In my editing life I meet quality control reviewers, non-profit administration, analysts, business owners, PhD candidates… all writers, willy-nilly.
They make life-and-death decisions about entire organizations, determine the significance of scientific findings, catch the eyes of customers, promise value for grant money, and more. And just about all of it has to be recorded in black and white for posterity.
It’s the “posterity” part that tends to get writers of all kinds stuck. You understand that impressions matter in...
After reading Davina Brewer’s article about the puzzle of engaging lurkers, I decided to read up on lurker behavior. I was interested in how to reach out to people you can generally only see as a number, browser type, and national flag in your Analytics screen. I wanted to know what kind of people lurkers are and why. I wanted to know whether we should communicate with lurkers differently than with those who engage with us, and how. Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to know whether we should even be trying to convert lurkers into...
Please welcome Jacqui MacKenzie of marketing agency Straight North, who I met via a circuitous route beginning with Twitter colleague Brad Shorr, also of Straight North. Find out how to keep people’s attention for longer than I can… Hey, where are you going?
The Internet has really done a number on people’s attention spans. For writers who create content for the Internet, it’s conventional wisdom to keep the piece short and sweet – especially when it comes to blogging. A typical blog post usually weighs in around 500 words or...
Let me let you in on something: This blog isn’t talking to you. At least, not when I take that tone–the one that tells you things you already know using my trademark insouciant sarcasm. You know the one. The one that opines about whether you should do this, that, or never, ever the other thing. You’re a grown-up; you know what you’re doing, and I’ve no illusions you need me to tell you.
I’m talking to them. Those other people–over there–who can never seem to get it right. I’ve seen the...
You’re not lost; it’s the same place, alright! I’m proud to bring you the visual aspect of the Deliberate Ink brand I’ve been doing my best to convey in words all this time.
Thank you so much to Sameer Abdul-Khaliq at Strictly Sunnah Designs. He and his coding team are probably thinking, “The next time you need us to ‘help’ you change over your theme and just ‘create a new front page real quick,’ demand totally inconsequential wording changes over and over again in the menu we painstakingly...
This is the third and last part of the “Attitude Cycle” series. Together, these three posts provide a unique way to look at creating a sales letter: tinted through the attitude lense of your prospect as they follow your sales letter to the bottom of the page, I provided some pointers for how to address the Selfish Reader–by making her curious–and the Curious Reader–by turning curiosity/skepticism into hope. I heard hope floats, so let’s give it a sale (Oh, yes. I did)…
Your reader has come a long way,...
Last week, we pulled a selfish reader into our sales letter by transforming her self-interest into curiosity–thus continuing the attitude cycle of your sales prospect. Now that she’s curious, you’d think it would be best to assuage her curiosity, right? Now that she’s peeking around the corner, maybe you should put it to rest. No sense wasting her time–let her make a decision right now. Right?
Wrong. If you list every feature and benefit point-blank, her eyes will glaze over because like you and everyone else on...
Anyone who begins reading your sales offer immediately begins something I’d like to call an “attitude cycle.” Your job is to address every one of these attitudes to keep that person reading until it’s time to make your offer. If you do it right, it will be much easier to close the sale. In the next few posts, let’s take a look at each of these attitudes, starting at the beginning with:
Selfish
You’ve sent your offer to someone who–based on your duly diligent research, right?–is a prime...
I’ve said before that I believe the number one quality of every successful blogger is patience. But it’s hard, being patient. People equate patience with waiting, but that’s not what it is, not in blogging, anyway. And the difference is one that determines its success or failure.
It doesn’t matter how unique, how extreme, how eclectic, how well branded you are offline, how passionate–it takes time to traverse each level of the blogosphere to whatever spot you seek in your reader’s hearts and heads....
Everybody knows what a zebra is. We’ve known since… Well, we’ve just always known.
But not really.
A zebra is a totally abstract concept to most Westerners: it’s a striped horse that lions eat. That’s the extent of our knowledge. But the triumph this knowledge brings–when we learn it at 2 or 3 years of age as part of the alphabet–knows no bounds. We don’t question why we should know this (like we did trigonometry), and we honestly can’t think of much else that starts with “Z”...
