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Content Writing

How to Write Better: 12 Tips from 12 Professional Writers

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I write a lot. I write client emails. I write web copy. I write blog articles (oh hello there). It’s my job, and it’s my passion, so I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it.

But I want to get better.

So, I decided to interview ten writers I admire, from different roles, industries, and genres. Each offered their best writing tips, including a piece of wisdom too great not to share.

12 tips on how to become a better writer

1. Know your stuff

“Before you write a sentence, research. Writing is power. When you write you have a responsibility to read and research everything you can before you write one declarative sentence. People read and when they read, you have influence over how they think, feel, and act. You owe your readers to do the work.” — Margo Aaron, Writer & Creator

2. Find a mentor

“Get a mentor or find an editor that’s willing to show you their process. Having a good editor who didn’t just fix my pieces, but rather suggested changes and showed the reasoning behind it, made me a much better writer.” — Kaleigh Moore, Freelance Writer

3. Choose simple over smart

“No matter how intelligent you are, don’t try to sound smart. That shouldn’t be your goal. Write so everyone can understand what you’re saying. Write at the simplest level.” — Kristen Herhold, Content Developer and Marketer

4. Clients buy ownership

“You don’t own the words you give to the client. They might mangle the words you give them, but that’s their right. They’re paying you for the service and once you produce it, it’s theirs. Of course, if you believe in the words, fight. Take a stand. But at the end of the day, you don’t own them anymore. It’s a harsh reality, but coming to grips with it makes it easier to let your work go.” — Luke Trayser, Senior Copywriter

5. Embrace ambiguity

“Don’t force a tiny box to fit a bigger idea. It’s okay to describe an experience or tell a story without landing on one universal insight. Let the audience draw their own conclusions. Let them think for themselves.” — Carly Ho, Senior Engineer & Freelance Writer

6. Play around

“Learn to just have fun with language. Riff for a while without the intention of a presenting or fully developing anything. Great ideas are built on a lot of small, terrible ideas. If you’re having fun and playing around with what you’re writing, you can get creativity flowing more easily. Soon, you’ll see patterns develop around a concept that you can lean into and clean up.” — Bryant Harland, Senior Marketing Content Writer

7. Live a little

“Make friends and collect stories. Writing is lonely and tiresome. Get outside and see people, gather stories, and then go to the mines and excavate them.” — Callum Sharp, Freelance Writer

8. Just write

“Writer’s block is bullshit; it’s a story that we tell ourselves. Accountants don’t wait to account. It’s no different with writers. Don’t wait to get inspired. Just sit down and write. Most of the time it’s not good, but everybody’s first draft is a steaming pile of garbage. Creativity on demand is a muscle, and the more you build it, the easier it will come.” — Paul Jarvis, Designer, Author, and Creator

9. Show, don’t tell

“Quote don’t summarize. Show don’t tell. Describe what happened to you and the readers will feel what you felt. Transport the reader into your shoes. Put them in your motorcycle helmet, their hands on your bar. They will feel what you feel without you telling them.” — James Peterson, Former Senior Editor at Playboy

10. Write and repeat

“Practice. Over and over again. You develop a voice by just doing it. It’s like swinging a bat or shooting a freethrow. Experiment until you feel comfortable; that’s when you know you’ve found the right voice for you. Tune out people who say ‘you shouldn’t’ or ‘you can’t.’ With writing, you can do anything.” — James Gordon, Writer & Poet

11. Lose your ego

“We all have had ideas or have written something we thought was a winner, only to be told by others it simply doesn’t work. Stubbornly insisting ‘no it works’ doesn’t help—that’s just your pride getting in the way. Be willing to accept that you might have to scrap ideas you love, and do so without hesitancy. You literally have an infinite supply creation you can start instead.” — Jeff GoodSmith, Content Marketing Strategist

12. Put your audience first

“Many of us write because we have something to say. But if you want people to keep reading, the audience has to come first. I once heard someone say, ‘Never let what you want to say get in the way of what your audience wants to hear’. I think that’s advice worth bookmarking.” — Brent Trotter, Senior Strategist & Writer

Ready to step up your writing skills?

Throughout this project, I learned a lot. The biggest thing? Good writing isn’t math. It’s not formulaic.

