As business owners operating in our technology-driven era, it makes sense to embrace all opportunities to successfully brand your company and create a following of loyal ambassadors. Even if your preferred form of content creation is by using audio or video, at some point you are going to communicate using the written word.
This blog is intended to help you sharpen your writing skills to keep your readers interested and engaged. Keep reading, because with a few simple tweaks, you can transform your written content from a major yawn-fest to something powerful and shareable.
Who Has Time to Read, Anyway?
It’s a fact that our instant-gratification tendencies have been thoroughly spoiled with the rapid-fire pace of social media. Tweets used to be limited to 140 characters, SnapChats disappear after 24 hours, Instagram stories populate so quickly it’s hard to stay on top of them and many people are switching from reading books to listening to them on Audible. This means that our concentration spans are diminishing, and you might be thinking that reading will disappear in the near future.
Technology is transforming how and what we read
But we’re here to assure you that the written word is not dead, it’s just being re-invented and it’s important for you to stay ahead of the curve. If you want to keep readers and customers engaged, you need to up the ante on your content creation, otherwise your followers will migrate elsewhere.
Modern Forms of Writing
Nowadays, the consumption of written text is mostly digital. Whether you are catching up on the latest rugby match by reading your favourite Sports blog or reading Time Magazine on your tablet, chances are you are relying heavily on digital text when it comes to reading. We communicate with our friends, colleagues and clients all day using WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and we send and receive hundreds of emails at work.
Consider that the majority of Twitter tweets are in text format, and almost every Instagram post is described using engaging words and trending #hashtags.
Email marketing is still one of the highest converting forms of marketing, and 64% of companies believe it is the most effective marketing channels.
In years to come, maybe Elon Musk will have developed a mind-reading device, but until then, your perspective customers will continue to read, and it’s your priority as a business owner to give them information they can’t live without.
Effective writing is a skill every business should improve upon, because it directly affects conversions
We understand that writing does not necessarily come naturally to everyone, and in fact you might be outsourcing your content creation to your marketing team or an external provider. That’s perfectly fine! But even if you are not the one physically writing the content for your business, be sure to audit it using the tips below to ensure that your audience comes begging for more.
The Best Ways to Transform Your Writing
1. Captivating Headings
It is essential to grab readers’ attention immediately, so put a lot of effort into creating a compelling heading for your article or email. According to copywriting legend, David Ogilvy: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.” And you will know from personal experience that a boring email headline rarely gets you clicking to open it.
Consider reframing your headline to pique interest. If you are a seller of gardening tools, your bi-weekly blog title could be pruned as skilfully as you attend to your rosebushes.
Imagine you transform you email or blog headline from this:
How To Protect Your Plants From Frost
To This:
3 Ways to Guarantee Your Begonias Survive This Year’s Frost
It’s not rocket science to see that the second headline is far more interesting to an avid gardener than the first.
2. It’s Storytime
Unless you are selling science or computer equipment, it is rare to find a customer who is interested solely in facts about the product you are trying to sell.
Remember that one of the keys to effective marketing is to establish a feeling of trust and understanding between your potential customers. One of the easiest ways to do this is to translate your products and services into relatable stories that help people connect with why your business will benefit them.
A mother shopping for an infant’s educational toy is doing more than just picking the one that fits her budget. She is looking to deploy her instinctive skill of knowing what would be best for her child. She wants confirmation that the item she chooses will meet the need for it to be entertaining and mentally stimulating for her child.
If you can write content that speaks to her inner emotions and desires relating to the child’s toy she is shopping for, you will engage her far more compellingly than just stating the basic specifications of the device.
3. Sleep On It
Allowing silly spelling errors to go unnoticed in your writing is a big turn-off for your readers.
Be sure to run your work through a spelling and grammar check, and re-read the content you have produced to check that you haven’t strayed off topic or repeated yourself.
Don’t be daunted if your first attempts suck. Like riding a bike, you get better over time. Sometimes you might be so engrossed in your own content that you can no longer view it objectively. In this case, sleep on it. This means putting it aside until the next morning when you can view it with fresh eyes and an alert mind.
If all else fails, rope in a friend, colleague or employee to proofread for you (provided they are excellent at English of course), but don’t skip this step because the grammar-nazis out there will find you.
4. Simply The Best
You might be an expert in your field, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is, or even wants to be. Sometimes the reason people are attracted to reading your content is not because of how vastly impressive your writing is, but rather, how simply you are able to explain complicated processes.
Unless you are writing for other professionals in your field, keep your writing free from complicated jargon.
You might be a mechanic helping people change their own brake pads, or an architect who writes blogs tailored to people who find building design fascinating. No matter what your area of expertise, be sure to write in such a way that your target audience can easily understand what you’ve written.
5. It’s Not Me, It’s You
It is tempting to fall into the trap of trying to speak to everybody when you write, but that is a grave mistake because people want to feel special and unique.
One of the easiest ways to speak to a person’s individuality is to write as if you are speaking to a dear friend. Depending on the context, avoid phrasing which indicates that you are writing to a group, such as: “I want to help my readers”. Try tweak your writing by making it more personal, for instance: “I want to help you”.
Remember that trust is an enormous part of social media marketing, so you need to make your reader feel safe and understood. Yes, even if you are a plumber or electrician!
Write as if you are sharing important information to directly benefit one person only, because it will make your readers feel like you are speaking just to them.
If you have been casting a wide net, try narrow your focus to particular interests specific to your ideal customer’s concerns or needs. You will be surprised how quickly people respond to messages that feel like they were written solely to them.
6. Back To Basics
Naturally, even though you want people to read your content, you want them to be entertained as they do so. The easiest way to do this is to include pictures with relevant captions to spruce up the look and feel of your content, and make it more likely to be shared.
Remember that people have the concentration spans of goldfish, so use headings and sub-headings to segment your article, blog or long-form email into manageable chunks.
Make sure that you keep paragraphs short and punchy. It does you no favours to write loads of boring drivel just to increase the word count of your article.
If you’ve read our blog before, you will be familiar with the fact that we bolden key phrases or sentences in our articles. This is done deliberately because we know that many people don’t read… they skim. By highlighting important sections of your text, you ensure that the skimmers are more likely to at least peruse your article or email, instead of instantly clicking away.
The Takeaway
There are many ways to improve written content creation, but the best trick of all is simply relentless practice. Don’t be discouraged if it takes a while to see open rates and engagement rates increase, just keep writing and sticking to the tips we’ve given you above.
Remember that your efforts are to serve your community, so it might take time but it will be well worth it in the end.
Use our tips to proofread your written content, or that of your marketing team
If you are not the primary writer for your business content, be sure to click below and share this blog with whomever is. You will be able to do a mini-audit on the content before it’s published, to ensure that these tips have been utilised effectively.
Once your content is optimised using our tips, it will have maximum benefit to your customers, followers and ultimately, your business.
