How You Can Be A Strong Business Writer
Why is writing an important business skill?
For starters, writing is a form of thinking. It is something anyone can practice and get better at.
Throughout my many years in marketing, I’ve learned that most successful copywriters are not master artists, that come up with genius ideas. We have deadlines. And your clients don’t care about you, as much as they care about the end result. This is why the best writers have systems to save them time. However, you don’t have to be a professional copywriter to be a good writer.
No matter what your function in business is, writing skills are important if you want to get your point across, inform, and think through your ideas more clearly.
Whether you’re writing blog posts, white papers, emails, presentations, Ebooks, text messages, etcetera, a strong command of the English language is critical to your success in business.
Writing is a process, starting with research, creating, rough-drafting, writing, rewriting, and polishing. Most copywriters or novelists are constantly editing their work, until publishing. Writing is not a perfect, linear process.
I get writing is important — but how do you come up with ideas to write about?
There’s a myth that says that great ideas will come to you when you’re not trying. And although this has been partially true in my life, there’s more to that statement. Despite popular belief, great ideas don’t happen when you’re on drugs. And good writing, especially when conveying business ideas, are not conveyed without, active, hard work.
That said, it’s best to organize daily thoughts, ideas, and observations, into your own writing system. You have to have a desire to collect ideas, and file them away into a place you’ve organized, that you can easily go back to for later retrieval. Thoughts will come to you at different times and places, and having the ability to quickly revisit those folders/files will help you optimize your writing process. For instance, you might garner an insight you want to later go deeper into, with another idea that correlates for the ultimate creative article, book, etc.. For example take a look at the famous writer, Ryan Holiday’s writing system.
But what ideas do you pull from your organization system?
For me, I will analyze how my audience, or people I want to be my audience react. This can occur during a one-on-one conversation, or by analyzing how people respond in forums or with reviews. In conversations, I look for eye’s lighting up, or the amount of engagement they have for the ideas I’m pitching.
Now that I have my system, how do I conduct research?
Contrary to what I’ve learned in school, I find that exploring clues and credible facts to form an outline is the way to go (not the other way around). For example, it’s fun to click search for articles that have links to other great articles. Or flipping through a book for an interesting chapter that leads to a footnote — that is either something I can use to build a thought/compelling idea, or is simply irrelevant, and not as worth my time. However, research can be a trouble experience, because at the start it feels like you’re on an aimless search. I find that the best research comes when you’re not trying to align your assumptions into a linear bias/ perspective.
In addition to exploring and following clues, Linkedin and other place are great for connecting with experts, excited to talk answer your questions. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. So it’s best to keep in mind your context and theirs. For example, if you find their email on google scholar, and ask a related question, to a white paper, or ebook you tell them you’re writing, chances are they will respond.
Exchange value for value. In other words, tell them you plan to link to them and share their insights with your and other audiences.
What do most of the greatest writers of all-time have in common when structuring an outline?
The answer to this question looks as simple as structuring in outline to flow like this:
1. Identity- This is where you introduce the setting and characters, or main ‘why’ questions. You can also start off in your introduction with a powerful fact, or engaging question.
2. Struggle-What is the conflict, roadblock, or problem your prospect or audience is facing?
3. Discovery- What will rescue the situation. Who or what can answer their questions about the problems they face?
4. Resolution — This is the part when you drive the whole story home. You want to make your reader take away something that causes them to share your story, or remember what you wrote for a while.
How to write an irresistible and emotional story?
According to Colin Theriot, information has little to no value to your customers on the internet. What has value, according to Theriot, is knowledge. On the Copywriters Club podcast, he states: “knowledge is information tempered by experience.” This is the difference of typing in a search phrase to find the same information on 40 different websites, and choosing the website with an authority figure that puts what your searching for into context. For example, just there’s a lot of information floating around on Wikipedia or how-to.com, but chances are someone searching for truth is going to lean towards an authority figure they like and trust. This is the first part of 5 parts that, Colin Theriot calls: “the Viking Velociraptor Formula.”
