Posts

To Be Original, Be Well-Versed

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

 

“Originality is important for publication, and to be as original as possible, you have to be well versed in what has already been done,” Ran Walker, author of 28 books, tells writers in a Writer’s Digest piece. With millions of people working in the horror novel genre, for example, “it’s easy to go for the easy scares or gross-outs. It’s good to be inspired by other writers, he admits, but that inspiration needs to guide you into new and uncharted territory.

When it comes to online content marketing, Camille Allegrucci has a slightly divergent view, citing “the myth of originality”. Your voice, Allegrucci says, is more important than new ideas, and no “original” idea is truly original, anyway. (Would anyone seriously contend that Anna Karenina lacks originality or is not worth reading because of the plot points it shares with Madame Bovary?) The question to ask yourself is not “How can I say something that has never been said before?” but rather “How can I express myself in the best way that my voice allows?”

It helps to bring in less well-known facts about familiar things and processes, and even more when you suggest new ways of thinking about things readers already know. New ideas may not be “a thing”, but new insights and opinions can be. At Say It For You, our advice to business owners and their content writers is that you must offer an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up to readers. No, it’s not “new information”, and you’re not re-inventing the proverbial wheel. What’s “new is the clarity of your views on the subject.

There may, in fact, be “millions of people” working in the horror novel genre, as Ran Walker points out, but there are 4.4 million new blog posts being published every DAY! So, as Allegrucci claims, it may not be about “originality” after all, but more about “un-packaging” information already out there, proactively interpreting content in ways that are not only understandable, but usable by readers.

The other “piece” of being well-versed to be original involves the research into emotive power responsiveness. Researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, 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

The “originality” of effective blog posts, I teach at Say It For You, consists of offering the business owner’s (or the professional’s, or the organizational executive’s) unique perspective on issues related to the search topic and their unique experiences and insights gained.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Behind Each Marketing Content Piece Lies at Least 1 of 5 Key Interview Questions

/0 Comments/in , /by

“Interviews are a vital aspect of nonfiction writing,” Don Vaughn explains in Writer’s Digest. He’s discovered five questions that “help add detail, color, and heft to our work”. At Say It For You, we’ve learned, these same questions inspire content marketing, as business and practice owners “introduce” themselves to their potential buyers.

1. What was your inspiration?
Almost always, there’s an important incident or insight that give birth to the birth of an enterprise. The insight can come from a negative experience or a positive one, and sharing that with readers serves to humanize and personalize the post, adding power to the value proposition.

2. Why is this important?
Someone who has accomplished something remarkable inherently understands why that accomplishment is important, Vaughn reasons, but readers may not.. Often blog visitors don’t know how to “digest” the claims you’ve “served up”.  They simply don’t have any basis for comparison, not being as expert as you are in your field. Spend time providing that “context” that clarifies why what you’ve done – and what you’re doing – is important.

3. What were the greatest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?
“Asking sources how they dealt with overwhelming challenges in pursuit of success can often form the heart of an article,” Vaughn teaches. Passion and personality give blog posts a big advantage as compared to brochures, ads, or even the website, and owners’ recalling the obstacles they’d needed to overcome lends power to the marketing narrative.

4. What do you get personally from your work?
Using first person (the pronouns “I” and “we”) allows the marketing content to come across as intimate, unique, and conversational. And while no one likes people who speak of nothing but theselves, It’s important to show the person behind the posts, revealing the personality of the business owner or practitioner standing ready to serve the customers.

5. Who else would you suggest I talk to?
Quoting others to support your points and show you’re in touch with trends in your field is a good idea. Aggregating different sources of information on a topic is a way to add value to content readers.

Behind every content marketing piece is at least one of those five key interview questions!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Retelling Your Marketing Story

/0 Comments/in /by

 

Of course they’ve heard it before, and reusing ideas is certainly nothing new, Toni Fitzgerald explains in the Writer magazine. “From Biblical stories to Homer’s Odyssey, conceptsget adopted and tweaked for the audience.” And just why do writers retell stories?

  • to honor a work that made a big impact on them
  • to amplify an important message
  • to explore a theme from a new direction
  • to add diversity and additional context
  • to force readers to rethink things they may have taken for granted

“Stop us if you’ve heard this one,” Fitzgerald tells readers: Headstrong young woman bucks the expectations of society and of her family. She meets a young man who seems immune to her charms, falls in love with him, learning that things are not always what they seem and that being vulnerable is the only way to move forward… Sure, that’s the story of classic novel Pride and Prejudice, but that plot also fits Bridget Jones’ Diary. The big advantage of recasting a novel is that, since people are already familiar with the story, you spend less time setting up the plot, earning automatic “buy-in” from the readers.

