10 Content Marketing Tips for Writing Your Way Into Hearts and Minds

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Sherri Alms

Brain and heart balanced on a seesaw to illustrate that content marketing needs to appeal to readers' hearts and minds

The heart and soul of content marketing is to help your audience, whether they are prospective customers, donors, supporters, or interested readers. Give them worthwhile information and you will make them yours.

Bolster that ultimate goal with these tips to make your content more inviting:

Be human. Depending on your business and goals, you may take a friendly, formal, expert, or some other tone. Whichever you use, use it to talk to your ideal audience. Take a look at Zipcar’s Ziptopia. Its content marketing is clearly aimed at the kind of people who are likely to use its cars, informative, easy to navigate, and straightforward.
Give that audience tips, suggestions, and practical guidance from your arena of expertise. If you are working for a hospital, for example, don’t just describe the hospital’s expertise and capabilities, give them information about the condition for which they need treatment. This page about cancer staging from Northwestern Medicine is short, clear, and informative. If you’re writing for a nonprofit, make suggestions for how they can help your organization or stories about why your organization needs help.
Respond. Answer questions. Reply to comments. When your organization makes a mistake, and that will happen, make it right. We all know mistakes happen. Not acknowledging those mistakes is the problem and will drive away your audience faster than you can say “oops.” Acknowledging an error and making it right is much better than defending or ignoring it. This Hubspot blog post highlights six companies that did it right.
Tell stories. Tell more. About your product or about the nonprofit services you provide and who those services benefit. The Council on Foreign Relations created a stunning visual and interactive story about inequality in the workplace. It’s gorgeous, but pay attention to the content. It’s compelling, easy to scan, and provides options for the reader to go deeper. You can do the same even if your content marketing budget is a fraction of the cost for the interactivity in the inequality story.
Make connections. The International Rescue Committee does a great job of connecting the people it serves—refugees—to its potential donors. The story about Yousif and his mom is one example, and there are plenty more.
Entertain. Cisco, a technology company, developed a graphic novel in 2015 to describe how five cities were using technology in creative ways to make their cities better places to live.
Make them laugh. For this kind of content marketing, I have two words: Moon Pie.
Go behind the scenes to show them what your organization does and how that benefits them. W.R. Case & Sons makes knives. This is really not one of my interests. But when I stumbled on the company’s site while shopping for a gift, I stayed to read about what the company does and how because the content was so interesting.
Ask for action. Give them easy, clear ways to buy, make an appointment, donate, help, etc. Take a look at the Center for Biological Diversity’s home page for creative, provocative calls to action.
Last, visual interest will amplify your content in all the right ways. Content alone is like bread without yeast when it comes to content marketing.

A Summer Full of New Projects

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Sherri Alms

I wish this had been my summer view. I did get in some good time away with my husband.

Working is not generally how someone describes a fun summer. But new projects and clients and ongoing work made me one happy camper. Er, freelancer.

I was thrilled to take on a significant project for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), writing website pages about the organization’s activities in 48 of the countries where it has a presence. The work was compelling and challenging, and my MSF contacts have been wonderful to work with. I look forward to wrapping up that project by the end of the year.

It is always exciting to welcome a new regular client. This summer, Caron Treatment Centers hired me to be their go-to freelance writer. I’m enjoying the chance to write web content about their drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs. This new gig is stretching my medical content expertise even further, and I get to work with great people.

Thanks to a recommendation from a former client contact, I had the opportunity to write a white paper about intentionally diverse public schools. It was interesting to hear about the work school founders are doing to create an academic environment that promotes racial equity. I also wrote annual report content for an educational nonprofit that does great work supporting students in need across the country.

My work as the newsletter editor for the Organization for Autism Research (OAR) continues to be a pleasure. I can’t say enough good things about the amazing work this nonprofit does to provide information and resources for individuals with autism and their families. This year marks 12 years of working with the dedicated OAR crew.

I have been working for Enterprise Community Partners even longer. If you don’t know about this impressive nonprofit organization that makes well-designed homes affordable, you should. I have written for some of its publications and provided both copy and substantive editing for its website and many reports over the years. My client contact is an experienced professional who is also a delight to work for and with.