Do You Just Happen To Write Items That Matter?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Apr 2, 2012 in Announcements, Marketing & Business, Social Media, Twitter | 2 comments
In my editing life I meet quality control reviewers, non-profit administration, analysts, business owners, PhD candidates… all writers, willy-nilly. They make life-and-death decisions about entire organizations, determine the significance of scientific findings, catch the eyes of customers, promise value for grant money, and more. And just about all of it has to be recorded in black and white for posterity. It’s the “posterity” part that tends to get writers of all kinds stuck. You understand that impressions matter in...
read moreWhat Should You Do With Your Lurkers?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 28, 2012 in Marketing & Business, Social Media | 13 comments
After reading Davina Brewer’s article about the puzzle of engaging lurkers, I decided to read up on lurker behavior. I was interested in how to reach out to people you can generally only see as a number, browser type, and national flag in your Analytics screen. I wanted to know what kind of people lurkers are and why. I wanted to know whether we should communicate with lurkers differently than with those who engage with us, and how. Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to know whether we should even be trying to convert lurkers into...
read moreHow To Get People To Read A 1000-Word Blog Post
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 23, 2012 in Blogging, Social Media | 13 comments
Please welcome Jacqui MacKenzie of marketing agency Straight North, who I met via a circuitous route beginning with Twitter colleague Brad Shorr, also of Straight North. Find out how to keep people’s attention for longer than I can… Hey, where are you going? The Internet has really done a number on people’s attention spans. For writers who create content for the Internet, it’s conventional wisdom to keep the piece short and sweet – especially when it comes to blogging. A typical blog post usually weighs in around 500 words or...
read moreWhat Do You Do With An Uncomfortable Shoe?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 21, 2012 in Blogging, Social Media | 5 comments
Let me let you in on something: This blog isn’t talking to you. At least, not when I take that tone–the one that tells you things you already know using my trademark insouciant sarcasm. You know the one. The one that opines about whether you should do this, that, or never, ever the other thing. You’re a grown-up; you know what you’re doing, and I’ve no illusions you need me to tell you. I’m talking to them. Those other people–over there–who can never seem to get it right. I’ve seen the...
read moreWhose Blog Is This, Anyway?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 19, 2012 in Announcements | 9 comments
You’re not lost; it’s the same place, alright! I’m proud to bring you the visual aspect of the Deliberate Ink brand I’ve been doing my best to convey in words all this time. Thank you so much to Sameer Abdul-Khaliq at Strictly Sunnah Designs. He and his coding team are probably thinking, “The next time you need us to ‘help’ you change over your theme and just ‘create a new front page real quick,’ demand totally inconsequential wording changes over and over again in the menu we painstakingly...
read moreThe Attitude Cycle Of Your Sales Prospect Part 3: The Hopeful Reader
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 7, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 2 comments
This is the third and last part of the “Attitude Cycle” series. Together, these three posts provide a unique way to look at creating a sales letter: tinted through the attitude lense of your prospect as they follow your sales letter to the bottom of the page, I provided some pointers for how to address the Selfish Reader–by making her curious–and the Curious Reader–by turning curiosity/skepticism into hope. I heard hope floats, so let’s give it a sale (Oh, yes. I did)… Your reader has come a long way,...
read moreThe Attitude Cycle Of Your Sales Prospect Part 2: The Curious Reader
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Feb 24, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 2 comments
Last week, we pulled a selfish reader into our sales letter by transforming her self-interest into curiosity–thus continuing the attitude cycle of your sales prospect. Now that she’s curious, you’d think it would be best to assuage her curiosity, right? Now that she’s peeking around the corner, maybe you should put it to rest. No sense wasting her time–let her make a decision right now. Right? Wrong. If you list every feature and benefit point-blank, her eyes will glaze over because like you and everyone else on...
read moreThe Attitude Cycle Of Your Sales Prospect Part 1: The Selfish Reader
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Feb 15, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 5 comments
Anyone who begins reading your sales offer immediately begins something I’d like to call an “attitude cycle.” Your job is to address every one of these attitudes to keep that person reading until it’s time to make your offer. If you do it right, it will be much easier to close the sale. In the next few posts, let’s take a look at each of these attitudes, starting at the beginning with: Selfish You’ve sent your offer to someone who–based on your duly diligent research, right?–is a prime...
read moreWaiting While Blogging
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Feb 14, 2012 in Blogging, Social Media | 10 comments
I’ve said before that I believe the number one quality of every successful blogger is patience. But it’s hard, being patient. People equate patience with waiting, but that’s not what it is, not in blogging, anyway. And the difference is one that determines its success or failure. It doesn’t matter how unique, how extreme, how eclectic, how well branded you are offline, how passionate–it takes time to traverse each level of the blogosphere to whatever spot you seek in your reader’s hearts and heads....
read moreWhy Is “Z” Always For Zebra?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Feb 13, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 11 comments
Everybody knows what a zebra is. We’ve known since… Well, we’ve just always known. But not really. A zebra is a totally abstract concept to most Westerners: it’s a striped horse that lions eat. That’s the extent of our knowledge. But the triumph this knowledge brings–when we learn it at 2 or 3 years of age as part of the alphabet–knows no bounds. We don’t question why we should know this (like we did trigonometry), and we honestly can’t think of much else that starts with “Z”...
read more