To set up a context for the knowledge you want to drop on your prospect, you need to grab your audience by implying that: you have the same worldview, you’re both attracted to the same things, feel the same emotions about those things, and can relate in the context you’re going to anchor to drive home your call-to-action/offer.
Here is how to write an irresistible and emotional story in 5 steps:
1.Verify — At this stage, the audience is discerning for something that they’ve seen or experienced. As a copywriter finding what the audience you want to reach has seen is simpler then one might think. All you need to do is go to reviews, and forums, and social media platforms and document the sentiments of their likes, shares, and comments. Then plug in what knowledge is for them — by someone they will listen to (e.g. kind of what I’m doing here with all these influencers I’m linking to).
2. Validate — Next you want to validate their emotional, internal response to the data you’ve collected. This can be as simple as going to your prospect’s website to see what they’ve accomplished that you can relate to your own accomplishments. Or you can validate yourself by relating on an informal level about their hometown team, favorite foundation, political stance, a current event they are interested in, etc..
3. Vantage — This is the position you use to present the info you want to give them. This can be a free ebook, course, excel spreadsheet templates, or something you’ve struggled with in the past that has got you out of a jam — and that can ultimately help them.
4. Values — Next you want to reinforce these offerings with positive reasons you’re friends; what things do you have in common, and value? This takes you from a cold stranger to a warm friend. At the bottom of your decision makers, Linkedin profile is a list of what interests them. Or if you find a piece of writing where they are expressing an opinion, you can get a sense of what they’re into. However, keep in mind that you might come off as manipulative — that is if you’re genuinely not curious or interested in a particular topic they are. The best advice I’ve received from Malcolm Gladwell: “if you want to be a better writer, stay curious about people, and life.”
5. Villains — What is the opposite you are trying to relate to your prospect? In other words, what are the things you both hate? Sometimes this can be in the form of a rival you both dislike. For example, you prospect might have hateful opinions about a competitor. You can reinforce their dislike with a funny example of how your prospect’s brand is better.
All said, one of the most important things you need as a writer are powerful tools. Here are a couple free tools worth checking out:
Thanks for reading :)
Mark@WriterMarks.com
P.S. Here’s an article I wrote a year later, and edited a year after that:
What is A Content Marketing Copywriter going to look like in 2020?
What do you think, the greatest marketers of our time think the difference between a good content marketer/copywriter and a great one is?
What do you think the greatest marketers of our time think the difference between a good content marketer/copywriter and a great one is? In a word, think community. (Okay. Okay. That was two words.)
A community strategy isn’t a traditional marketing and sales strategy. Think quantity and quality — like how a community is larger than a cult, group, organization, institution. It’s a collective of institutions — and more, on a global scale.
Largely, you want customers/clients; not just friends, acquaintances, and “fake networkers” to be about your brand community.
When thinking outside of your personal community, and about your business community, it’s easy to get delusional. For example, the errors from reviews and surveys fool even the smartest in the room (recommended read: “The wisest one in the room” ). I’ll unpack what Seth Godin says about this towards the end of this article…
I’m not saying a community isn’t a little fuzzy group and/or groups of larger groups; I’m just saying many leading concerned sociologists don’t consider groups to be communities.
We need to niche down. We need to provide evidence for investors. Making sense of human behavior and providing ethical evidence to scale — can be a dilemma. An aneurysm. A big bottle of tums, and sleep-aids. Endless anxiety.
A small minority win and the majority of customers and investors lose — isn’t my idea of a community. (Take it easy: I’m not a communist, socialist, nor am I a propagating fascist.)
Jim Jones thought his cult was a community. Heck, I bet many brands have the same limited mindset.
