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How Not to Write a Letter or Blog Post

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“When you write a business letter to a stranger, never keep to the point,” is Anna Stevens Read’s tongue-in-cheek advice to authors. “Indulge in lengthy discussions – for all you know, the person may not have the average amount of intelligence.”

While dripping in sarcasm, Read’s piece actually emphasizes a number of important points which content writers of every ilk would do well to heed:

Keeping to the point
In a sense, focus is the point in blog content writing. At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the “Power of One”, which means one message per post, with a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, geared towards one narrowly defined target audience. Decide up front what your point it, then stick to it, is our advice to content creators.

Respecting readers’ intelligence
Over-explaining is symptomatic of authorial insecurity, K. M Weiland tells book authors.  As a corporate blogging trainer, I agree. We have to assume our online readers are a) intelligent and b) by definition, interested in our subject. The University of North Carolina’s Writing Center is saying much the same thing, telling students to write their essays in a manner that treats their instructors as an intelligent but uninformed audience.

Addressing “what they want to hear”
“Do not ask yourself what your friend wishes to hear. If her interest is in clothes, describe your houseplants.” Uh-uh. At Say it For You, we teach that, in addition to having a focused topic for each blog post, writers must have a specific audience in mind, choosing the best evidence for that target audience.  Smart blog content marketers know there are many subsets of every target market group, and that not every message will work on every group. Is the viewpoint you’re presenting relevant to a current need or conversation or trend?

Providing variety
“Never think of variety or of what kind of letter you last sent in that direction,” Reads quips.
In blogging, as we continue to write about our industry, our products, and our services, we’ll naturally find ourselves repeating some key ideas. But it’s the different examples we use – of ways our company’s products can be helpful or the ways problems are solved using our services – that lend variety to our blog posts. In addition, variety can be offered in sentence and paragraph length, and in the layout of the post itself.

Careful use of humor
“These directions, faithfully followed, will soon save you from the nuisance of writing letters,” Reads humorously summarizes. As a blogging trainer, I admit to having mixed feelings about humor in business blogs.  While I’ve no doubt about the power of laughter to forge connections, humor has to be handled with care not to offend.

No, it’s not funny…..Keeping to the point, respecting readers’ intelligence, and providing variety – those are the very skills successful content creators must master.

 

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What is Your Reader’s Deal?

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“What’s the deal here?”

Amy Collins, who represents both publishers and authors, says writers need to know “the deal”.  Writing a plot summary involves figuring out the goals and motives of both hero(ine) and antagonist.

  • What situation do we find the character in at the beginning of the story?
  • What do they perceive as their biggest enemy or problem?
  • Who or what is actually their biggest enemy or problem?
  • What is the biggest thing in the story that changes the situation?

The message for marketing content writers? Even if your (or your blogging client’s) products and services are highly differentiated from the general market, that’s not enough to keep content fresh and make conversions happen. It’s knowledge of the target audience that must influence every aspect of your content. “Great business stories are rarely aimed at everyone,” marketing guru Seth Godin stresses.“Your opportunity,” he tells marketers, “lies in finding a neglected worldview, framing your story in a way that this audience will focus on.”

Learning about your target customers includes gathering intelligence, not only about

  • their gender
  • their average age
  • their marital status
  • their educational level
  • their employment
  • their outlook on life
  • where they get their news

but also, just as Amy Collins explains to authors, about what that group of individuals perceives as their biggest enemy or problem. (Is that, in your perception, the biggest problem?) How can your insights, along with your products and/or services, help solve the “real” challenges they face?

There are two sides to the coin: content writers need to understand their clients’ own “deals”, too. Business and practice owners cannot be positioned within the marketplace without studying their surroundings, formulating their own position statements, then making their “deals” clear to readers. Each “visit” to the blog should conclude with readers understanding exactly what the owner’s unique philosophy or mission is, and why that approach can be beneficial to them.

One concern business owners have expressed to me is they don’t want to come across as self-serving or boastful in their blog posts. I explain that it’s crucial for prospects to find real reason to work with you rather than with your competition.

They’ve arrived at your blog site, in large part, because you’ve nade clear you understood their “deal”‘. Now that they’re here, help them understand yours!.

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You Don’t Have To Be a Blog Content Writer to Write

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“A writer writes, always.,” says the grand-prize winner of the Writer’s 500-word essay contest Michelle Y. Green. She doesn’t have to be at her keyboard or scribbling in a journal to write, she explains, because simply being curious and paying attention to details are any writer’s greatest tools.

In fact, several of Michelle Green’s pieces of advice for those new to writing are a perfect fit for blog content writers.

