Your prospects have LOTS of content vying for their attention. If yours reads poorly and fails to grab them, odds are they’ll look at something else first. And if you lose them to a competitor’s piece, you may never get them back. Consequently, editing isn’t a “nice to have” last step in content creation, it’s a “mission critical” process that must be completed before you launch a piece.
Here are eight tips that will immediately improve your content:
- Break up text into bite-sized portions. Long rambling sentences and paragraphs that cover half a page are intimidating. Shorter passages are much more inviting and easier to read. It takes more effort to write concisely, but it’s well worth the time and will help you grow your audience.
- Engage readers by getting them to agree. When we read marketing materials, we tend to adopt a fairly defensive mental posture. Get your audience to drop their shields by including some questions early on in a piece that will elicit a “yes” response. For example, if you will be writing about your stellar customer care program, start with something like, “Have you ever had a frustrating technical support experience?” rather than diving right into your world-class service. The more you can get a reader to agree with you, the more in sync they will be with your message.
- Bold key words or phrases to draw attention to them. People today tend to skim rather than actually read. Give their wandering eyes something to latch onto with bolded text. However, don’t go overboard or you’ll send the message that even bolded copy can be ignored.
- Use numbered lists and bullet points. Like bolding, numbered or bulleted lists signal the reader that they can get important info quickly here.
- Use psychological “trigger” words. Phrases like “remember when…” or “imagine if…” or “picture this…” say that a story is coming, and the human brain LOVES stories. It also loves clarity, so “it is because” or “the reason is” are phrases you should use as they tell the brain that an explanation is coming.
- Change passive voice to active voice. Information conveyed in active voice has a much more visceral feel. Rather than “Our company was chosen by XYZ Corporation...” say “XYZ Corporation chose our company...”
- Write in second person (i.e. use “you” phrasing). Using pronouns like “you” and “yours” helps people put themselves in the scenario you are describing. You can see this difference in “You can cut response time in half using our system” vs. “A company can cut response time in half by using our system.” Search your documents for the word “by” to help find and eliminate passive voice.
- Include a benefit in your call to action. In “Contact us today to learn more,” learning more isn’t much of a benefit. “Contact us today to learn how to grow your sales by more than 30%” is much more concrete and engaging.
Anything Worth Saying…
To put a content spin on some words of wisdom, “Anything worth doing saying is worth doing saying well.” Taking the time to review and improve upon your content before publishing it will do wonders for your content marketing. As a leading Colorado Springs marketing agency for more than 20 years, we’re experts in helping companies like yours share your message more effectively. Give us a call to learn how we can help you capture more market share.
