If you’ve been creating marketing content for a while, you might feel like you’ve said it all. (I know I sometimes do.) However, your existing content can be a great source of new ideas. Here are some ways to find a new marketing angle on an old idea.
Revisit an old post
What do you see when you look back at your old blog or social media posts? Do they make you cringe because you’ve changed or learned more about your audience since you created them? You might find posts discussing issues that are still relevant but where your advice has changed. You can base a whole new post on the same topic, sharing the knowledge you’ve gained since then, and it’ll still be relevant to your audience.
Update a resources post
Sharing the tools you use can help your audience in multiple ways. Say you run a craft business selling tools and materials; showing people what you use yourself can help beginners and improvers. A hairdresser can share products and tools to help customers maintain their locks between appointments. I talk about software such as Grammarly, which helps me with my grammar, so you can use it when you write your own posts.
Expand a subheading
If you’ve ever written a post with some quick and easy tips, review it to see if you can expand on one of the subheadings. For example, some of my posts on writing a blog mention creating a good headline to catch people’s attention as a subheading. I expanded it into a full post on ways to do that. (https://www.kirstyfrancewrites.co.uk/write-a-headline-tips/)
You may have kept things short and sweet for a tips post, but expanding a subheading lets you share more of your expertise. You can also link between the two posts to improve your SEO.
Have industry updates changed how you work?
Looking back at old content, you might find that your advice has changed because of external changes in your industry. ChatGPT has impacted marketing, so you could create a post discussing the issues or recommending ways to use the technology. (https://www.kirstyfrancewrites.co.uk/ai-help-content-writing/)
There may also have been changes in the law that impact your customers and that you can educate them about. Legal changes might also mean people need to review their will or investments. You can contact existing clients, but sharing updates in your marketing could attract new ones.
Create new case studies
Case studies are a great way to show potential customers how you work and showcase the results you’ve achieved for others. When you review existing case studies, you might find that your process has changed with time or that you haven’t talked about a service that has grown in popularity. Creating new case studies with more recent clients ensures your content stays up to date. If you have business clients who are happy to go public and share that they’ve worked with you, it can be a great marketing opportunity for you both.
If you have a page full of ideas but lack the time or energy to turn them into new marketing content, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails, and whatever else you need to engage your audience. I’ll even look at your existing content to create new marketing ideas. If you’d like to chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here. Or, use the form below to sign up for monthly content writing tips straight to your inbox.
If you’ve ever run out of ideas, think about the questions you’re asked most often and write a blog or social media post to answer them. Your FAQs can be a great source of ideas, as if people are asking you in person, they’re likely searching for answers online, too.
Here are a few ways to turn your FAQs into new content ideas.
Expand the answers to your existing FAQs
Do you already have an FAQ page on your website? If not, think about creating one. The rest of this post should help you come up with ideas if you’re drawing a blank. If you’ve already got a page with short answers, you can share them as social media posts or expand them into a longer blog post or article.
For example, there may be a story behind why you take a particular approach, or you could expand on a process to let people know what to expect.
Link to your FAQ page
Linking between pages on your website is excellent for SEO and gives your visitors a choice about how much they want to read. For some people, a short answer might be enough, and they don’t want to wade through several paragraphs to find out what they want to know. Others might be interested in a more in-depth answer, so you can link from your FAQ page to a blog post to give them more information.
Check your client meeting notes
I make notes of every client meeting so I can remember what questions they asked, what information I gave them and what I need to remember to send afterwards. Sometimes, a potential customer might not get in touch because they’re afraid of asking a silly question. Answering the queries you’ve already had helps them to relax because they know what to expect.
If you don’t speak with new clients one-on-one, review your emails or messages to see what comes up regularly.
What do you hear at networking events?
You may have noticed that I network a lot. I always keep my ears open to understand what people struggle with because I can include details that show I understand my customers’ lives and provide tailored information about how I can help them.
Whether you attend in-person events or network online via Zoom or social media groups, see what questions and comments come up to see if they inspire a new topic idea.
Create a knowledge base
Sharing your knowledge is incredibly powerful as it shows your customers the benefits of your service and that you know what you’re talking about. It can also save you time. If a new client comes to you knowing that they need a particular product or service, it means you don’t have to answer lots of questions to help them make the right choice.
You could write about different products or explain how something works. For example, I write for an insurance broker and we create lots of different knowledge posts about how life cover or health insurance works. Their clients get to know the basics and then come to them for detailed advice.
