We’ve all been at the point where we are wracking our brain to come up with new, fresh content to engage our audience and hopefully attract a new audience for our clients. It’s the challenge of anyone writing for other people. How do you get people to care about something that isn’t necessarily your passion? It’s not always easy. But we do have some tips for you if you happen to be at that brain wracking stage and you need a little motivation.
Write for someone
You may not have gone to school for writing or journalism or even marketing, but here you are given this task of creating content. Not to worry. The first thing any writing teacher worth a damn will tell you is to write for someone in particular. Don’t write with the whole world in mind. Pick a person, real or fictional it does not matter, but think about that person when you’re writing. When you’re writing for a client you want that person in your mind to be their ideal reader.
What this little trick does is help keep you focused on what it is you want to say. You’re not worried if you’re reaching this person or that person or being inclusive to everyone from California to Uzbekistan. As long as you feel you’ve written in service to that one person, you likely to connect with many more people than you realize.
And just because you’re writing for one person in your head does not mean it has to be romantic nor do you have to kiss that person in the rain when your done, but you could I guess.
(Disclaimer: I’ve never actually seen The Noteboook, but I have seen this picture and from what I understand he writes to her in a notebook and it’s very romantic.)
Write with passion even if it’s not your passion
People will always tell you to do what you love and write what you’re passionate about, but in reality being able to do that all the time is a luxury most of us just don’t have. Most of us are hired to write and create for those who can’t, in which case we must understand their passion. As an SEO and a content marketer it’s our job to find the passion in our clients and be able to express it for them.
But what if our client doesn’t have passion for what they do?
Well, if that’s really the case, then your blog posts are the least of their problems because they’re most likely doomed already. In most cases, your client is your client because they care deeply about what they do and they hired you because they want to do everything in their power to succeed. So do them the courtesy of getting to know them and tap into what it is that drives them. That’s your job. And as Bill Belichick would say…
Just ask his (former) offensive line coach. (Sorry, Pats fans. Too soon?)
Take some risks
So you’ve gotten to know your client and you think you have a good grasp on what drives them and what your ideal reader wants to know about their business. Now you can sit down and write, but after a few posts you’ve found your getting a little stale and a little predictable. That’s not good. It’s time to take some risks, put a little bit more of yourself in your writing. Get a little angry about something and express some emotion. It doesn’t always work out perfectly, but that’s okay. Writing shouldn’t be perfect, it should be alive. Let your writing live, goddamnit! And if your client doesn’t like it, well…apologize and say you’ll try a different angle next time or show them how the audience responded to it and maybe they’ll change their mind.
Even when you’re writing for someone else, I’ve always found the best results are when you put some of yourself into the writing as long as you keep in mind those first two points: Write for someone. Write with passion.
