On Words and Business

In business writing, it’s okay to occasionally break the rules. This type of writing usually is supposed to be more formal that other kinds, but that doesn’t mean you can’t mix it up a little bit.

• And start a sentence with a conjunction, for example.
• Or end with a preposition–the kind your English teacher told you never to end a sentence with.
• Or to deliberately split an infinitive.
• Or let the passive voice take over for a few sentences.
• Or just go crazy. With. Punctuation. And sentence structure!

Within reason, of course. The line not to cross is probably a little farther than you usually go, but not as far as some of those horrible examples we all have in our heads. Have fun with it.

A very smart man just told me about his belief in successive approximation. He was talking about manufacturing, but the concept holds true for a lot of things, like some aspects of marketing and communications.

You do or create something based on the knowledge you have at the time. It might not be perfect, but that’s okay. Later, you gain more knowledge, so you are able to create something better. It might not be perfect either, but that’s okay.

The point is that you do what you can, you create the content you can, with the knowledge you have at the time. Don’t worry if the idea or concept isn’t perfect (the spelling and grammar should be, though!). You can fix it later if it needs fixing or replace it with something else.

If you’re in or near the marketing world, you hear every day how important it is to keep content brief. No one pays attention. And in the time it took me to write that, people were shutting their browsers in frustration at my verbosity.

But what if you have a lot to say? Is it okay to write something longer than 140 characters? Longer than one screen page? Longer than one printed page? Sure.

A lack of attention to longer form writing may be the direction we are heading. But I believe there will always be a market for lots of words strung together to form compelling content. White papers aren’t going away any time soon. Neither are articles in The Atlantic nor the great American novel.

The key with marketing content is to draw people in with the shorter content, which could be a blog post or just the title or subject line. Then keep drawing them in at every decision point.

If you write it, the people who want and need it will come. They’ll read. And they’ll appreciate that you took the time to tell them what they needed to know.

The people who can’t spend more than 140 characters or 10 seconds with your content probably aren’t your target audience anyway.

Do you know what your core content is?

The type of content that keeps your readers engaged. The best information. The most useful format.

That’s what you should spend your time thinking about and creating.

One of my goals for 2012 is answering that question for myself, so I spend my time on what my customers and prospects wish I was spending my time on.

Please share your thoughts on that!

Yes and no.

In many social media outlets, it is most important to share the concept and the basic idea. A bit of editing and spell-checking is important so you don’t make too many errors that will make people question if you actually know what you’re doing. But it is also important to get to the point without droning on or taking up too much of your time to do it. You can link to the deeper, more detailed content that takes longer for someone to absorb.

For that more detailed type of content, like brochures, case studies, white papers, newsletters, etc., the words and how they’re written take on more importance, so a higher level of editing and time spent attending to detail is important.

It’s about finding the balance between the time you have to write the project, the type of information you’re sharing, and how important it is to make the information available at a certain time or via  a certain channel.

How are you at asking questions?

To write content, sometimes you have to interview an expert.

Here are some hints about finding the right questions to ask:

1. Consider the purpose of the interview; that helps determine the level of question to ask. If you’re writing an article for beginners or people who have no background in the topic, it’s okay to ask very basic questions. If you’re writing for a more advanced audience, you should do some research and know the basics so you can ask more specific and detailed questions.
2. Research. Prepare for speaking to an expert by looking at articles written by this person, reviewing the company website, etc. Even for an interview focusing on the basics, you need to understand who you are talking to and what that person brings to the table.
3. Write out a list of questions. Start simple–what would you want to know about the topic if you were one of your readers. Once you get the basics down, then elaborate with more detailed questions.
4. Go with the flow and don’t be afraid to go off-script. You spent a lot of time preparing questions in advance, but interview subjects quite often say something intriguing or introduce a new and compelling topic that you never considered. If it’s appropriate given the content you are creating, follow them down that path and ask follow-up questions (that you’ll have to make up on the fly).
5. Ask a final, wrap-up question. 98% of the time, this is when you’ll get one of the best quotes of the entire interview. My final question is always a variation of this: Is there anything I didn’t ask you about (this topic) or that we haven’t already discussed that you want people to know?