How do you mix creativity and strategy in your writing?
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— The LinkedIn Team
As a content marketer, you know that writing engaging and valuable content is not just about being creative. It also requires a clear strategy that aligns with your goals, audience, and brand. But how do you balance these two aspects of content writing without compromising on quality or originality? Here are some tips to help you mix creativity and strategy in your writing.
Understand your purpose
Before you start writing, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your content. What is your main message, goal, and call to action? How does your content fit into your overall content marketing plan and funnel? How will you measure its success? Having a clear purpose will help you focus your writing and avoid distractions or irrelevant details.
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Try to keep things relevant. Ensure your content aligns strategically with your broader marketing goals. This helps create the synergy.
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Everyone on the team should have a clear understanding of the objective. Personally, as a manager, I like to wrap up our content meetings with an open question to my team: What's the purpose behind what we're writing?
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Know your audience
Another key element of strategic writing is knowing who you are writing for. Who are your ideal readers, customers, or prospects? What are their needs, pain points, challenges, and interests? How can you help them solve their problems or achieve their goals? How do they prefer to consume content and what tone and style resonate with them? Knowing your audience will help you craft content that is relevant, useful, and engaging for them.
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Getting to know your audience is the secret sauce, even if you're not an expert. Here's a pro tip: before diving into research, chat up those customer-facing heroes. They've got the insider scoop! Oh, and customer reviews about competitors? Pure gold. It's like a backstage pass to your audience's thoughts. But wait, there's more. Ever walked in your customer's shoes? Sign up as a user in your competitor's world. It's like getting a front-row seat to their experience. Blend all these ingredients – team insights, reviews, undercover missions – and BAM! You're not just telling a story; you're creating authentic content that shines. Confidence level? Rockstar encore
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Take the time to understand what relates to your audience. For example, if you're a property company — your content doesn't have to only be about flats and houses; consider all the topics you can delve into. Think living room designs, best areas to live in, property terminology, renting, house shares, etc. The opportunities are endless — just make sure you understand how it relates to your audience. Strategy and creativity go hand in hand to create high-quality content.
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Be original and authentic
Creativity is what sets your content apart from the rest. It is what makes your content memorable, distinctive, and shareable. To be creative, you need to find your own voice and style, and express your unique perspective and value proposition. You also need to be authentic and honest, and avoid copying or plagiarizing other sources. Creativity is not about being flashy or gimmicky, but about being original and authentic.
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Personal Experiences: Drawing from your own life can provide a genuine touch. Sharing anecdotes or lessons learned can deeply resonate with readers, making your content more relatable. Feedback Loop: Regularly gather feedback. Knowing what your audience thinks can help you align your content more authentically with their needs and interests. Stay Updated: Authenticity means being current. Continually update your knowledge and ensure your content reflects the latest in your industry or niche. Diverse Inspiration: While it's essential to be unique, drawing inspiration from various cultures, disciplines, or genres can inject fresh perspectives into your content.
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Make sure you think about where in the customer journey the content fits. Is it to educate, push the reader to identify themselves (cta) or is it meant to keep customers engaged to buy more. Make sure to produce content for each phase. Keep a steady flow of content.
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Use different formats and media
One way to boost your creativity and strategy is to experiment with different formats and media for your content. Depending on your purpose and audience, you can use text, images, videos, podcasts, infographics, ebooks, webinars, or other types of content to convey your message and engage your readers. You can also repurpose your content across different channels and platforms, and optimize it for different devices and screens. Using different formats and media will help you diversify your content and reach a wider audience.
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Absolutely, I'm on board with this! Experimenting with different content formats can totally level up your game. Depending on your goals and who you're talking to, you've got a bunch of cool options – text, images, videos, podcasts, even webinars and more. It's like having a bunch of colors to paint your message with! And don't forget, you can remix your content on different platforms. Share that blog as a snappy video or a podcast episode – it's all about hitting the right note with your audience wherever they hang out. Keep rocking those formats!
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Embracing diverse formats is akin to speaking multiple languages in the digital realm. While text might inform, visuals captivate, and audio provides intimacy. Diversifying isn't just about broadening reach but deepening engagement. It's about meeting your audience where they are and delivering value in their preferred dialect of digital
Edit and refine your content
The final step of mixing creativity and strategy in your writing is to edit and refine your content. Editing is not just about correcting grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors, but also about improving the clarity, coherence, structure, and flow of your content. Editing will help you eliminate unnecessary or redundant words, sentences, or paragraphs, and ensure that your content is concise, consistent, and compelling. Editing will also help you align your content with your purpose, audience, and brand.
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Editing is where your strategic vision comes to life. Every tweak and adjustment refines your content's resonance with your audience.
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Editing is truly a Gamechanger. It helps you format the overall structure of your content to achieve the kind of goal you want your content to achieve. This is because while drafting the first content, you drop it right as the idea comes. It is in the editing that the final touch of creativity comes in.
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Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?
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Engaging content combines storytelling with relevance. Use anecdotes to make topics relatable and memorable. Embrace interactive elements like polls or quizzes to boost engagement and gain audience insights. Occasionally, feature experts for credibility. Keep abreast of digital trends to ensure your content stays fresh and pertinent. The key is balancing authenticity and strategy, ensuring every piece resonates with its intended audience.
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Creativity is often just a different way of looking at things. Once the strategy is in place, it is important to differentiate your writing using a different perspective from the norm. A good way to do this is to first argue the opposite stance in your head, and then bring in insights from that perspective into your writing.
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