The community strategy you’ll get from a great marketer/copywriter is broad. It’s the difference between making sense of vanity metrics, and generic business analytics. It’s a voracious interpretation of data. It’s sociological. It’s psychological. Anthropological. It’s an ethnographer doing customer service. It’s the sales playbook written by Daniel Pink “To sell is human.” It’s being human. It’s being ethical. It’s empathetic. It’s uncomfortable.
Why your customers aren’t your customers; they’re your fans?
These fans are your copywriters. They’re your content creators — in a sense.
“A difference between customers and fans is that fans want to be involved. When they feel included, they become invested. When they are personally invested, they may also invest with their dollars’.” Pat Flynn (p.97 “Marketing Rebellion by — the brilliant best-selling author and one of the greatest business thinkers of our time– Mark Schaefer)
Your fans will stick with you through the hard times. The times when trolls overwhelm you. The times when employees dent your brand’s reputation. Average customers are becoming more sophisticated at seeing through BS reviews, reasons your company didn’t deliver on its promise. However — the kicker is that they won’t spend more, stick with you through your inevitable business mistakes, nor spread your story and build on your narrative (also known as great marketing) if you don’t have a community strategy. In other words, your prospects, customers, and fans need to feel a sense of belonging, first and foremost.
How do you give people a sense of belonging?
This is your marketing advantage … Your brand… The way you win over the competition. Nevertheless, keep in mind many brands have been trying to do this for a long time and failing.
According to, Harvard Business Review article, “Getting Brand Communities Right,” and Mark Schaefer’s “Marketing Rebellion,” there are a number of ideas and principles you can employ as a business to foster community growth:
- A brand community isn’t just a marketing strategy; it’s a business strategy
- A brand community sole purpose is to serve the people, not a minority of interests
- Intelligent companies embrace the conflicts that enable communities to thrive and stay alive
- Communities confer status
- Communities are old school mixed in with new school: they’re how online meets offline
- Community defy soul-sucking, dictating, managerial control
- Manipulation wilts a community
- The mission grows the social movement
What’s the difference between a survey and a consensus?
A census is when you ask everybody. A survey is when you have a scientific sample that acts as if it was everybody (Both can be problematic. I write about why in my book: Timeless Word-of-Mouth Principles).
The stuff online that appears as if it’s a survey — pretending to be a census — is nonsense, garbage, and bullsh$t.
Surveys are for minorities in our communities. I’m not talking about different colors of people — rather I’m talking about the actual people that leave reviews. You know: those people that have a chip on their shoulder, or people that have nothing better to do with their time.
You learn the most about your customers from how your consultants interact with them than from any survey or easy metric. This means you’re running the risk of delusions from vanity impressions. You’re learning about a subset — that’s easy to get. Most brands don’t realize that certain brands (stories) aren’t intended for them; at least not at the moment in time that they fill out a survey or leave a review.
That said, a consultant (i.e. this can be in the form of customer service, sales, or a particular marketing capacity) should know the questions to ask, and how to listen. Seth Godin expounds on this in a great Mastermind talk he gives about sentiment analysis.
Sony did a focus group years ago to evaluate a new clock radio they wanted to bring to the market. They got people from the shopping mall. And with hidden cameras, they displayed and had the participants interact with the clock radio. The participants were reacting and responding as you might expect. Eye’s wide, they were saying things like, “This is great” … “I love this clock radio!” …
Then they were asked: “How much would you pay for this product?” Responses varied from “$80” to “$110” to “$60.”
Here’s the rub. At the end they told participants, “As a ‘thank you’ would you rather have $25 bucks or this radio?” ALL participants opted for the $25 bucks!
Key takeaway: people can see through FAKE reviews. Godin and all the writers he knows don’t read, nor care, about their 1-star reviews. He states that it’s not going to make a person a better writer, simply because the product (book) wasn’t for them. People that leave those types of reviews are d-bags, hired trolls, shady marketers, or just plain losers that don’t get it.
Mark Shaefer “Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins”
If you are seeking out a psychological, anthropological, sociological, ethnographer, to help you market, sell, and garner data about your product or services, feel free to reach out!
