Vesta Cocoon Diary: How to Write Engaging Articles
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Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
July 23, 2021
Fireworks from a moderate typhoon are coming. Although the typhoon did not directly invade Taiwan this time, we still need to prepare for typhoons and be careful and safe.
Today, a reader asked me a question: “Hi, Vista. Can you help me break down your newsletter? Why can it be short, concise and attractive?”
This question is very interesting. Although I don’t know if my article is really “short, concise and attractive”, but since it was named, let me try to answer it!
If you usually like writing, you must know that articles (especially workplace writing) are written for readers—not for yourself, not for colleagues, and not for your boss. Therefore, whether you are writing product copy, press release or designing a sales page, please be sure to focus on the target audience.
I have also said many times that before you start writing, please first confirm your writing purpose, motivation, and the audience group you want to target.
However, if you want to send e-newsletters and keep a life diary like me, that’s a little different. For me, the newsletter is a way of self-talk and healing, and it is also a map to the world during the epidemic. Therefore, whether you are writing a diary or expressing your opinions on certain things, you must directly talk about the key points - in addition to caring about the readers’ feelings, you must also boldly express your own voice.
Some people only write at the level of describing things, or they are used to piling a lot of rhetoric between the lines. This can easily make the other party confused about your proposition, and it is not convincing at all. Therefore, it is recommended that you try to cite more data support or actual cases, and even cleverly use rhythm and pauses when writing to give the other party room to think and ask questions.
I currently run two e-newsletters, one with “Vista Cocoon Diary” as the main axis, and the other with “Focus on Digital Marketing and Copywriting” (https://newsletter.vstar.school/) and other categories, which is considered a relatively professional thing. Every time before I start writing an email, I will first set a theme and general direction, and then talk about my own feelings and opinions around this theme.
As for how to write articles that make people feel, I have three writing strategies to share with you:
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Problem-driven: Write about issues that are closely related to the target audience, prioritize whether they feel the urgency, and provide solutions to their needs.
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Benefit-driven: The article should be written in an easy-to-understand manner, try to make the target audience feel excited, and ensure that they can benefit from taking action.
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Emotionally driven: Put yourself in the target audience’s shoes and understand their thoughts and troubles, break down their pain points, joy points and itches, and use empathy to gain resonance.
Not only can you make good use of these three strategies when writing product copy, but if you can think about everything in the world from these three perspectives, you will also get some unexpected gains!
If you want to attract readers’ attention, Joseph. Sugarman’s opinion is also worth considering. He pointed out that the existence of article titles, subtitles and prefaces has only one goal: to attract readers to read the first sentence.
Why is it important to read the first sentence? That’s because in this era of information explosion, we are too easily attracted and distracted by many things. So, what is the purpose of the first sentence? It’s very simple, it must be so powerful that readers can’t resist reading and continue reading the second sentence! And so on until the end of the article. In other words, the purpose of writing is simply to entice readers to get on the slide and then slide right down.
Seeing this, I wonder if you like the amusement park I built with words?
Imagine you are climbing up a slide at an amusement park and letting gravity pull you down. When you start to slide, you may try to grab the handrail to stop the slide, but you can’t. Although I tried hard to prevent myself from falling, I continued to slide down…
Well, this feeling is very subtle, right? But like Joseph. The “slide effect” that Sugarman mentioned is how smooth an article should be.
Recently, I opened 6 online writing classes called “Write Your Own Story” at Orange Generation, a United News Network. When I was correcting some class assignments written by my classmates, I was always deeply moved. It also reminded me of how I started writing in the first place…
I hope today’s sharing can answer this reader’s question. Of course, I welcome you to write your own story together!
★ Welcome to sponsor a cup of coffee and cheer for Vista! You can also express your support by sponsoring multiple times, thank you.
★ Want to learn content marketing techniques? Welcome to register for the online course “[Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands] (https://hahow.in/cr/content-power)”.
Further reading
- “Vista Cocoon Diary”: How to improve writing efficiency
- “Vesta Cocoon Diary”: The Power of Writing
- “Vista Cocoon Diary”: Strategic Thinking of Content Production
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