By Robert Middleton
One of my favorite marketing sayings is, “Writing is to marketing
strength as pumping iron is to muscle strength.”
So, if you want stronger, more effective marketing, you need to
write. There’s really nothing else that has that impact. But
writing, for most people, is a real struggle. That is, it’s not a
pleasant task. In fact, it can be downright stressful.
Let’s look at what makes it that way:
1. You don’t have a method or structure for writing that works.
You’re not sure what to say and how to put it all together so that
it has impact and makes prospects respond.
2. You are intimidated by your English teacher and all the formal
rules of writing. So your writing comes across as stilted or overly
formal, not connecting with your audience.
3. You are afraid that other people will judge you for your writing,
so you hold back, not wanting to make a fool of yourself. What if
your writing makes you look unprofessional or ignorant, or worse,
it comes across as hype?
All of those are realities I’ll address in a minute, but first, what if
writing wasn’t such a stressful chore, then what?
1. You’d have a tool immediately available to you to communicate
about your business with impact. Your prospective clients would
get the information they needed to make a decision and they’d
be motivated to contact you to find our more.
2. You’d build business relationships quickly. After all, when
people first hear about your business and want to know more,
you’d have that information readily available in an easy to
understand and digestible format. Good writing connects you to
your prospects in a way nothing else can.
3. Confidence with writing would enable you to do other
marketing activities much more easily as well. Presentations,
audio, and video programs all start with writing. Once you’ve
nailed down the formula for writing, none of these things would
be a mystery anymore; you’d know exactly where to start.
Let me give you the two most important tips that could transform
your writing.
1. The place to start is with “conversational writing.”
One of my guest bloggers, Diana Kightlinger, covered that about
a month ago in some depth, so I won’t dwell on that here. Read it
if you missed it; it’s great:
http://actionplan.com/blog/258-conversational-writing
2. Use Marketing Syntax in all your marketing writing.
This is simply the order in which you organize your writing. And if
you take a look at this article, you’ll find I’m following marketing
syntax to the letter. Here are the steps in marketing syntax that
work for articles, blog posts, web pages, presentations, sales
letters, etc.
a) Start with a clear topic or issue in a paragraph or two.
Immediately make it very clear what you are writing about or
people will tune out fast. This may be either a problem that your
prospects face or a solution you’ve discovered. Sometimes a bit of
both.
So if you’ve discovered a way to help your clients get more
“employee engagement” which will increase productivity and
retention, let your readers know that right away.
b) Follow that with some issues, concerns, or problems regarding
this topic. This gets you and the reader on the same page:
“Have you ever experienced times when your employees are
disengaged and can’t seen to move steadily towards your
company’s most important goals? Perhaps some of these
symptoms are familiar?”
That draws prospects right in. Everyone likes to discuss what’s not
working; they can relate to it perfectly.
c) Then talk about what it could be like. You don’t have to go
overboard here, however your possible outcomes should be both
compelling and believable. This creates desire in the reader to
know how to get from where they are to where you’re pointing:
“Not only is it possible to get your employees engaged, once they
become engaged the power of peer pressure will get their fellow
employees engaged as well, often increasing productivity
dramatically.
d) Next, you list a number of points of HOW you actually get
those results. This could be anywhere from three to five points,
depending on the medium. You are giving away specific, hands-on
and how-to information your readers crave.
As you see, this is exactly how I’ve outlined this article. It’s very
easy once you have this structure of Marketing Syntax. Let me
review it again:
1. Get attention with a relevant problem or solution.
2. Get interest by discussing issues they can easily relate to.
3. Increase desire by explaining how things could be.
4. Provide fulfillment by giving away some practical ideas.
5. Make a clear call-to-action.
Suggest a simple action the reader could take to turn your ideas
into results for themselves. This might be a link to your website
or a certain service, or perhaps a meeting to find out more.
The call-to-action depends on the context of the written
communication. So here’s my call to action for this article:
If you found these ideas useful, you might like to learn more
about marketing syntax, effective marketing writing, and a whole
lot more, that would help you attract more of your ideal clients
with less struggle.
I’d like to give you a free hard-copy of my new book, “Marketing
Ball – Lessons on Attracting Clients from the Marketing Coach.”
It’s yours at no cost or obligation if you try out a month of the
Marketing Club which contains a wealth of programs, courses,
expert interviews, coaching calls, client tracking software, and a
whole lot more to help you grow your business.
If you’re already a member of the Marketing Club, I’ll send you a
copy of the book if you upgrade your membership to quarterly,
yearly or lifetime.
Just click on this link to find out more:
http://actionplan.com/fasttrack
Cheers, Robert Middleton
This post was written by Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit
Robert’s web site at www.actionplan.com for additional
marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional
service businesses.