Everyone I interviewed had different perspectives, processes, and rules on writing, with one thing in common: we are writers because we start writing.

Whether you’re a blogger pursuing, well.. blogging or creative writing attempting to become the next Hemingway, or even business and social media writing, like the work that I do every day, being a good writer comes down to one thing:

To be, you just need to do.

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Content

Occurrence of Plagiarism in Writing

Most of the people are unaware of the word plagiarism. Ever since the internet has become a part of our lives.

It has enabled all of us to use anything by searching on the search engines. No matter if the information you are seeking about is of a tool or a cricket player, you will be able to go through hundreds of articles or definitions of that.

So, this ease of acquiring any material is increasing the rate of plagiarism, and people create plagiarized material even unintentionally. In simple words, plagiarism means using someone else’s hard work as your own without giving the credits to the actual owner or source.

When people find the information, they have been looking for, they just copy/paste it without considering the consequences they may have to face due to plagiarism in their content. But you don’t have to worry about how to check for plagiarism

Ramifications of Plagiarism

Due to plagiarized content, you may face many consequences, and these all may create a long-term adverse impact for you. Plagiarism indirectly can also be named as cheating as you use a certain material as it is. Sometimes, you may not have copied the idea from anywhere, but even then there are possibilities that your work may have some plagiarism in it.

For those who want to publish their articles or books use free plagiarism checker, if their work faces the copyright issues or if there is plagiarism in their work, then this might be a career-destroying thing for them. As their reputation will fall dramatically and they might also have to pay a fine for copying any other writer’s material. Moreover, if the real owner of the content finds out about the copied material, you may get sue or can be taken to court.

Majority of the people are suffering from plagiarism,

Most of them are not aware of such a massive cost for just adding something they read online. Ascribed to increasing cases, technology has come up with solutions, and one of the best ways to deal with this situation is to use plagiarism checker.

Plagiarism Checker

Is a specially designed tool that will inform you about the plagiarised material in your content. The usage of the tool is unburdening as you are not forced to pay a single penny for utilizing the application (if you opt for a free one).

This easily operated tool requires a good internet connection. The purpose of plagiarism checker is to save you from the embarrassment. Before submitting documents anywhere, from plagiarism checker, you can double check once to find if your texts match with any other article available or not. The results are quickly shown in a matter of a few seconds.

It is a handy tool that will check your documents for any traces of plagiarism with over more than 10 billion records available on the internet. By running a plagiarism check, if you find plagiarism in your content, you can make changes and turn it into a unique one given that you know it’s plagiarized. The chances of embarrassment in front of every other person decrease efficaciously.

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Content

Plagiarism and the World Wide Web

Plagiarism is one of the most critical and common issues on the World Wide Web. The website owners and writers basically use an easy way to write. Content for their websites by copy/paste data from other similar sites. To check whether the data you have chosen for your website is original or not just copy/paste the content in the search engine. You will find the original source of the content.

Sometimes the entire content or substantial part of the material is plagiarized. Because the same has been used in other websites in original.

Plagiarism Checker

is indeed an important issue and serious crime That must be avoided in all situations. Different countries are now punishing people that are accused of plagiarism. These punishments include fine and even jail; it is a crime so everyone should avoid it at any cost. If the plagiarized content is found in the website content. Then the internet is also using different modes of penalizing that consist of fine to the websites, suspension. Even these websites can become blacklisted.

It is imperative that your website includes the unique and original text

Because it will directly affect the ranking of the page. Most of the sites on the search engine use the copy/paste technique instead of writing their own article. By doing this, website owners and writers think that they are not only saving their time but also saving their mind as it is hard to sit in front of a computer for hours to write a single article. But they don’t know that they are putting the reputation and goodwill of their company at high risk.

Because there are more chances that the search engines blacklist the website. Also, if the customers and readers of your site come to know that you are accused of using plagiarized content then surely, they will lose their faith in the company which they have proven over the years. What convinces the audience and customers towards your website is the originality of your text and freshness if they get to know that the content on your site is not original. It will definitely affect the credibility of the website but also the company’s goodwill.

So never,

ever try to copy text from any other website for using it for your own website. Even if you have hired an English professional writer for your site, always try to cross check the content’s uniqueness with Bukisweb Plagiarism Checker.