These new projects and long-term clients are why I love my work. If you or someone you know has a project coming up that needs a freelance writer or editor, please email me at info@almsink.com.

Your Website Content Should Help Its Audiences

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Sherri Alms

Are you writing for your audience? Image credit: Pexels

You are probably thinking that title is so obvious. “Of course, our content should help our readers.” Yes, but does it? Are you writing what your organization wants your audiences to know or what your audiences want to know? Do you know the difference?

Those can be tricky questions and vital to ask if you want your website to meet the goals you have set for it. When developing website content for your organization or company, your goal is not to describe your organization’s accomplishments. Your goal is to tell your audiences what your organization can do for them and how it does that.

Beginning the Content Development Process

Start by getting to know your audiences. If you don’t already know the categories of people who come to your website, make a list. A nonprofit, for example, might include donors, clients, and volunteers. For a business, the intended audiences are likely to be customers and potential customers. A healthcare organization is likely to target patients, their families, researchers, and healthcare professionals.

Next, find out what their needs are using these steps:

Ask when you talk to them face to face, on the phone, or in meetings.
Depending on the size of your organization, ask your staff to talk to their contacts. Media department staff can talk to the press about what they would like to see and use on the site. Salespeople can reach out to their best customers.
Ask a group of people to take a look at your site to see if they can find what they would want/need from you. What’s there? How does what is there work for them? What is missing?
Use focus groups.
Survey your audiences.

Then, create personas for the people who come to your website. Include their relationship to your organization/company, why they come to your website, the ways in which you can help them, what you hope they will do on your website, etc. Then write your content talking directly to those people.

Before you start writing, browse websites that you use/need. Can you find what you are looking for? Is it explained in ways that are useful for you? How is the content written? Is it written for you or does it seem to be more focused on telling you what the organization does?

When you are ready to start writing, make sure that the people doing the writing are able to write the content from the perspective of your audience. Freelance writers can be a good choice for this work because they are outsiders to your organization and specialize in writing from the audience point of view. It’s part of the job description.

Organizational Perspective Versus Audience Perspective

What This Hospital Wants Its Patients to Know

Our doctors have studied at the best medical schools and trained at the most demanding and best-ranked hospitals in the country. With years of experience in their fields, they provide exceptional health care.

Versus

What Patients Want to Know

When you come to us for care, you can count on medical experience and expertise that ensures you get the best treatment. In our cardiac care department, for example, our physicians have more than 100 years of combined experience. They consult with each other about their patients for a more comprehensive understanding of the patient’s diagnosis and treatment needs.

What This Nonprofit Wants Its Audiences to Know

Our coordinators work directly with families to find out what kind of services they need. Once they understand the family’s need, the coordinators connect them to our network for therapy and counseling services, social services, food banks, academic assistance, including school choice, and a range of additional supports.

Versus

What Its Audiences Want to Know

We empower the families we serve to find a path to independence and success through a range of services and support that enable them to strengthen their families, get immediate help like free groceries and medical care, find jobs or training, and place their children in good schools.

In fact, over the past 10 years, we have found jobs for 75 of our parents, helped 40 find training programs that will lead to good-paying jobs. We have placed 85 percent of our clients’ children in highly ranked public schools and another 5 percent in private schools.

For more information about content strategy, email Sherri Alms.

Storytelling Should Be a Critical Tool in Creating Your Content

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Sherri Alms

Image credit: Pexels

Humans love a story. That’s why storytelling should be a critical tool in creating your organization’s content. It draws your readers in, keeps them reading, and helps them remember what you told them. These are the key elements of storytelling that you can and should use.

Open the door just enough that they are intrigued by what they can see and what they have yet to see. These examples from well-known writers should give you some inspiration:

It is summer, and so, we are repeatedly reminded, it is time for the beach — beach bodies, beach reads, fruity beach drinks in tall glasses festooned with tiny paper umbrellas and fruits skewered on tiny plastic swords. This is an ideal beach of hot sun, warm sand, crystal-clear water that leaves your skin salted. But it is all too often a mirage. Roxane Gay writing in “The New York Times”
On the isolated shore of the Savage River, in the backcountry of interior Alaska, there’s a small memorial to a deceased woman named Claire Ackermann. A pile of rocks sits on a metal plaque with an inscription that reads, in part: “To stay put is to exist; to travel is to live.” Jon Krakauer writing in “Outside”

Give them a hero. The hero could be a member of your staff; a product or service; a client, patient, or customer; a donor, volunteer, or beneficiary. It could be your organization. (The line between coming to the rescue and bragging is thin indeed. Pay attention to make sure you are doing the former.).

