Tips for New Content Writers in Marketing
Welcome to the world of content writing! In this blog, we want to make sure you understand expectations for the kind of writing you’ll be doing for digital marketing clients. Each writer may have learned their writing skills in a different way, so developing a professional consistency among our writers is essential.
What Style of Writing Should You Use?
You may have been a top-notch writer of university research papers. Those research skills will come in handy. However, the writing style marketing clients need is very different from formal academic writing. For this writerly role, you’ll be writing for the public — and often, for a very specific demographic. Learning to write to and for your audience is essential.
You’ll need to turn some of the writing styles you learned in school on their heads. Banish the passive voice you may have learned in writing for the sciences and social sciences. Do everything in your power to avoid passive verb constructions and other syntax that distances the reader from the writer. You’ll also need to write concisely and avoid wordiness.
Your content writing for clients should engage the readers through active, vivid, energetic writing. You’re allowed to break all the rules of teachers who told you, “Never write in the first person!” Most of your clients want web pages that speak for them (using “we) and to the audience (“you”). Writing smartly, but also writing conversationally, is a true skill in this business.
If you studied journalism or media writing, or if you’ve had professional experience in journalism, strategic communication, or digital marketing, then you already have a leg up. Congratulations! You probably also know the AP Style, which is the style most web writing follows.
The top rules in writing for the web are (1) to keep it simple and straightforward, and (2) budget your words wisely. Speak to your audience in a voice that addresses them and to which they can relate. Words can be powerful connectors between people, even in virtual relationships when the two people never meet.
Writing for a Specific Purpose and Audience
Know your target audience. Read instructions closely so that you know the purpose or goal of each writing task before you ever put a word on the page. Discern exactly what each client wants. In strategic communication and marketing, it’s all about the client. You’re not exercising your creativity for your own sense of self-expression. Your job is to be the skilled writer who can create an effective voice for the client.
Persuasive Writing for Advertising and Marketing
Most web-based writing, at least in digital marketing, is about selling something: a product or service. Sometimes that message is loud and clear, like those newsboys who sold papers on street corners a century ago or the early TV commercials where a spokesperson held up a product and told you why you needed it.
Yes, some content writing jobs are that direct in selling a product or service, while some are slightly more subdued. When you receive an assignment to write a website landing page or service page, the purpose of your writing will be to market the client company directly.
Informative Writing Through Blogs
Other writing jobs you’ll receive may be doing less direct marketing and more public relations — aiming to bring positive feelings of goodwill to a company and its image. For example, in addition to trying to sell their products or services, many companies provide helpful information to their clients or customers through a series of ongoing blogs. This information in marketing blogs usually relates in some way to the company’s specialty and expertise.
When readers or viewers feel they’re getting some good, helpful information that may enhance their lives, they will hopefully develop feelings of fondness and appreciation for the company and start to form a loyalty or allegiance.
Brand loyalty is at the heart of a successful business, and those followers become the core consumers whose purchasing power can keep a company afloat. Our job as content writers is to lay the foundation for that brand loyalty.
SEO Writing
Most of the writing digital marketing firms provide to clients these days is part of a larger search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. SEO incorporates a multi-tiered set of practices to make a particular website rank higher on search engine results pages. SEO involves technical optimization and off-page strategies such as backlinking. As a writer, you’ll be primarily engaged in producing the ideal content for on-page SEO as well as integrating the keywords the client may provide to you.
Be sure to always integrate keywords into sentences and headers in a natural-sounding way to avoid “keyword stuffing.” Also, be aware that the forms of keywords may be adjusted (singular or plural, various verb endings). You may also insert “stop words” — prepositions, articles, conjunctions, or pronouns — within a keyword phrase without changing the meaning of the phrase.
Getting Started Writing a Blog, Article, or Web Page
As you study the site the content will appear on, as well as the template example the client has provided, you’ll start to get an understanding of both the target audience and the writing style that the client desires. For example, writing informational guides for prospective law school students requires writing at a higher grade level than does writing web page copy for a plumbing service.
Why? For each assignment, consider the audience’s average reading level and demographics. Plumbers are reaching out to the general public within their community or service area. Their web pages need to be readable by people of all educational and economic levels, from those immigrants who barely speak English all the way to business executives. So to write their copy, you need to speak in a language that all will understand.
In general, aim to write to an 8th-9th grade reading level. You can check the reading level of your writing by using the Flesch-Kincaid score calculator and other similar measures as tools.
Finding the Right Voice
Here are some questions to ask for each assignment: Who are your most likely readers? What is the context? What should the “voice” of the company or organization ideally sound like to make the readers (consumers and potential clients) feel an affinity for the company? How can you build a warm relationship between client and customer through the words you choose and how you put them together?