There are different plagiarism detectors available that will help you to find out whether the text you have used is plagiarized or not. They will let you know that even if a single sentence or word is copied from any other website, it will appear on the top while you are copying your content in any search engine.

By using plagiarism on your company’s website,

you are compromising on the name and goodwill of the company as it will definitely result in a decline in the number of customers to your site. Which will also decrease your sale and within no time your business reputation will collapse

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Content

Teachers & Students Can Discourage Plagiarism

Students usually have to complete various tasks in a short period; therefore, time management is significant for them. They often have a few hours to meet the deadline for submission of assignments, or random quizzes, etc. To overcome this problem, they mostly take a shortcut and steal the work or ideas of others.

This unethical activity can save them for that particular instance but affect them a lot in the long run. This immoral act seems like a fix, but it can affect one’s character and career.

The primary expectation of the educational work you do is to make choices that reflect academic integrity and a responsible attitude. Plagiarizing someone’s work and using it as your own will harm your good-will. Moreover, it may lead you to some severe consequences.

Teachers can play an important role in discouraging this unethical and spreading outbreak. They can strategize and develop assignments and tasks that require hands-on research from the students. Moreover, the use of some plagiarism checkers can be a fantastic increment in combatting plagiarism.

Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism is copying and using the work of others without their acknowledgment. In this era of technology, where everyone can access the internet easily, it has become easy to steal someone’s writing and paste it into your content. Plagiarism can occur intentionally or unintentionally. But, here are some ways that can be adopted to avoid plagiarism in your work.

  • Use Your Skills

For students, it is essential to write your thoughts in your own words. The internet can be a great help in getting information, so the use of technology for research purposes would be beneficial. A proper understanding of the topic is most crucial for writing exclusive content. Give yourself appropriate time to get all the relevant information required for writing about the subject. Consult your teachers if you have any ambiguity. Teachers can also play a vital role in this regard. They should encourage the students and guide them in their work.

  • Appropriate Acknowledgment

The internet is the most significant source of information, and we all use this platform for research. Sometimes, we may find a quotation that can be used in our work. Now, how can we use a quotation without committing plagiarism? Well, you can use a quote by giving proper citations to the author. Teachers should also build this habit in the students to provide an appropriate acknowledgment to the authors.

  • Use of Plagiarism Checker

Some online tools can be a great help in detecting plagiarism in your work. These tools are beneficial in writing unique content. While searching for some topic over the internet or reading a book, some words or sentences get stuck in our mind so bad that we use them unintentionally in our writing, which can cause piracy in your content. To avoid this issue, scanning your content through a plagiarism checker can be a significant approach.

There are many duplication checkers available online that can be used for the detection of piracy in your writing. An efficient plagiarism checker can detect minor duplication in your content and provides you with the source of that information. Teachers can also use this online tool to check student’s work or papers and find any duplication in their writing within a second.

Conclusion

Plagiarism is a curse that can ruin your credibility and destroy your career. Therefore, you should always give yourself a chance and use your skills to write unique content. The use of some online tools can also save you from plagiarism and assist you in writing exclusive content

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Content

Any Type of Plagiarism is Unacceptable

The rise of plagiarism in this age of the internet has become a huge nuisance for people working in different professions. But, thanks to technology, the detection of plagiarism has become much easier with plagiarism detector software, which can unveil the plagiarized material from any sort of text. Several cases of plagiarism have been discovered, and they range from complete plagiarism to accidental or unintentional plagiarism. However, plagiarism isn’t acceptable, no matter what the type.

If you are a student or a writer, then it’s essential for you to know about different types of plagiarism. It’s because if you don’t know your mistake, how can you avoid it? So, let’s discuss the types of plagiarism.

 

Types of Plagiarism

  1. Near-complete Plagiarism

Amongst numerous sorts of plagiarism, there is near-complete plagiarism, in which a person may lift bits of another content and utilize them in his or her own work. For instance, a student may include his or her own particular decisions or prologue to a paper or may disperse his or her own remarks through a content taken considerably from another source.

These practices are unacceptable. Indeed, even with some attribution, the main part of the work has been finished by another. Despite the fact that some of the work is sprung from your own considerations and thoughts, it is still plagiarized and intolerable.

