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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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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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Bringing Yourself to the Page

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” For better or worse, in today’s world, everyone is a brand, and you need to develop yours and get comfortable marketing it,” Jill Avery and Rachel Greenwald point out in the Harvard Business Review special spring issue. The question to ask yourself is what can you bring to the table of your industry out of your own personal experience. Two examples the authors offer:

  • You studied psychology, and have insights into human behavior.
  • You’re a UX designer who understands how to create more-accessible products.

Whatever your special talent, know-how, or experience, you can bring that to bear as an employee or executive to add value, is the point.

For us as content marketers, in essence “ghost-writing” newsletters, web page content, and blog posts for our business owner and professional practitioner clients, the concept of “bringing self to the page” has a double meaning. Yes, as Whitney Hill advises in a Writer’s Digest piece, “mining” areas of our own lives helps us connect with the right others. But since our purpose is to focus readers’ attention, not on ourselves, but on our content marketing clients, we use our own experience and wisdom to help readers “interview” those owners and practitioners in light of their own needs.

“Some articles have greater impact and reader engagement if written from personal experience, The Writer’s College explains. Writing an article from personal experience can avoid sounding generic, especially if you bring personal experiences to life with vivid sensory details, “showing” rather than just telling. Still it’s important to reflect on the impact and growth that resulted from the experiences you’re describing.

In using content marketing to translate our clients’ corporate messages into human, people-to-people terms, I prefer first and second person writing 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. I compare the interaction between content writers and online readers to behavioral job interviews, where the concept is to focus, not on facts, but on discovering the “person behind the resume”.

In bringing our clients to the page, we know that “how-we-did-it” stories make for very effective marketing content for both business owners and professional practitioners. True stories about mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business or practice, not to mention showcasing the special empathy those providers have for their clients and customers.

Through messaging, ghost writers, providers, and customers are all “brought to the page”!

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Staying in Touch With Content

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“You need to take control of the narrative,” Bryce Sanders cautions financial advisors in Financial Advisor Magazine. When the stock market is going up, some advisors don’t see the need to call their clients. Others don’t think they need to call when the market is going down. But either way, Sanders cautions, it’s a big mistake not to stay in close touch with your advisees.

At Say It For You, we realize, every single one of the reasons Sanders cites for staying in touch with financial planning clients is true for business owners and professional practitioners in every field:

1. Your clients should be expecting you to be in touch with them on a predictable basis.
In content marketing, it’s a big mistake to take your foot off the gas. Yes, creating a steady stream of content takes time and patience. As online marketing guru Neil Patel stresses, websites that publish regular, high-quality content are providing real value to users.

2.    Give the client credit for the successes they have achieved using the information you’ve provided.
Your website can include customer testimonials to boost credibility in two ways. Success stories boost your credibility with new prospects, helping them decide to do business with you. At the same time, testimonials also foster commitment from those providing those testimonials.

3.  Clients need to know where they stand with you, knowing you are paying attention.
To maintain that “paying attention” stance, it’s crucial to avoid “yo-yo content posting”. Spacing marketing content pieces at regular intervals and maintaining consistency allows regular readers and newcomers to the site to expect – and benefit from – a regular flow of information.

4.  Clients have the potential to invest new dollars with you, and are looking for direction.
When it comes to content marketing, the word “news” can mean several different things, including “your own news”, introducing a new employee, a new partner, a new product, a new service. Community news relates to “what’s going on and how we fit in”.

Content marketing is nothing more than staying in touch with what’s happening in your community, in your industry, in your business or practice – and sharing those insights with your readers!

 

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The Reader’s Digest Approach to Content Marketing

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Although reading is a way to keep you mind sharp, finding time to read can be a challenge,” Jason Buhrmester, Chief Content Officer for Reader’s Digest concedes. We can help,” he assures readers, alluding to the service Fiction Favorites, groups of four novels, hand-picked and shortened, delivered to readers’ homes.

As content marketers, I teach at Say It For You, we can take the same approach in offering content to our clients’ target audiences. I encourage freelance content writers and business owners alike to curate, meaning to gather OPW (Other People’s Wisdom) and share that with their readers, commenting on that material and relating it to their own topic.

Truth is, to sustain our blog and newsletter content writing over long periods of time without losing reader excitement and engagement, we need to constantly add to our own body of knowledge – about our industry or professional field, and about what’s going on around us in our culture. Business blogging can serve as a form of market research in itself, and through curating material we find and then adding our own original thinking about what we’re sharing – that brings our readers the best of both worlds.

Three cautions concerning content curation:

1. Communicate armed with facts from reliable, trusted sources. 
Linking to a news source or journal article, for instance, adds credibility to the ideas you’re presenting in your post. Having guest bloggers explain their point of view and share their specialized knowledge. Make sure to include material only from trusted sources.

2. Communicate seeking to inform, comfort, and connect. 
The tone needs to be relationship-building and interpersonal communication. as your content helps visitors judge whether you have their best interests at heart.  Even if you’ve come across as the most competent of product or service providers, you still need to pass the “warmth” test.

3. Always attribute.
While quoting someone else’s remarks on a topic your covering can be a very good thing, reinforcing your point, showing you’re in touch with trends in your field, and adding variety, it’s crucial to give “credit where credit is due” by attributing the quote or comment to its author. Even if you’re not quoting an author directly, but using another person’s thoughts or ideas that are not your own or mentioning statistics you didn’t collate yourself, it’s crucial to acknowledge the source.
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Add value to your content by using the Reader’s Digest approach!

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