If you’ve got a page full of ideas but lack the time or energy to turn them into new marketing content, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here. Or, use the form below to sign up for monthly content writing tips straight to your inbox.
Good marketing should be memorable, but what if you remember it for all the wrong reasons? Thinking about how some adverts miss the mark can help you avoid making the same mistakes. So, what marketing makes you cringe and why?
Are you being shouted at?
Have you ever watched ‘Horrible Histories’? It’s classic kids’ TV because it also includes jokes for the grown-ups. The ‘shouty man’ character was the perfect parody of adverts that shout at you to make sales. Those types of adverts may have disappeared, but marketing can still make you cringe if you feel you’re being lectured rather than persuaded. You might have something important to say, but meeting your audience where they are is better than trying to shout them down.
Too many clichés
I posted on social media recently, asking people to share their least favourite marketing buzzwords with me. ‘Journey’ came up a lot. It’s not a bad word in itself; it’s just become a cliché because of the number of people using it on reality TV shows.
Avoiding cliché can be tricky. Sometimes, how you phrase something tells your audience what to expect and can be comforting. Each industry has its own words and language patterns, and it can be hard to know when something tips over the edge from familiar to overused. Following other businesses in your niche to see what reactions their content gets can help.
Outdated attitudes
Did you know that the Advertising Standards Agency now has regulations so they can ban harmful gender stereotypes in advertising? We’ve definitely come a long way. A few decades ago, print adverts saw women as either decorative or only good for doing the housework (and suggested that domestic violence was acceptable if she made a mistake). You’d only ever see straight couples and white faces.
Modern adverts are more diverse, but some stereotypes remain. A GAP clothing advert was heavily criticised for suggesting boys are ‘scholars’ while girls are ‘social butterflies’. When you write new content, think about your assumptions about your audience and whether they’re accurate.
Ask whether it’s meant for you
If someone’s marketing makes you cringe, consider whether you’re the intended audience. My kids aren’t teenagers yet, but I still hear the odd word that makes me wonder whether we still speak the same language.
On the other hand, what if you’re a business’s ideal customer, and they’re still driving you away? Are they making uneducated guesses about your life or what you need? To avoid it, try using social media or networking events to ask questions and learn more about what your future customers care about.
Is it inconsistent?
Consistent marketing helps your customers get to know, like and trust you. That doesn’t mean you have to fall into a cosy rut, but it helps if you keep your tone of voice, values and branding consistent so people recognise you.
If a brand you know and love suddenly pops up with something wildly out of character, you might lose trust in them because you suspect they’re going off in a new direction that isn’t for you. That may be a problem if it’s a business you’ve only discovered recently, as inconsistency can prevent you from getting to know them.
If you want to avoid writing content that makes your customers cringe, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.
When you get to know your ideal customer, you can write content that speaks to them. Good marketing creates a connection between you and your audience. If you try to write for everyone, you end up with bland content that doesn’t connect with anyone. Here are my top five tips to help you get to know your ideal customer so you can start writing for them.
Who do you work with now?
If you’ve already got a few customers, think about them first. Who do you love working with, and who would you rather be rid of? Think about any common features the two groups share. It could be their age, interests or how they speak to you. If you communicate face to face or via email, are there differences in how you talk to them? Using the same language in your marketing helps you attract more people you like and repel the ones you don’t.
How does your business help people?
Over time, you’ll discover more about how you help your customers achieve their aspirations or overcome challenges.
Some of the benefits of your product or service might not be immediately obvious. For example, you might sell gorgeous jewellery that your customers love to wear or give as gifts. However, they might also come back because you help them choose the right gift or offer a relaxed shopping experience. It helps you add depth to your content as your ideal customers feel seen.
Do you serve people at a particular life stage?
Creating the right content can be easier if your business helps people when they’ve reached a particular life stage. They might be about to retire, have a baby or start a business. However, it’s still important to understand other details about their life. Even if people are at a similar life stage, they might approach it differently. Older people might be looking forward to an active retirement or have health concerns. The language you use for each will be different.
What does your ideal customer care about?
Understanding what your customers care about and why they choose your business helps you target the right people. If you want to educate, it’s easier if you can connect with things they already value. For example, if your fitness business attracts customers who want to improve their health but still have the odd takeaway, your marketing can make them feel welcome. If you’re a financial planner, your customers might not see the benefit in buying life insurance, but they will care about taking care of their family when they’re gone.