  1. Patchwork Plagiarism

In numerous cases, a learner will lift thoughts, expressions, sentences, and passages from a mixed bag of sources and “join” them together into an article. These circumstances appear to be hard to identify. However, it’s not hard to draw a line in the middle of plagiarized and unique work.

  1. Lazy Plagiarism

This type of plagiarism usually occurs in students’ assignments and papers. When a student fails to properly quote the original author’s words in his/her writing, it’s regarded as lazy plagiarism. Students often have no idea about direct quoting and referencing, which leads to plagiarized material that affects their grades and reputation in the eyes of instructors.

  1. Auto Plagiarism

If you are working as a content writer, then you would agree with the fact that you have to write on a single topic many times. Each time you are assigned to write on a particular subject, you have to come up with original work, no matter how many times you have written the same thing previously.

Using the words from your old posts in the new content is regarded as self or auto plagiarism, and it’s also unforgivable. You can create a linkage between your posts, but using the same words is considered wrong.

  1. Accidental Plagiarism

The good writers are also good readers. The hobby of reading fixes several ideas and words in our minds. And, while we are in the flow of writing, we often end up using phrases, sentences, or examples that belong to someone else. In this case, there are no intentions of plagiarizing, but it should be detected and removed before publishing the content.

The Bottom Line

These are the main types of plagiarism, and each one of them can result in destroying your career as a student or writer. Intentional or unintentional, you will not be forgiven for plagiarism if it has been detected from your work.

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Content

The Impact of Social Media on Plagiarism

How readymade information is causing pessimistic effect
Having access to the internet and social media is the simplest thing these days. Detail regarding anything of the whole world whether it’s about an animal or it is related to politics is available from the social media or the internet.

The significant effect of social media is that it has increased the plagiarism rate in this globalized world. It has made it easier to duplicate the same information that is received by the person, and this is what actually plagiarism means. Most of the people who copy the material have no idea while copying that they are committing a crime and they can get punished for what they are doing. The students especially search for the already available assignments and copy paste them as it is. Social media is most famous among the youth. There are some content writers that copy whatever they see without thinking if they are doing right or wrong, these actions of people are increasing the plagiarism which is reducing the creative or unique content.

Situations that can be faced by having plagiarism in the material

Some strict measures are taken if the plagiarized material is found out in particular content. The students who copy the assignments have to pay some fines and can get a suspension from the school. The institute can even take the student to court, and this might ruin the whole future career of that specific child. Moreover, the content writers who have plagiarism in their articles are bound to rewrite, and their work can get rejected. They can also be dismissed from their jobs which again will not only affect the source of their income, but the career of these people related to writing will be destroyed as well. So to stay away from these situations and send a 100% unique article, tools like plagiarism checker are introduced which does not let social media have a negative impact.

Use of Plagiarism Checker to overcome copyright content

A plagiarism detector is a tool designed to figure out which part of the inserted content is plagiarised and which is unique. The application allows users to see the percentage of both of these parts and highlights the areas of copied elements with different colors. You can change the wordings of those parts and can end up with a unique content which you can own proudly. More than 10 billion contents are inserted in the tool which tells that the results provided by the application are accurate and authentic. With just by one single click, the results are shown to the users.
Conclusion

Despite the fact that social media

is negatively impacting our lives when it comes to plagiarism. We are fortunate enough to have means that enable us to identify the plagiarized content and take mandatory actions against it. Plagiarism detector can be used to spread awareness regarding plagiarism and overcome this serious social problem faced by all societies today.

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Content

Poor Content Is Worst Enemy 3 Ways to Defeat It

Poor Content Is Your Worst Enemy! 3 Ways to Defeat It

Content on a website can be in any form, textual, visual, or aural. Mostly textual is the one that people focus on because it holds a vital significance. The reason is, textual material covers approximately seventy percent of the circle of SEO.

If the content you are posting contains duplication, is misleading, irrelevant or includes grammatical errors, then there is no way it will stand out. There is too much to care about when you are publishing textual material.

[Article Rewriter a great Help]

On top of all the articles,

You are uploading need to be unique, authentic, and precise, which sometimes is not the case. Writers use several ways to describe one topic, and the one that is easy to interpret and explains the meaning adequately makes it to the SERP. Some writers utilize several methods to avoid mistakes and duplication.