Put your readers in your story. Or give them a way to put themselves in the story. For example:

You have been in this place. Home on a Friday night, kids in bed, the latest episode of your favorite show ready for your viewing pleasure, when without even a whimper, your DSL ceases to work. Down. Out. Gone. Along with your modest dreams for a relaxing evening. What do you do?
She isn’t alone. In fact, thousands of teenage girls (and boys) struggle with body image and food. Parents often struggle right along with them, yearning to do the exact right thing to get their child back on a healthy track and cautious about taking the wrong step. Maybe you are that parent. Or maybe you were once that teenager. Perhaps you are both. We can help.

Give your story a narrative arc. ThoughtCo. defines the narrative arc as made up of the following components: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Writer’s Digest describes the narrative sequence as “the structure that: 1) brings readers in and hooks their interest; 2) keeps them reading; and 3) leads them and the story to a fulfilling conclusion. That’s how beginning, middle and end function in a narrative.” Present the problem. Describe the consequences if the problem is not solved. Solve the problem. That is, in fact, what tips columns like this one often do.

Create action. Every good story needs action. In the case of a blog post or website content, the action you should never leave out is a call to action for your readers/customers. Do you want readers to sign up for a savings account? Donate money? Read more?

Be clear, specific, and concise in your call to action. Don’t ask readers to “Read more here.” Better: “Read Emu the whale’s story,” “Sign up for our monthly newsletter,” “Compare savings accounts,” or “Donate now to bring the pups home.”

Give your readers a resolution. That resolution depends a lot on the type of content you are writing. If it’s a tips article, you can summarize the importance of the tips and how using them will make the reader’s work or life better. If it’s a how to, you can wrap up with “If you follow all the steps, you will find you have…” If you are writing a post or article that compares the wrong way to do something to the right way, wrap up with a conclusion that gives them the benefits of the right way or a personal anecdote of what happened to you or your company/organization when you did things the right way.

Finally, the best way to learn the art of storytelling is to read. What you read doesn’t really matter—magazines, newspapers, novels, nonfiction—whatever you enjoy is fine. As you read, pay attention to the ways the writers draw you in, keep your attention, and accomplish their objective to entertain, instruct, inform, or persuade you.

Need help telling your organization’s stories? Sherri Alms has been helping organizations tell their stories for more than 20 years.

Make Sure Your Writing Provides Excellent Customer Service

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Sherri Alms

plane

Returning recently from a vacation, my husband and I took a connecting flight out of Chicago to Baltimore. Once we arrived at O’Hare, we checked the monitors along our way to the gate, and saw that the flight was scheduled to depart on time. When we got to the gate, the sign said the same. We settled into the waiting area chairs and watched the minutes tick by.

It soon became clear that our flight would not depart on time, despite the sign that still told us it would. Several people went up to talk to the customer service representative at the desk. Soon after, she got on the microphone and said, “Attention, passengers on Flight XXXX, we don’t know where your plane is, and we don’t know where the crew is so we can’t tell you when the flight will leave.”

Really.

A low rumble of grumbling ensued. One woman near us declared to her husband that she was going to go get a beer. I know you all have been in this waiting area.

Lots of Questions. No Answers.

My husband and I just looked at each other. Was the plane delayed in Bali? Boston? Having mechanical difficulties? Would it ever arrive? And what about that crew? Were they all sick? Lost? On strike? Should we rush to reschedule? Sit tight? Burst into tears?

B. headed to the desk to talk to the customer service representative. When he came back, he was smiling but it wasn’t a “problems all solved” kind of a smile, more of a “what the heck?!” kind of a smile. It turns out that the plane was coming from a hangar and the crew was in the airport just not to the gate yet.

Next thing we know, she comes on to tell us that exact information and then that there will be “decision time” at the original time of take-off. Decision time? What did that mean? The flight had a plane and a crew. And a whole bunch of passengers who were all decided. What more did we need?

