organization create and maintain a weekly blog and/or a monthly newsletter.  We create content based on a combination of our independent research and interviews with you, your staff, and your customers/clients.”

For business owners and professional practitioners needing content marketing help, our Unique Selling Proposition is that the content is not created using Artificial Intelligence (AI). Is such an individualized approach to content creation more time-consuming? To be sure. More expensive (as compared with DIY- using- AI? Certainly. But those very “disadvantages” enable Say It For You to assign content copyrights to the actual providers of the products and services.

You might say that “real copy has to live where the product is being sold and the service is being provided”.

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