[Plagiarism checker as a help]

As mentioned above the textual material is the most critical ranking factor; the links cover a substantial part as well.

Pictures, user experience, the loading speed of the pages, all of these aspects work together.

In my opinion, writers who utilize different tools for being prolific is a good thing. They can alert you, guide you, fix for you, which is why it is easy for anyone now to write for their websites.

These tools can also recognize poor syntax or excessively complex sentences. Focus on the three primary factors given below to notice a change in traffic.

1-    User Perspective Matters

What’s the first thing that can make a user leave your website after spending a minute or two? It is the intent of the user. If a person doesn’t find the correct answer to their query, it is inevitable that the visitor will leave the site and look for others in SERP.

The search engine results page includes sites that can satisfy user intent. The website is removed after a passage of time if it practices techniques to manipulate search engines. It takes a while for search engines to find out about your methods, but they do get there sooner or later.

An incredibly common problem that is arising in most of the business websites these days. It is that that they don’t work on the services pages properly, therefore, don’t attract a lot of visitors. A website selling products need to describe them precisely what they are. Otherwise, your website will earn a bad reputation, and you definitely don’t want that. Professionals add their personal opinion along with experience to spread accurate knowledge.

2-    Mining Trustworthiness For a Website

Running a business online is a challenging job as there are already several other people in the same field. To compete with their quality and gain the trust of people visiting your website is not a difficult job, but it takes time and patience.

A business website necessitates a support page, where people can reach out comment, or discuss their problem. If your support is not providing information that is valid and is just focusing on selling products. Then it won’t take long because people will start abandoning and stop referring it.

The language of customers is important, on your FAQs page, present to the point answers. The content here must involve solutions to all the questions a user can ask.

Providing services and pages that contain “How to” will require illustrations as well. If you can provide screenshots along with explanations, it will be a plus. So, it is essential to write quality content because it is not optional. You will be outranked by all the newly instated websites. So, make sure you invest enough time and money to provide a better experience to users.

3-    Add More to Short Versions

Websites that contain a short version of articles that are already discussed on the internet will not stand out. The reason is simple; people are searching for a comprehensive description.

Where they can find more information and add it to their knowledge. Your content must contain tiny details in order to provide the insight that a person is missing.

A computer industry that writes hundreds of words talking about capacitors and CPUs is going to slip the vast number of people.

Blue screen and the computer restart upon login, or computer turns on and off, but there is no display, or hard drive making noise. There are several topics that you can cover, but it is essential to add pictures to avoid any misunderstanding.

Your content needs to be described in a precise manner. Also, it requires a lot of time to write quality articles if you are not a professional.

The ranking of your website can be improved if you make an addition of materials that contain the terms people are looking for or answers to. In the end, it is all about advertisements for publicity, and the beginning always takes place in social media

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Content Writing

Best Edits: A Quick Guide to Giving Actionable Writing Feedback

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Content

How To Develop Website Content Strategy

A digital marketing plan is incomplete without incorporating content in it. It shares a common podium with interface design, user experience, SEO, web marketing, content development, and public relations. It basically focuses on the creation, planning, governance, and delivery of content, which not only comprises the words on the web pages but also the usage of multimedia and images. It will help in enhancing the user experience of your website.

Keys To Consider Before Developing The Content Strategy

  • A complete knowledge of the website
  • Content should be written for the audience to ease their web experience
  • It should be plagiarism free and unique
  • Channel awareness is essential
  • Effective management of publication and creation

– Ads – If you need content writing for your blog or offline, Contact Us or Visit  Bukisweb Writing

What Is The Need Of Content In A Website?

  • Generate New Leads: Content Marketing helps your business in planning and preparing the reliable and cost-friendly references of the website traffic, which result in generating leads for your venture.
  • Enhance Brand Awareness: The staunch source of leads and traffic from your unique content will offer you a dynamic flexibility to experiment with marketing strategies to fetch more revenue in the form of distributed content, sponsored content, and social media advertising. It will help you to attract your targeted audience and increase the brand awareness.