How do they spend their time?
Knowing how your ideal customers spend their time helps you in a few ways. It helps you put your content where they’ll see it, whether online or offline. If they’re busy juggling lots of tasks, you can decide when to share something short and snappy and consider when they might have time to read something longer.
Finally, it helps you choose the right language. The way you talk to people who love luxury living will be very different from the language you use for people who prefer being at home in their pyjamas.
If you want to write in a way that shows your customers you understand them, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here. Or, use the form below to sign up for monthly content writing tips straight to your inbox.
Following the Christmas festivities, the new year can feel a little daunting, not only as we prepare for the year ahead but also after a very busy and expensive time with presents, Christmas dinner and spending time with family and friends. For a lot of people, this is a time that they look forward to in the year, as it’s filled with a lot of joy. However, for others, it can be a difficult time either because they’re alone, struggling with their mental health, are grieving, or perhaps they don’t have a safe place to call home.
How we help
At YMCA Burton, we’re here to help anyone in our local community who needs our support in a time of crisis 24/7, 365 days of the year. Whether it be homelessness, needing an emergency food parcel, wanting to rebuild strained relationships in the home through mediation, needing affordable, good quality second-hand furniture or just having a safe place to have a cuppa, a chat and a hot meal, we are available at YMCA Burton to support in any way that we possibly can.
The heart of our services, Reconnect, which houses 31 units of accommodation, our Foodbank as well as our Family Mediation service and Counselling service. Opposite Asda on James Street in Burton on Trent.
There’s more demand than ever
With a strong reputation in the town of Burton-on-Trent for over 135 years, YMCA Burton has faced its highest demand to date across all of its services in 2023. Waiting lists have formed for the first time ever within our Family Mediation Service, the foodbank service has experienced its highest distribution figures in its 23-year history, and our accommodation has constantly been full. It reflects the incredible need for this type of support across the local community as well as the challenges that a lot of individuals and families are facing in their daily lives. This is the harsh reality at the moment, and without us, thousands of individuals and families in and around Burton would be in desperate need of support.
How you can support us
At YMCA Burton, we change lives. However, we can’t do what we do without the help and support of others, as donations are needed more than ever. There are multiple ways that you can support us, depending on the best way for you. This can look like a one-off monetary donation, you could become a monthly donor, giving whatever you can each month to continuously support our work and services. There are also options to donate items of food to our foodbank, leave a gift in your will or perhaps choose to become a volunteer. Whatever way you choose to support us will make a massive difference to our charity and ensure that we can continue to remain a central charity in our local community and help to change lives.
To find out more about our charity and our impact on our local community, head to our website: https://burtonymca.org/. Furthermore, if you’d like to help make a difference to someone’s life today, please contact our Fundraising & Comms team via fundraising@burtonymca.org / 07754045869
On behalf of all of us at YMCA Burton, thank you very much!
AI can be a helpful tool when you write content marketing, but a human writer will give you better results in some situations. An AI can help you plan or develop ideas (and yes, I asked ChatGPT for some suggestions for this post). When is a human content writer better than an AI? Read on to find out.
Humans are more creative
An AI only gets information from online sources, which can make its content a bit generic. If you use AI for ideas, you can put your spin on them to make them unique.
An AI won’t change its tone of voice in the way that a human content writer can. It’ll typically use the same writing style, although you can ask it to mimic someone. (My son once asked ChatGPT to rewrite something he’d written in the style of a Donald Trump speech. The results were hilarious and accurate.)
Humans have emotional intelligence
Powerful writing engages your reader’s emotions and makes them feel understood. You understand the feelings that motivate your customers to work with you. Your marketing can show that you know how they feel now and how those feelings will change when you’ve worked together. It could be something as simple as offering home delivery or having a big car park so they don’t have to deal with the stress of finding a parking space. An AI wouldn’t understand that, but a human content writer does.
A human content writer can understand your audience
An AI can help identify potential concerns among your audience. However, it can’t write content that helps you form a personal connection. Your audience might want a serious take on a subject or prefer something more light-hearted.
An AI won’t get to know you and understand the language you use to talk about a subject, but a human content writer will. If you serve a niche audience which uses specific terms or references, you can find a writer who understands your niche in a way an AI won’t.