Soon after, the plane arrived, the crew arrived, and we took off about 45 minutes later than scheduled.

Writing for Your Customers

Why am I writing about this? Because it’s a textbook example of how not to communicate. Instead, when you are writing to your customers/clients/supporters, do this:

1. Give them the information they ask for. Don’t engage in vague generalities or feel-good (or, in the case of the airline representative, feel-bad) statements. If you don’t have the information, they need, explain why and then how you will get it.

2. Tell them what you are good at in concrete terms. Stay away from overused words, such as innovative, groundbreaking, pioneering, excellent. Instead, illustrate. To showcase your staff’s experience, for example, tell readers how many years combined experience the staff has. If you want your readers to know how innovative you are, provide examples. Rather than writing “compassionate” over and over again, offer testimonials that illustrate that compassion. Use statistics to highlight how you are better than the competition.

3. Support your customers/supporters/readers by helping them. What kind of advice can you offer? How can you help them choose your business? What can you do to encourage new volunteers and support those you have? How can you engage potential supporters/customers?

4. Answer their complaints and acknowledge their suggestions. Set an example so that others see that they can trust you to correct mistakes and be straightforward and upfront.

5. When the news isn’t good, it may be better to lay it out than to speak in frustrating generalities. It was far better for us to hear the plane and crew were there but delayed than to hear that seemingly no one knew where the heck either was.

Take a lesson from our hapless customer service representative. Communicate honestly. Be specific. Tell your readers what they want and need to know. They will thank you.

If you want to know more about communications strategies and methods, email Sherri Alms.

How to Make Your Content Captivating

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Sherri Alms

colored marble in front of clear marbles

Pixabay

One marble on the sidewalk is one you will likely notice. But if there are 10 or 20, it will be more difficult to pick out one. Fifty and none will likely stand out. Unless there is something about that marble that catches your attention. And that, folks, is what web writing is like. Content is everywhere on the web. Not that I have to tell you that. “Read this.” “You will be a better person if you read this.” “This will make you laugh.” “This will make you cry.”

If you are writing any kind of web content—a blog post or newsletter article, a website section, or almost anything else—you need to make sure your writing stands out. How do you do that?

Write for your audience. Do you know who they are and what they want? Are you engaging in conversations so you are current on what interests them and what their needs are? This is probably the single most important component of making your writing matter. Someone who needs something is going to look and find it. Make sure you are writing what your audience needs.

Make sure your writing is the best it can be. I like the three Cs: clear, concise, and correct. Need a fourth C? Make it creative. Creative enough to attract readers and keep them. If their attention wanders before they get to the second paragraph, the writing isn’t doing its job.

Find your metaphorical panda bear. Let’s leave our metaphorical marble for a moment to consider the cute and cuddly panda bear. People love panda bears so they look at them. You need a panda bear. Or as professional writers call it: a hook to engage your audience. Is there a news angle to what you are writing about? What is your intended audience reading about? Talking about? Use that. The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to figure out how to catch their attention and focus them on your content. If you do that reliably, they will come back to you for more.

Write an inviting headline. Like the old-fashioned carnival barker, your headline should call the audience to step right up and read. To make sure they are engaged enough to continue to the content, make your headline specific, focused on audience needs, and clear about the content’s topic. Creative is great but only if the headline is also clear. Above all, you want the audience to know what the article is about and why they need to read it.

Use photos, graphics, and video that relate to your content. It’s best, if possible, to use photos and graphics that specifically relate to your organization. If not, you can find free images on websites like Pixabay and Pexels. Be careful not to simply grab any photo or graphic from the web. You must have permission to use someone else’s work, whether it’s an infographic, photo, or graphic. There are a number of websites that allow you to easily create professional graphics and use them, including infographics. Two of my favorites are Canva and Piktochart. I created this simple graphic with Canva in about five minutes:

Use social media channels to promote your writing. It is best at this point to make sure you know what social media channels your audiences use and then use those to promote your content.

Now go forth and make those marbles and panda bears proud to be yours.

Sherri Alms has been writing content designed to appeal to her clients’ audiences for more than 20 years. Email her to discuss your organization’s writing needs.

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