Guide To Develop A Unique Content Marketing Strategy

  • Set Your Goal: You should have a brief idea about creating a content marketing plan, to never miss out at any point. It will help you to determine the best marketing strategy for your business.
  • Know Your Targeted Audience: It is commendable for you to have deep knowledge about your targeted audience, as it will help you to develop more valuable and relevant content. Therefore, you should keep researching about the mood and demands of the users.
  • Maintain A Content Management System: It is essential for you to maintain a congruous system for managing your content, as it will help you to govern all your content in just one place. CoSchedule and HubSpot are some options that offer you this facility.
  • Generate Innovative Ideas: It is another step to build an evergreen content marketing plan. Writing something with unique and brainstorming ideas helps you to grab the attention of Google. You can utilize content building tools for developing new ideas such as Website Grader, Blog Topic Generator, BuzzSumo, and many more.
  • Determine The Format Of Content: It is essential to define the format for which you have to write content, such as Blog posts, eBook, Infographics, Videos, Templates, and Podcasts.

If you are new to this marketing platform, then you can take the help of the experts of a relevant digital company. They will guide you through your every step of success.

Bukisweb Solution – a Website Designing Company In Nigeria well-known in the niche for web designing, development, and SMO/ SEO Services. We put our 100% to create a website and promote it on the very first page of the Google.

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Content Writing

5 Questions to Assess the Status of Your Messaging Strategy

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We work on a lot of web projects. 

When we kick one off, we dig in and ask questions to get a better understanding of the business—specific questions about target audiences, value propositions, and brand differentiators.

The discussion is designed to reveal if there is more work to be done in the way of aligning how to talk about the thing we’re selling.

Whether we’re hired to write copy or not, it’s important to determine and document how you want to present your brand/business to the world with regard to messaging.

It’s often referred to as your Messaging Strategy.

Whether you don’t have one at all, you think yours needs refining, or you aren’t sure what they should include, this article should help you along the way.

How We Define Messaging Strategy

A messaging strategy considers two primary elements of communication: what you say and how you say it. It’s designed to help you establish a clear, cohesive, and compelling way of talking to your audience about your brand, product, or service.

Without one, you risk pushing unclear, fragmented communications that can make it harder to achieve your business objectives. It’s harder for design teams to design, sales teams to sell, and marketers (you) to market.

These are three key ways a thoughtful, well-developed messaging strategy can benefit your brand or business.

A Quick Case for Developing a Messaging Strategy

Clarify your target audience and associated messages

No matter the medium, the audience is central to your approach. 

The process of developing a messaging strategy requires you to think about your audience with empathy. It hones in on the pains and frustrations they might be having and explores how your solutions directly address them. A clear target helps you narrow the focus of your communications, too.

Create more cohesive communications across the board

Marketing messages don’t just live on your website. They’re often distributed across print materials, via sales channels, and through word-of-mouth between customers, referrals, and strangers new to your brand.

Messaging strategies streamline the number of messages and elevate the strongest ones. They reinforce your core benefits by adding consistency and serve as a guide for any team member who writes or talks about your brand to potential prospects.

Better position your brand with effective communications

Smart marketers are concerned with how their brand is positioned relative to the competition.

A messaging strategy helps iron out your strongest brand positions and how they distinguish you from your closest competitors.

Sales teams are armed with more effective language, marketing teams can better target specific groups, and service can align on how they’re responding to customers in real time.

A thoughtful messaging strategy helps you understand your customers, better position your product/solution, and align your teams with clear, cohesive, compelling messages.

So how do you know if you might need one? 

5 Questions to Gauge If You Might Need a Messaging Strategy

1) Can you clearly describe and segment your target audience(s) and your current ones?

A targeted messaging strategy requires targeted audiences. It answers the question, “who are you trying to reach and how you could segment them?”

On the surface, everyone has at least two audiences: targeted, hypothetical users and current, actual ones. 

Your targeted users are the segments of audiences you want to engage with. For example, an association might have 3 segments: members, partner organizations, and individual donors.

Additionally, there are actual users that are already visiting your site. They’re often segmented by factors like demographic information and/or interests. Understanding these users is derived from taking a peek at your analytics.

google analytics dashboard displaying age and gender demographics

There’s undoubtedly overlap in these groups, but they both inform your messaging strategy in different ways. The when, where, and how you talk about these your message matters, too.

