Have you ever considered trying content marketing as a way to promote your brand message? I have had this conversation with people numerous times and, more often than not, one or more of these objections come up eventually:
1. They have no clue what I’m talking about,
2. They don’t think their business or product is a good fit, or…
3. They don’t want to spend the money on it.
Now, of course, I want to sell people on the idea of content marketing. I run a custom writing service whose survival hinges on producing all kinds of content. Why wouldn’t I want you to try this? It’s a legitimate question, so…
Why Creative Writing?
Over the past decade, there has been a huge shift in how people consume content. They’re no longer a captive audience sitting through the commercials to see the end of that episode of “MacGyver.”
Trying to direct someone’s attention to your marketing content these days can be a huge challenge. This is especially true when they can skip the ad after 5 seconds and go about the business of watching yet another cat video without further interruption. In short, you have to disrupt the process and entertain the viewer first, before the guy who posted the cat video gets a crack at them.
That, in a nutshell, is why you need to be creative.
Creative writing can actually be a great vehicle for a little disruptive marketing. I’m not saying that there’s any surefire way to ensure that your audience sits through an ad or clicks to read an email or follows a call to action on social media. There are, however, ways to ensure you capture a few more leads, and almost all of them revolve around engaging, captivating, entertaining, and creative content. So, today, I want to show you three distinct areas wherein you can incorporate creative writing to be more visible.
1. Let’s Start with Your Blog
You have loads of wiggle room within your blog. If you’ve been posting a lot of straight informational articles lately, I suggest doing these two things.
First, you should research which of your posts get the best and (if possible) most positive engagement. These are the kinds of topics and areas of information to which your readers respond.
Second, develop a narrative around your ideal avatar or buyer persona and start presenting the product or service from the perspective of the customer. In this way, you can communicate completely factual information but do it in a way that doesn’t seem so sterile. Take the basic problem/solution model and run with it. There are likely a number of pain points that your product addresses, and all of them make great material for a story.
2. Now Let’s Talk About Email
There is no doubt that storytelling can have a huge impact on your email campaign, and yet many marketers still do things in a very backward sort of way with their email. Instead of building a relationship around the product, they introduce the product and hope you’ll want to have a relationship with it. Don’t let this be you. There are better ways.
One of those ways is a method called Autoresponder Madness. It was developed (and continues to be developed) by Andre Chaperon. The entire framework of the system revolves around storytelling. Using this method and others like it can be so effective, it’s not uncommon to send four, five, six, or even more messages in a series without ever attempting to sell anything.
What impresses me even more is how the open rates stay the same or increase over time. People kind of like being left on the hook (when you do it the right way). This is where your creative writing juices (or those of a trusted paid writer) really get to flow. Again, you want the information to be factual, but there is nothing wrong with building a solid narrative around a specific list of pain points to convey your message.
3. And Let’s Not Forget About Social Media
Even if you use a lot of curated content on social media, you can easily supplement it with witty captions, editorials, or other types of personal observations that jibe with your brand message.
I recommend sourcing lots of content that mirrors good vibes about your company or product and just saying stuff about it. Obviously, you want it all to make sense and come across as organic, but that’s as easy as just being a little selective about what you post. Add your own creative spin to the content you borrow, and your followers will be more apt to share it from your page.
Now Go Get Creative!
As a final takeaway, I would just like to encourage you to take a leap of faith with this one. We live in an age where if people aren’t instantly entertained, they’re moving on to seek out better content. Check out what your competitors are doing. Are they trying to make sales or are they trying to be influencers? Every day it is becoming more and more imperative that successful marketers and business owners strive for the latter if they want to survive, especially in an online market…
…and, really, what can have a greater influence on someone than a good story?