o put that quantity in context, according to TrackMaven, over the past five years, the average number of blog posts published per brand per month increased by 800 per cent.
Everyone wants their written content to engage, entertain and entice their readers, but with this content overload – or ‘content shock’ as I have also seen it called - it is increasingly hard for your words to stand out.
So how can you ensure your written content gets read?
Adopt a conversational style
It might break certain grammatical rules, but adopting a conversational style when writing your content will help your readers feel you are talking directly to them.
When I write, I always try to use the same informal language I would use if I was talking to a friend.
That doesn’t mean I write exactly how I talk, but, to adopt a quote from American novelist Elmore Leonard, I don’t want my writing to sound like writing. Formality is boring.
I avoid long words and unnecessarily complicated language and I place a lot of emphasis on the words ‘you’ and ‘I’ because I want to make it personal. I want to foster familiarity and for you, the reader, to believe the content you are reading has been produced specifically for you and not everyone on our mailing list.
And I ask a lot of questions. Why? Well because conversations are full of questions. The only difference in my writing is that I also (hopefully) provide the answers.
Make your writing look appealing
Inserting picture and infographics and including lots of white space into your content will certainly help, but there are other subtle techniques you can deploy to make your written content more appealing.
Readers find huge paragraphs and big blocks of text daunting and ultimately off-putting. If you look at newspapers, and yes I know print circulation figures are in decline, almost every paragraph consists of just one sentence.
Similarly, long sentences can be a big turn-off. If your sentence is longer than 30 words it needs to be split up into smaller sections.
You may have been told at school not to start sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but’. But now is the time to break those rules because there is nothing wrong with this in the grown-up world of content. And it is a great way of keeping sentences short and snappy. (See what I did there!)
Pull-out quotes, click-to-tweets and sub-headings are also great ways of breaking-up large sections of text.
Show you are human
People are interested in stories about other people.
The human touch lights up content and prevents the author sounding distant, detached and boring. It also builds connections with your audience.
I often include experiences from my career and even parts of my home life to illustrate points in my writing and the content which includes these examples and anecdotes is often the best performing.
Why? Because it make the content more relatable and also validates why I should be in a position to offer advice.
Strong personal opinions can add the human element we look for in an increasingly automated world.
Offer something unique
Type ‘content marketing’ into Google and it returns more than 33 million results.
So your content needs to offer something different to stand-out from the noise.
That doesn’t mean you can’t write about the issues that other people in your sector have already been speaking about. But you need to offer a different perspective, point of view or an interesting twist.
You need to be able to add to the conversation, not repeat it.
Narrowing your subject down will help. I blog a lot on media training issues for our sister company Media First.
That is a broad subject area, so I often break it down into specific areas where it can be easier to add something unique or unusual. For example, I have written blog on how to handle specific types of questions, such as personal ones, and particular types of interviews, such as doorstep interviews.
Know your audience
The best way to attract readers is to ensure you know who you are trying to appeal to.
If you don’t know enough about your readers and the questions they are looking for answers to, it is unlikely you are going to be writing on topics that are relevant.
Spend time on the headline
The headline is obviously crucial for attracting people to your content. It is the gateway.
But it is a balancing act.
Over promise and you are in danger of creating click-bait which could result in people visiting your website and leaving again almost immediately (this is known as a bounce rate).
Under-sell it and you are not going to attract the number of readers your content deserves.
So how can you get the headline right?
Numbers are a good tool, particularly odd ones, and questions are enticing – just look at how often the Daily Mail uses a question in a headline on its website.
Words like ‘how’, ‘why’, and ‘who’ also have reader appeal.
And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, keep it short.
Sites like CoSchedule will analyse your headlines and give tips on how to improve them.
Nail the intro
The introduction is a crucial part of any written content - it is the hook to get people to invest time reading the rest of what you have written.
The first thing I would say here is don’t repeat your headline in your introduction. This is something I see quite a lot of and it is incredibly dull and pointless.
It is also a good way of ensuring readers will quickly lose interest.
To entice the reader your introduction needs to show them they are going to read something relevant, timely, unusual or controversial (without offending them).
As with the sentences in the rest of your content, you need to keep your introduction short.
Promote, promote, promote
As much as I would like to tell you it is all about the writing, promoting your content properly is vital.
Email marketing, social media, PR, guest blogging and paid promotion are just some of the tactics you can consider to attract more people to your work and ensure your content marketing works.
At Thirty Seven, we offer content and design services to ensure your campaigns reach the right audiences at the right times. Our journalist led approach ensures your content is interesting, engaging and informative so you gain brand awareness and engagement whether it is social media content or a whitepaper.
Media First designs and delivers bespoke media and communications courses that use current working journalists, along with PR and communications professionals, to help you get the most from your communications plan.
