Exciting, Sexy, Alluring, Enticing [OBSRV] Stories get readers...

Playboy's first issue featured Marilyn Monroe "nude" and plenty of stories... some read them!

In the Content Creation business you sell stories and photos to business people. If you are skilled and proven in a small niche, business people will believe you can do the job. You are hired. Examples or references do not help much. Most people have not experienced writing that sells (exciting, alluring, sexy). Exciting people with a story is not only elusive, it does not work for everyone. A business person who reads your blog or a page on a competing site will not get it as an excited customer gets it. If your story is informative, most people who read will not understand all your key points. If the topic is complex or abstract you need to write in more detail or give more examples. This situation frustrates creative writers and photographers. Yet, when a story (or a picture, video) "works" it's magic. Essentially, a clearly written instruction page can stop the help lines from ringing. A sexy or exciting story or demo of a mobile app can go viral and suddenly you have a product that's selling. As if suddenly people noticed you were beautiful and until now you were "just skinny" or had "nice lines". Why stories excite, allure, entice and actually make us feel sexy is a question asked as long as man has been telling them. There are many theories and techniques used to tell stories which are used in the media and advertising industries. Some products actually depend on good Content Marketing. Traditionally these were not called Content Marketing, they were copywriters in advertising and script writers in media. In Hollywood and on Madison Avenue (the advertising center in New York) there are standard well developed techniques to develop "stories that sell". Yet Harry Potter and Red Storm Rising only comes once in a few decades and even Danielle Steel and Stephen King don't know how exactly it was done (they did not write these books, others did). If they did, they would do it themselves and beat the others. But nobody has been able to come up with a sure formula for great writing.

Yet in today's reality of a fast expanding internet, most writers, photographers and video producers, are not viewed as "magic makers". They are not encouraged or supported as fiction writers, musicians or movie producers. For some industry professionals, content writers are a notch below UX/UI and graphic designers (page / style sheet designers). Does this indicate how the internet business managers and technologists have not matured yet? Do they even get what stories can do? Sometimes we learn most by looking at other industries. This is what we can do in the technology business, not only look but understand and adopt their techniques and make them work for us. Notice how book publishers respect and manage carefully their writers. They hire editors, but also carefully plan and integrate content into all aspects of a project (marketing, design, syndication). In Hollywood, marketing a movie is crucial to the project's success. Especially if the story is good and the production is well executed. 

Some Progress:

For now, methods and investment in creative, talented writers and artists is still in the future. Maybe some maturity and successful internet projects with higher content creation investment will push the sector to appreciate content creation.  In the technology industry some methods from the advertising world are slowly making their way. Writing advertising copy, designing graphics and publicizing (essentially publishing and marketing), is an area which is getting serious attention. This trend is pushed by the adoption of advertising, especially Google AdWords/AdSense phenomena. I call it a phenomena because advertising in the digital domain is starting to look very much like in the traditional advertising world. Ad agencies have been hit hard by the digital shift. They were the first to notice how the digital world can benefit from their experience in creative writing and innovative graphic design. To the technology managers, experienced copywriters and graphic artists are a wonderful addition. Technologists know the value of content once a product is done. Essentially all our consumption IS content. Technology simply makes it easy to create, format and promote the content. Until now, creating the "framework" (i.e. Facebook site, Google search algorithms) was the hard step. Today, technologists are getting better at creating the framework and this gives content creators more opportunity to improve their status.

Why Content Marketing? What's Wrong with Advertising?

When you start out with advertising and then depend on it for branding and promotion, you will need to advertise consistently. The same goes for content, fresh writing and photos are always better than old ones. Yet if you have written a good series of articles, they can be used over and over again. Good content not only stays with a product (or even with a company), it is sometimes your most distinguishing factor in a product's image. Advertising is seen as a short range consumable product. Once used, it is discarded. Also, content is the key to getting good SEO results. After all, content, either stories or facts, in targeted writing or general writing, is what people are looking to read. There is a balance to keep when writing content specifically for marketing purposes. If the writing hypes a product too much, it is not believable. Most experienced buyers simply will not trust you. There goes your business at a sound of a back click. If you do not give enough information or show enough value, you are not closing the "indecision gap" and the buyer goes to the next product. There are many techniques to use when writing marketing content. More on tips and experience from top marketing writers in future posts. Take Away: Make your stories exciting, sexy, alluring, when they need to sell. But not always...