Storytelling is a strong business skill, SCORE explains, with the power to boost business in a number of ways, creating product awareness, improving customer loyalty, and increasing profit. Business stories today, the authors add, are created around eight topics:

  1. Who we are
  2. Why us
  3. Our vision
  4. Good business
  5. What we have learned
  6. How we design it
  7. How we do it
  8. Meet our customers

“Transferring values and beliefs is done through your story’s character having an epiphany because your audience will also experience this,” the SCORE authors explain  As Fitzgerald sees it, “We all want to be the heroes of the story.” But, because different segments of your audience will experience your story in different ways, audiences must be attracted with different “digital honeypots”, on24.com explains. To create a compelling story, you need to understand your readers and who will respond and take action, defining your “buyer persona(s)”, Hubspot advises.

“As marketing strategists, we stress the importance of repetition. Retelling your story – through traditional and digital media, advertising and face-to-face sales – is the only way to ensure your value points are heard, understood and remembered,” says Robin Miller of publicity.com. “If you’re going to be in the marketing or advertising business, if you’re going to be in sales, you’ve got to tell your story over and over, and over and over, and over and over again. Then you’ve got to tell it one more time,” he advises.

Of course they’ve heard it before, we explain to our Say It For You clients. The very secret of success lies in the retelling of your marketing story!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Things-You-Never-Knew Content Marketing

/0 Comments/in , /by

 

“Time to take a look at how amazing (and a bit freaky!) we all are,” says Patricia S. Daniels of National Geographic. And we want to do this why? To: 1. discover healthy living 2. improve function 3. explore the latest discoveries. The special issue offers no fewer than 100 things you never knew”, in the form of “tidbits” of information about the human body..

Things-you-never-knew tidbits are super-valuable when it comes to content marketing. For one thing, tidbits showcase the knowledge and expertise of the business owners or practitioner, while at the same time softening the effect of any strong opinions expressed in the article or blog.

In content writing, word tidbits and tag lines are both designed to help readers remember something– a concept, a company, a product, a service. But, while a tag line may be catchy, even memorable – it’s pure advertising, revealing little to nothing about product or service, the company or the experience in store for the buyer. The right word tidbit in contrast, can capture the sense of the owners and how much those owners care about continuing their decades-long relationship with customers.

The “things-you-never-knew” concept is successful because it relates to the fact that web visitors tend to be curious creatures, particularly when it comes to testing their own knowledge and learning more about themselves. In fact, “self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to the information presented in a blog or other marketing content On the other hand, online searchers are looking for more than just information; they need perspective. Yes, the National Geographic issue is designed to help readers become aware of these fascinating details of bodily function, ls, they need help discovering what to do about those details in order to achieve a more healthy lifestyle.

Business blog posts, for example, much like those individual things-you-never-knew pieces in National Geographic, should be designed to spark reader curiosity, playing on our natural desire to self-test, then offer technical information “in chewable tablet form”.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Some Tasty Content Prompts

/0 Comments/in /by

 

Stuck finding new ways to present marketing content? No matter your content marketing topic, Poets and Writers magazine’s Aimee Nezhukumatathil suggests thinking in terms of food. At Say it For You, we think that’s a great idea – no matter what product or service you’re promoting, here’s our take on a few of these tasty content prompts:

Write about a mistake you made once while preparing food.
We teach content writers to include stories of past mistakes and failures. Such stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame not only adversity, but the effects of their own mistakes! Messages that deal openly with customer complaints, with the “apology” or the “remediation measure” open to readers go a long way in building trust.

What foods would you serve someone you wanted to impress?
The most powerful tool you can use to stand head and shoulders above your competition is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), Certified Business Coach Andrew Valley says. Your USP communicates the singular, unique benefit that your customers can expect to receive when they favor your business instead of your competitor’s – stated in specific, graphically illustrated terms

What spices do you like to add to food and why?
At Say It For You, our content writers are always seeking to vary the ways we present information on a single topic in many different ways. Not only are we on the lookout for different “templates” in terms of platform graphics, but we try to use different formats to “spice up” the information about any business or professional practice. Collating advice from different experts helps “spice up” content and add value for readers.

What is your earliest memory of peeling a fruit – what did the peel remind you of?
In a blog post or email newsletter, introduce readers to the history of the brand, using stories about founders, current employees and alumni to “humanize” the content. Sharing history makes the focus less on what the company does and more about what it is, giving readers a sense of look-how-far-we’ve-come” togetherness.

“Tasty” prompts can help temporarily “sidelined” content writers get back in the game!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail