by David Lim
Many Internet marketers write simply for the sake of generating content. While this might result in some traffic to their sites, it does little to business prospects, improve the world or move their audience to take action.
So, how can you improve your writing so that it significantly impacts your readers to take action? Professional writers always have one main goal in mind in everything they write - to transform their audience. Great writers strive to help their audience see through different eyes, act differently, change the way they interact with the world.
For your writing to have an impact, you must learn to write for transformation. It's the difference between being merely informative, and being compelling and persuasive. There are three simple steps to transformational writing:
1. Specific Audience
If you want to reach your audience, it’s absolutely crucial that you understand them, get out of your own perspective, and write to their perspective. One of the first things I do with every piece I write is to identify my target audience, things such as age, gender, race, location, income level, purchasing habits, hobbies, talents, interests, etc.
When I know who I’m talking to, I’m prepared to custom tailor the message to resonate with them specifically. For example, words such as “revolutionary”, “cutting-edge”, “fresh” or “in vogue” will more likely resonate with an 18-25 age group, whereas a 60-70 age group will probably have negative reactions to them, who prefer things that are “proven”, “safe” and “sensible”.
2. The Right Medium
The medium is the means that you use to convey your message. The medium can be your blog, an article directory, your website, ezines, offline magazines, newspapers, journals, books, radio and TV. The medium you choose is, in large part, determined by your audience.
For example, if I’m writing a lengthy article on monetary policy intended for scholars and economists, the best medium is probably a scholarly journal. Few people can stand to read long blocks of meaningful text on a computer screen and I probably won’t have enough space to make my case in most magazines. On the other hand, if my content is concise, simple, and intended for a broad audience, perhaps a newspaper article makes sense.
All of us are exposed to written communications that we skim or ignore, yet if that same message is presented in a medium more palatable to us, we’re much more likely to spend time reading it. Writing for transformation requires utilizing the best medium for our subject matter and audience.
3. The Right Transformation
There are three types of transformation: know, feel and do. A “know” transformation seeks to give the readers new information, or old information arranged in a different way, to help them to learn and know things they didn’t know before, in such a way that changes their life and perspective. A “feel” transformation obviously seeks to evoke strong emotion in the audience, while a “do” transformation is designed to get an audience to take very specific, immediate, and tangible action.
Professional writers focus on one transformation for each article and nail it, because doing so affects the others. How do you want people’s lives to change because they read your message? What do you want to see occur in them? Do you primarily want them to know, feel, or do something? Pick just one and execute it well, and the other 2 transformations will take care of themselves.
If you want your message to actually have impact, you must learn to write for transformation. Know who you’re writing for, use the right medium to reach them, and choose the right transformation and execute it well. After all, transformational articles are the only articles worth reading.
David Lim is the webmaster of http://QuittingYourJob.com, a business resource for the entrepreneur looking to start, or grow an online home-based business.
This article may be reprinted freely, provided no changes are made, and provided the resource box above follows the article.