Photo by Eran Menashri on Unsplash

July 2, 2021

Heya, Friend.

Before I got into marketing, I worked as an assistant for an entrepreneur who sold vinyl records from his home.

He was a well-regarded audiophile with an ear for finding the best-sounding records (and a reputation for getting big $$$ for them).

I was a hungry new college graduate desperate to prove useful.  

A big part of my job was taking dictation from my boss, Tom, to get his new vinyl finds listed for sale on the website. 

Tom spoke about his records the way the leading man in a Hallmark movie woos a love interest. He’d comment sweetly (or buzz critically!) about a record’s tonal correctness, its texture, and the pops and clicks of the vinyl. He would talk about the equipment used, the engineers responsible for producing the album, and the music scene at the time. It was truly one artist unearthing the masterpiece of another. 

Tom would pace behind me as I typed as quickly as I could to capture every detail. Records priced at $250, $400, $750, and UP would sell in minutes based on Tom's approval and wordsmithing.

Working alongside Tom showed me what true mastery of a topic looked like and how online communities could form tightly around shared passions. It was also a masterclass in the basics of effective copywriting. 

What does good content sound like anyway?

✔️ Valuable 

Reading most website copy makes me want to scream. It's so boring. We’ve tricked ourselves into thinking “meh” content is “good enough” content. When I say “we,” I mean SEOs and marketers. We took a good, necessary thing and spent our energies trying to do it as cheaply and as bare-bones as possible.

• Writing thin content that doesn’t answer a searcher's question. 
• Paying $5 for long-form articles thinking no one will notice. 
• Product descriptions that put people to sleep.
• Greenlighting marketers writing about things without any topical knowledge.

MEH.

Your content is how your customers learn about you. It's your face to a stranger. So, why in the world do we phone that in? 

The silver lining, of course, is that with others doing it so poorly, there is an opportunity for those who do it better, smarter, and with more care for their audiences to see BIG REWARDS--creating stronger brands, happier customers, and earning more dollars for the services their content sells. 

When I was selling records, valuable content was my boss doing the legwork to track down the BEST sounding version of your favorite album and then delivering it with a love letter of why you couldn’t pass this up. You felt the excitement. You had to own it no matter the cost.  

Content is valuable when it educates, helps, or inspires. 

✔️ Human

No one wakes up yearning for marketing content.

We want stories. Stories that are written about us, for us, and that make us the hero. 

That’s one of my biggest gripes with marketing content. Too much talk about how your product is the best ever, the only one in its class, and the most innovative. I don't care about you. I care about myself and my problems. Tell me the value you offer my life or get out of here.

When we understand that our audience is the hero, we write content focused on "you." 

• Your questions
• Your fears
• Your challenges
• Your “So What” 
• The words and phrases you use

Once you understand your audience enough to do that, it is SO much easier to draft the correct story. 

Are you writing to say everything is awesome, or are you writing about a young child who saw his parents brutally murdered?

The product is similar. The story is vastly different.

When Tom listed a record on his website, there wasn’t a question in anyone’s mind that he understood his audience on the deepest level.

He knew how to choose words that would instantly connect; he knew their motivations and their nostalgia; he knew the lines guaranteed to grab attention. He knew because he was one of them. That translated into not just big sales but a crazed fandom around what he was building. 

Even when I didn’t understand the music, I understood that. 

✔️ Impactful 

Much to my dismay (trust me), the end goal of your content isn’t to impress people with your clever, award-winning writing.

Instead, it’s to get them to act--to click, buy, register, sign up, or show up. 

How do you do it?

Map the story you’re trying to tell. Move them toward what you want them to do. Discover the user journey:  

• Where are we now?
• Where could we go with a bit of help (your product/service)?
• What is our obstacle?
• How do we overcome it?
• How is life happier and better?

If more visual mapping is your thing, this diagram of the story of Cinderella might speak to you. I’ve had it bookmarked for years. You can mimic the structure in your own marketing stories. [tip: use fewer princes.]

Knowing where you're going, who you serve, and the value you have to offer is the foundation of creating really great content. That alone will transcend your brand from "meh" to a brand worth knowing. 

It bums me out sometimes to see how low we've set the bar for marketing content. 

And yet, it's an opportunity. Do better and reap the rewards.

Happy Fourth. See you in two weeks.