Oscar Waterworth 18 April 2017

Categories Advertising, B2B, Content

The W.E.I.R.D. Writing Technique

Read about the writing technique I stumbled upon while thinking about content marketing. I hope it can help!

If you are anything like me, you have seen a ton of written content and are probably sick and tired of all the same old, boring and uninformative articles that appear just about anywhere. You can easily find yourself on a business blog when a post about doing yoga in the morning just pops up out of nowhere.

There is nothing wrong with doing yoga in the morning, but that post just does not belong on a business-related website. Doing yoga has nothing to do with doing business.

Not to say that doing business is a piece of cake. 

Doing business actually has a lot of negative influence on written content. Articles and other types of online content have become generic because of the need for their speedy production. But good writers need time to produce high-quality content and we all know what time is.

Money. It’s money.

This means that we are actually wasting time by providing the users with unsatisfactory content from which they will bounce off like crazy.

 

This is why everyone needs good quality content. Businesses need it to attract and retain customers and the people browsing the web need it for its useful information. And that is what this article is all about.

It is about creating content for the users, but with a W.E.I.R.D. twist.

W - Wow

So much wow.

That is really what some users want.

Probably not all of them, but most of them. Creating content that is awesome, epic, and hilarious depends solely on how you approach the problem. If you are connected to the extreme sports industry in any way, you would imagine that this effect is much easier to produce.

Creating content in a niche that is uninteresting does not mean that your article cannot wow the reader. You just have to provide them with a solution to their problem. That means that you have to pay attention to the context your content will appear in online.

Remember, the users are on a constant search for answers.

When they finally get an answer in the form of an article that is well-written and placed in the right context, they will automatically start engaging with it.

E - Engage

The users will interact with a piece of written content solely based on the title, a quick summary or an intro. Unfortunately, that does not mean that your work is over. When it comes to creating informative articles, it is extremely important to do extensive amounts of research prior to writing. This will make it easier to create written content and represents only one method that you can apply. Find as much information as possible about the topic you are writing about and present it within a relevant context.

I - Interest

Great content marketing converts, but you will not see an increase in revenue if your readers are not interested in your content. You must spark their interest enough to get them further through the text, right to the place where you had probably placed your CTA (or at least you should have). Think about the searcher's intent. It does not matter if your content gets in front of the user if it does not help them in any way.

The users will not be interested in your brand if you do not help them.



Based on various keyword research tools, link building tools, and overall market research, you can easily determine the type of content the users are searching for in terms of topics and fields of interest. When you provide them with an article that helps resolve their problems and at the same time is well-researched, informative, witty, original, and funny, you will not even have to ask for a subscription.

The users will keep coming back for more.

R - Rationalize

Of course, your arguments always have to be on point. While it is important to make your readers feel like they have come to the right place, it is extremely difficult to strike the right balance between making your content witty and making it informational.

So the question is, should we entertain our readers or inform them?

The best case scenario is striking a perfect balance between the two. Personally, I would always opt for being more informational at the cost of being entertaining. The reason for this is that rationalization leads to understanding and possibly conversion while selling through entertainment might create unsatisfied customers. The reason why a customer leaves might be connected to misinformation in your content. To attain customers with the highest levels of satisfaction, always be thorough in solving their problems.

D - Delight

Give your readers useful takeaways.

I know that a lot of writers put the key takeaways separately, below a paragraph. Personally, I would not emphasize them that much. Your readers are not children, you do not have to spoon-feed them. Rather, try to make your whole text informative and easy to consume. By this, I do not mean that you should not use advanced English vocabulary or literary devices in your online writing, but that you should always pay attention to who your target audience is.

Delight your target audience with your writing, make them learn new and useful things. Give them references to further learn about the subject matter. Do not be too pushy or salesy, rather focus on the topic and do it right. That will make your readers share the article, click on the next one, go through other pages on the website, and ultimately consider you as a trusted source of information for their needs.

Nothing Weird About This

What I wanted to do with this post is just demonstrate that you can take any old word (such as WEIRD) and build an article around it. All of the points I mentioned are important and should be a part of your writing process. But that does not mean that you should always just use only these points. Read as much as possible, keep yourself informed and you will start writing killer content in no time.

Stay weird.