The 10 Laws of Persuasive B2B Writing
By Michael StelznerThe two most important words in blogging are “You” and “Because” according to CopyBlogger Brian Clark and I would agree.
However, do you understand the fundamentals of delivering a message designed to create action for your readers?
Why is this important? Because understanding these principles will mean your words penetrate and drive results.
What follows is a guide to producing compelling persuasive content. It comes from Russell Kern in an article he wrote called B-to-B Insights: A Perfect ‘10’ for Target Marketing magazine.
The fundamentals of getting the attention of readers:
Arresting: How eye-catching is your message? What have you done to make it impressive, noticeable or striking?
Compelling: Have you connected with your readers’ hopes, dreams and/or fears? How have you persuaded your readers that they really need to find out more?
Clear: Is it instantly obvious what you’re offering? Why a reader should care? Are the benefits readily apparent? Is it easy to see how to respond?
Credible: Consumers are skeptical of advertisers, to put it mildly. Are you delivering a message that is honest, realistic, sincere and believable?
The fundamentals of getting readers involved:
Emotional: Does your message move your readers to laugh, smile, cry, agree, yell? What have you done to arouse the spirit of your readers?
Insightful: Have you demonstrated your understanding of your target audience’s problems, needs, desires, hopes, dreams or aspirations? Have you made your audience aware of a new solution or product usage?
Informative: How educational is your message? In exchange for your readers’ consideration are you revealing new, important or little-known information and using it to build your case for action on their part? If they don’t respond this time around, is your message still helpful to them in some way?
The fundamentals of conveying “What’s in it for me?”:
Relevant: What have you done to make both the message and offer germane to your reader? (And not just germane, but important.) How applicable is your offer to the problems your readers are facing?
Valuable: Do you have an offer that’s important, priceless or, failing that, just downright useful? How well have you persuaded your readers that your offer is worthy of their time and indispensable to the improvement of their daily lives?
The fundamental principle of telling readers what to do:
Motivating: How moving is your message? How immediate? Have you employed proven response words and motivational phrases (e.g., “discover,†“learn,†“gain,†“reveal,†“take away,†“go now,†“find out,†“visit,†“call today,†“don’t wait,†“avoid missing outâ€) to drive response behavior? Does your message have urgency built into it?
Special thanks to David Garfinkel for first writing about this.
How have you applied these principles and with what success?
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January 19th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Hi Michael–very nice article–I’ll be sticking around to read some more. Thank you.