Sticking with the association example, the things you might want to communicate to members might be different from that of donors. Members might care more about networking opportunities, while donors prioritize where resources are allocated.

In addition, analytics can inform your approach. For example, if a majority of your audience views your site on a mobile device, brevity might play a key role in getting them to engage.

2) Can you rank and prioritize audience groups as they pertain to your business goals?

You’ve heard the old adage: “if you’re trying to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one.”

While true, it’s not entirely helpful. Organizations are complex and often do have to speak to a wide range of audiences. 

However, being able to rank your audiences in order of priority as they relate to your business objectives helps you craft more specific, compelling points where they matter.

This prevents you from stuffing all your messages onto the homepage and drowning out the big takeaway you want to leave users with.

If you’re a membership organization, and your top business priority is to recruit and retain members, then they become your highest ranking audience.

On the other hand, if your membership numbers are stable, business is driven by word-of-mouth, and you’re currently focused on earning new corporate partnerships, your messaging might be different.

3) What are the primary pains and problems each of your user groups face?

A comprehensive messaging strategy seeks to document the frustrations your users face.

Ultimately, messaging is designed to influence behavior. The goal is to write in a way that works to help you achieve your marketing objectives.

Copywriting that appeals to the emotions, frustrations, or aspirations of your audience tends to be more effective.

Identifying and documenting the real challenges your product/services seeks to address helps write more pointed, effective communications.

4) How do you connect your product/brand benefits with your users’ pains and frustrations?

I like to think of benefits in two buckets: product/service benefits and brand benefits.

Let’s use Netflix as an example.

netflix originals landing page with a sample of shows

Product/service benefits address specific user pains or frustrations. 

Users hate having their viewing experience interrupted with commercials. Netflix offers commercial-free viewing to alleviate that pain.

Brand benefits on the other hand are real or perceived values or a point of difference users get from using your product.

As the streaming wars heat up, more original and exclusive content is more attractive to viewers. While Amazon has the largest volume of content, Netflix has claimed to have the most original programming.

Mapping the real benefits to the pain or problems your product/service addresses is key to creating more persuasive messaging to move users.

Here’s an example in practice. 

fathom analytics homepage

Fathom Analytics believes that other free analytics platforms are collecting too much personal data, much of it is distracting or not useful, and typical reporting dashboards are too complex.

Headline: Fathom, simple analytics for bloggers & businesses

Body: Stop scrolling through pages of reports and collecting gobs of personal data about your visitors, both of which you probably don’t need. Fathom is a simple and private website analytics platform that lets you focus on what’s important: your business.

It’s a pretty simple, yet compelling sell if you fall into the target audience.

5) What are the top 3 messages you want to communicate?

This question gets at the elevator pitch you’re making to your audience.

A refined messaging strategy helps you quickly summarize the what, how, and why of your pitch to your key audience groups.

The goal is to make your message tight, clear, and consistent.

Know Your Team does a great job explaining the what, how, and why of their offering in the first impression of their site.

know your team homepage

Headline: Leadership doesn’t have to be so hard

Body: Know Your Team is software that helps managers become better leaders. Use our tool to hold effective one-on-one meetings, get honest feedback, share progress, and build team rapport.

Let’s break that down.

What: software for managers

How: tools to hold effective meetings, get feedback, and share progress and build rapport

Why: because leadership is hard but it doesn’t have to be

These key questions are designed to help you refine “what” you say. They should help you identify gaps in your current messaging strategy—if you have one—and encourage you to consider developing one if you don’t.

Your brand voice—another key component of your messaging strategy—gets at “how” you say what you say: an equally important component to crafting a messaging strategy that best represents your business, attracts, and converts new customers.

In Conclusion

Doing the work to develop a strong, refined messaging strategy is an essential part of a successful marketing plan.

It helps you better understand your users, brings clarity to your audiences and internal teams, and reinforces the value proposition of your brand/business to prospective customers and partners.

If you’re finding it hard to answer some or any of these questions, chances are you have some work to do. And that’s okay.

The right partner can guide you through the process of developing a messaging strategy and establishing a clear, cohesive, and compelling way of speaking to your audience about your brand.

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