  • Many writers add one sentence, then subtract two or three words. Instead, just let the words flow.
    Blog content writing should be conversational and informal. Are second drafts even needed? Yes, but later, after you’ve let the thoughts flow, we tell content writers at Say It For You. Even more important than checking for spelling and grammar errors, though, is visualizing your target readers, and making sure your blog post is addressed to them, in their language, and that you’ve addressed their concerns.
  • Read what others are writing.
    Reading, bookmarking, clipping – and even just noticing – new trends and information relating to your business field goes a long way towards keeping the blog “quiver” stocked with content ideas. Blog marketing involves knowing what’s being said by competitors, what’s trending, what aspects of your field are being discussed..
  • Enjoy research.
    To deliver quality writing of any kind, you’ve got to keep educating yourself, reading everything you can get your hands on, citing sources by paraphrasing and hyperlinking back to the page where the information originated. You then “translate” that information by putting it into context of your primary topic.
  • Notice details.
    Successful blog content writing is all about the details. Websites provide basic information about a company’s products or a professional’s services, but the blog content is there to attach a “face” and lend a “voice” to that information by filling in the finer details about the people behind the business and the choices they’ve made.   .

You don’t have to be a blog content writer to write – just feed your own natural curiosity – and take notes!

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How Will They Experience Your Blog Post?

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Ellen Dunnigan

 

At a recent Drive Indy event, executive coach Ellen Dunnigan emphasized the mantra “Intentionality is the hallmark of influence”. Keeping in mind the formula P+A=MA (purpose + Audience = My Actions), before entering a room or beginning an encounter, you must predict, Dunnigan advises,  how they are likely to react to your presence. Your presence includes the way you look, the way you carry yourself,  the words you choose. How do you intend for the person or people you will face to experience their encounter with you?

Always ask yourself, Dunnigan urges, what the single most important point (of the meeting, the encounter, the speech) will be. Translated into content creation, that very concept is expressed as “The Power of One”. Each blog post should have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, we teach at Say It For You. Focused on one thing, your post has greater impact, since people are bombarded with many messages each day. The Power of One also means targeting one audience per blog post. The more focused a blog is on connecting with a narrowly defined target audience, the more successful it will be in converting prospects to clients and customers.

In dealing with an employee whose dress or manner of speaking with customers needs changing, a member of the Drive Indy audience asked Dunnigan, how can I best approach that encounter? Again, intentionality is the saving force, was the speaker’s answer. In preparing for the meeting, focus on the “single most important point”, predicting how the employee is likely to experience the encounter.

“Executive presence” means showing up – at the head of a room or on a web page, as confident and competent, respecting your audience while “predicting” their response to the information or advice you’re providing. “It’s your rant, but it’s all about them,” as I stressed in my last Say It For You post. People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even if they respect your expertise and have a need for your products and your guidance.

How will your readers experience the blog post you’re preparing to publish?

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It’s Your Rant, But It’s All About Them

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A “rant”, (venting a complaint in an angry, loud voice), is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “a high-flown, extravagant, or bombastic speech or utterance, a piece of turgid declamation, a tirade.” While oral tirades are still with us, Daniel Seidel writes in Slate, the last decade or so has seen more and more written rants, “a form that has blossomed on the Web.” A good rant, Seidel thinks, expresses a real passion, often one enflamed by a feeling of powerlessness. Still, many rants are humorous, with a tongue-in-cheek tone. Whatever the tone of aa particular rant, he adds, there is neither the expectation nor the desire for a response. “It would be simplistic to think of blogging as a kind of sublimated ranting,” Seidel remarks, “but blogs do form a part of our cacophonous culture.”

Not all blog posts are rants, of course. There are, however, three “rant”- like content piece types that our writers at Say It For You have found useful:

  1. An “if only” best business practice that you wish everyone with whom you do business would adopt. The content makes the point that doing things in a certain way would make the lives of both the provider and of the customer so-o-o much easier and business dealings so much more efficient!
  2. A device, program, or source of information that the owner wants t make sure everyone knows about, something that would make doing business s much smoother and more efficient
  3. A mistake that you see others making over and over that you believe is a big barrier to their success.

(To be most effective, even if a rant post is focused on a single idea, the content should be broken down or “chunked” into bullet points or numbered steps to make the concept easy to remember, as demonstrated above.)

Needless to say, rant blog posts can elicit strong reactions on the part of readers (either because you’ve touched a nerve (what you’re complaining about may be their pet peeve, as well), or because they totally disagree and want to prove you wrong. Worse, your rant risks rubbing readers the wrong way, making them feel as if they are incompetent or uninformed.  People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they come to your blog seeking information on what you sell, what you do, and what you know about!

If you’re moved to include a rant or two in your content marketing, the cardinal rule to remember is that it’s all about the readers, not about you. How will they experience your rant?

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