Think conversely as well — what style or voice of writing would most likely “turn off” a potential client? Too stuffy and formal? Too condescending — or, on the other hand, not sounding authoritative enough about the topic? Coming across as too vague and general, and not using key industry terms correctly, is the sign of a poor writer. That’s why you as the writer need to do your homework well and learn enough about the client’s niche that you can “speak the language” without getting caught up in too much jargon.
Developing Content Through Effective Research
After you’ve determined the best tone and style, you’ll need to do research to develop the content for your article. Just like those college research papers, you should keep a few things in mind. Take notes. Keep track of your sources. Always — always! — paraphrase and never lift a phrase or a sentence directly from a reference page. That’s plagiarism. Find out from the client if you should link to reference sources — in most cases, any links should always be to authority sites and never be to competitors.
The Secret of Good Writing Is Organizational Structure
You can find several template outlines that show you very specifically how to structure a simple business service web page. These templates have a very formulaic structure, so you should strict attention to them since they work well in the marketing world. It may feel rote to you, and a bit repetitive, but your job is to follow these instructions while also making the writing come alive and feel anything but boring to the readers.
Once you have enough content material, it’s time to organize your information. You need a main idea or thesis statement that summarizes the argument you’re trying to make. Your argument is the main informational claim you’re making about your client’s product OR the primary action you’re trying to persuade your reader to do.
We call the latter a Call To Action (CTA). You probably have a ton of jingles in your memory from childhood TV commercials you watched, and most of those contain a CTA. The one that came to mind as I was writing this was “Hurry on down to Hardee’s, where the burgers are charcoal-broiled!” In our writing, we generally ask the reader to contact the client. Be sure to include the full company name, location (if it’s a local or regional business), and phone number: whatever the client asks for.
If you’re not familiar with Style Systems, the H1-H2-H3 system is very important in strategic writing. You can find it on the Home tab of MS Word and set the font for each style level. As a standard, use H1 for titles (headlines) and H2s for primary headings. Subheaders can be in a hierarchy using H3s and H4s, and so on.
The Introduction
You’ll usually need an introductory section under the main title (H1) that first, grabs the attention of the reader and engages them, then states the main thesis or argument (see last paragraph!), then ends with a brief preview to entice them to keep reading. For most business web pages, a brief Call To Action (CTA) should be at the top of the intro so it catches the attention of a reader who might just be skimming. You want to make them keep reading!
The H2 Sections
Following the intro section, you’ll generally need a series of short sections, each headed by a primary heading (H2). These H2s should form a set and use parallel language. H2s are also prime places to insert secondary keywords. Each of these sections should address one particular aspect or topic or item in a few paragraphs. In doing so, it should make a claim about that subtopic and then provide examples or evidence to support or illustrate it.
One of the prime rules of writing for the web is to write in bite-sized chunks, keeping paragraphs very short (3–4 lines, max) and breaking lists out into bullet points. Be sure to keep lists grammatically parallel in structure. Avoid overwriting (what we call “fluff”) by avoiding repetitive parts of phrases.
The Final CTA Section
When you get to the end, don’t just stop cold. The final section should be a very brief review and summary of everything that came before, followed by a reiteration of the thesis or argument, and ending with a more substantial Call To Action, this time with contact information. Urge your reader to take the leap!
Creating a Persuasive Sequence
Our goal as writers is to turn readers into customers. First, we need to get their attention. Then, we offer them a scenario that they can relate to — maybe a problem they’re having, or a need for something they desire. Next, we tell them in no uncertain terms how our client has the solution or fulfillment for them. We help them see the benefits and visualize how great their lives might be if they accepted that offer. Then we call them to action.
We want to get readers invigorated and desiring whatever it is our clients are offering. Then we want them to close the deal by making contact with the client’s business.
Other Types of Writing for Marketing Clients
Now, not every article will follow this formula. We might ask you to write a “listicle,” that short article form that’s popular these days and which provides the Top 5 of this or the Best 10 of that. Even though it may seem informational and objective, the client has requested it because, in the end, it will hopefully attract readers to the client’s product or services.
At other times, you may receive a request to write an informational blog or feature story that reads like a magazine article. Sometimes, the client will ask you to link to credible web-based articles and reference sites. Some of them may appear on well-known magazine-like websites, such as MarketWatch or Forbes. These demand strong research and writing skills and usually use a language style that targets readers in a higher educational or economic niche.
Each client chooses the level of writing expertise they desire for a project, which also indicates the amount the client pays to produce the written work.
Need more advice and tips? Be sure to follow this blog. Also, for any professional writing or editing needs, please contact Pam Wilson at Culture Quest Services by emailing Culture.Quest.Services@gmail.com.
