Crafting Your Message
Week 3 of Market Like You Mean It series in The Female Founder’s Society
Crafting Your Message
Here are the written breakdowns and a more formal blog on the topic in case you don’t have time to watch the video.
Guide Your Readers on a Journey
A good story is about showing, not telling. It sets the stage for feelings and imagination. Crafting your message is all about the journey of your clients’ experiences. Make sure the journey they get from your content is the journey they’ll get from your products and service.
Use Settings, Senses, and Specific Details
Nobody will get emotional of a report or a clean yard. Likely not even a new website. What they will get emotional over is the feeling they get from it. What did they experience in the details? If you can resolve their pain points with a report, or a clean yard, or a new website then you’ll hook them. Get their senses going. Get them to feel connected to your setting. Use the details to place them into the content, not talk at them.
Control the Pace
The average person reads at a 14-year old’s grade level. You have to make sure that you are keeping your point moving along. Don’t get hung up on a topic. Don’t drag your points out or get redundant. When crafting your message, it’s important to make sure you’re traveling at a consistent pace.
Make Your Readers Feel an Emotion
Your audience needs to image themselves in the world your words create. While I know you’re strategizing business content and not fiction, crafting your message isn’t that different. Try and show them you understand them. You sympathize with them. You can solve their problems.
Use Conflict and Drama
Fiction uses conflict to create story arcs for characters. Writers rely on drama to lead readers down certain rabbit holes. While you don’t need to be as literal here, you can use tension to help your readers feel emotions. There are going to challenges you help solve that can cause or arise from conflict. So it’s OK to use that when crafting your message.
Be Realistic
The pain points you talk about should be conceivable. Make sure you’ve experienced them and can effectively communicate them. People need to know you understand them. And how to solve their issues. Don’t create unrealistic expectations. Make sure your content delivers what your services can.
Transparency
You cannot craft your message if you cannot be real. Authenticity is the most important. People don’t want to work with the fake you. The you that you THINK people want to see. They want the real you. Don’t be afraid to display that early and often.
Make Decisions For Your Readers
Never be afraid to express a strong opinion about your industry. As long as it’s relevant to your audience and it’s appropriate. Don’t hesitate to create plenty of places where there’s a call to action. When your favorite character dies in a show, you feel moved. This is the writer deciding how they’re going to make you feel. Shock value is great for ratings. In the real world, your readers need to see clearly that you can boldly boast “I can do what I say I can do.” Lead your readers down the path that’s right for them.
Things to Remember
Readability
Remember, most people read at a 14 y/o level. You aren’t writing a college paper. You may not need jargon that’s fancy in your writing. You just need something that people can understand without a challenge. Plus, search engines care how this is structured.
Word Choices
Don’t try to sound smart for the sake of it. Big words aren’t necessary unless they really are. If you don’t have a very specific audience that needs this, don’t do it. Very rarely do I come across the need for such pedantic writing. Most content pieces simply need to be simple.
Be sure that you are deliberate as well in your words. Don’t say things to say them. Say things to mean them. You don’t need unrelated details. You just need truth.