If you aren’t careful, your content marketing efforts can become more of a habit and less of a creative pursuit. The danger here is that you’ll lose your audience and reduce your brand’s appeal. But how can you breathe life back into your writing when you feel like there’s nothing left in the tank?
Five Tips for Thriving Content
If you’ve ever spent much time cooking, then you understand the importance of choosing the right ingredients. While the final dish may look the same regardless of whether you use pre-canned or fresh ingredients, it doesn’t always taste or smell the same. The fresher the ingredients, the better the taste.
This concept holds true in content writing. The better the input the better the output. How do you improve the quality of your input? Try these practical tips:
1. Make Sure You’re Excited
Are you excited about the content you’re writing? You can fake a lot of things, but a lack of interest or excitement will eventually shine through in your writing.
If you aren’t excited about what you’re writing, then really dig deep and figure out what the issue is. Is there another topic that would invigorate you? Are there other angles you can take? What can you do to become more interested in the subject matter?
When you’re interested, excited, and intrigued by the issues you’re writing about, you’re much more likely to commit the time and resources needed to create a polished and engaging finished product.
2. Include Tangible Details
You’ll hear people say that good writing is concise. And while this is true to an extent, don’t confuse brevity with a lack of detail. Whenever possible, use tangible details and imagery to evoke a response in your audience.
Take this little excerpt from an Expedia landing page as an example:
“Whether it’s snorkeling with whale sharks off Mexico’s Isla Holbox or exploring the sunken warships of the Solomon Islands, the deep has forever fascinated us. We are drawn to the mystery below.”
The writer could have just said, “Whether it’s snorkeling in Mexico or exploring the coastline of the Solomon Islands, the ocean is fascinating.” However, notice how much more vivid the statement is when details are included.
3. Integrate Multimedia Elements
We live in a world where visuals rule. Social media has fueled this craze, but it all comes back to psychology. The human brain is oriented in a manner that visuals stand out. If you have the opportunity to diversify your content with things like infographics, video, images, and even interactive content, do it!
Klientboost has done this with a series of “giphographics”—animated infographics. Not only do these present the information in a different way that may appeal to certain readers, it is visually enticing and more exciting than plain text.
4. Choose Active Voice and Vivid Verbs
People don’t like to read content that’s written in passive voice. It makes the content feel dated, cold, and out of touch. If you really want to engage your audience, choose active voice and vivid verbs to get your point across. You want people to feel like they’re living in the moment, not reflecting on something that happened in the past.
5. Get the Headline Right
The headline is so important in today’s marketing environment. Since the majority of traffic comes via search engine results and social media shares, your headline could mean the difference between getting clicked and being ignored.
What do good headlines look like? They contain vivid words that evoke strong emotions. Some words to use include: secret, new, never, shocking, incredible, unbelievable, etc. Anything that instills curiosity in the reader works. This article features a handful of ideas.
Let Your Writing Come to Life
Writing is a skill. And just like any skill, you need practice and repetition to improve. In order to breathe life into your writing, it’s imperative that you practice in the right manner. Make sure you’re excited. Include tangible details. Integrate multimedia elements. Use active voice and vivid verbs. And don’t forget to get the headline right. Do all of these things and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.