Talking about sensitive subjects
Some topics are hard to talk about. Your work might involve conversations about illness, death, or other painful personal experiences. You might offer a service that helps people prepare for the worst, such as will writing or life insurance. Marketing means discussing topics your audience might rather ignore, and your language must reflect that.
You might need to share stories about others and decide how much information you can reveal without compromising their privacy. An AI can’t choose for you or even act as a sounding board in the way a human writer can.
We can speak from personal experience
Your story can be compelling when it comes to attracting new clients. You might have started your business because you wanted to help others in the same situation. I often work with other mums because we all balance business and family life, and I understand how that works. That wouldn’t happen if I didn’t talk about my children in my marketing. Speaking from personal experience creates a human connection. An AI is more objective, so it can’t offer that.
If you want to work with an actual human to create engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here. Or, use the form below to sign up for monthly content writing tips straight to your inbox.
I know you probably expect a writer like me to react to any mention of AI the way that Dracula might respond to someone brandishing a cross in his face. Basically, hissing and hiding my face. However, it’s becoming more of a feature in the content writing landscape, and I can’t ignore it. I’ve even found myself using it a bit. So, how can AI help your content writing? Read on to find out.
It’s excellent for topic suggestions
When you’ve been in business for a while, it can feel like your marketing has covered everything you could possibly talk about. You’ll have new followers who won’t have read it all before, but you still want to create something fresh.
You can ask ChatGPT for original ways to talk about your product or service, which will give you a list. They might not all be usable, but some will, and it could inspire you to come up with more.
It can come up with new and unexpected angles
Sometimes, writing new content involves presenting the same information in new ways or from a different angle. You can create beginner guides and tips for people with more experience or choose a particular interest group. If you serve more than one type of person, their needs will vary, and you can write for both groups.
AI can help you find new angles, so ask something like “Who would be interested in x and why?” and see what it suggests.
You can use it to mash two ideas together
You might have a great idea for an analogy but struggle to make it work in practice. Writing a blog post could be a bit like cooking a meal. You need the right ingredients, cooking techniques and a big serving dish… wait, where was I going with this?
I could ask ChatGPT to explain how writing a blog post is like cooking a Sunday roast to get the juices flowing.
It can help you get your brain unstuck
Sometimes, you need to translate jargon so your audience can understand it. You try to write an explanation, and your brain goes blank.
When that happens, head to your favourite AI and ask, “How can I explain x in layman’s terms?” The answer might not be a perfect explanation, but it can give you some phrases to use as a starting point.
How can’t AI help your content writing?
AI can be helpful in the right circumstances, but it’s a bit rubbish at human emotion. You know, the stuff that helps you connect with your audience and shows them who you are. As a small business, your personality and values help you stand out from other businesses offering the same type of product or service. That’s why you still need to write your own words or work with someone like me, who’ll get to know you and put your personality into your content.
If you want to work with an actual human to create engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here. Or, use the form below to sign up for monthly content writing tips straight to your inbox.
What do you do next when you’ve set your New Year business goals and worked out what your marketing needs to look like? Think about who you want to work with. Writing content that speaks to your ideal customers means you get to work with people you love, which makes everyone happy. So, who do you want to talk to in the New Year? Here are a few ways to work it out.
Your favourite customers
Having good relationships with your customers makes life a whole lot happier. They benefit from great results, and you can work with people you like and get repeat customers. It’s essential to my business. If we don’t get on, you’re less likely to show me your personality so I can share it in your content.
Think about your favourite customers, what they have in common, and how you talk to them. That way, you can use the same language in your marketing.
Creating a connection
What do your customers like about you? We connect with people for all sorts of reasons. You might share the same sense of humour or have a similar background. Maybe your business grew out of an interest that your customers share. Sometimes, they choose your business over a similar one because they like you or your approach.
Understanding where that connection comes from helps you to write in a way that engages your current customers and attracts new ones.
What gets people talking?
If you’ve looked at your numbers, you should have a good idea about the content that engages your audience and gets people talking. I often find that my most engaging social media posts are the ones that only have a tenuous link to my work. If it’s the same for you, dig a bit deeper. What type of content gets the best response when you talk about your work? Even if it’s only a few likes, it can help you to create new ideas or use similar language.
Are you being yourself?
Putting your personality into your marketing lets you relax and have a conversation with your ideal customers. That’s the theory, at least. I know I’m not the only person who worries about oversharing and putting people off.
As you create new content, ask yourself whether the words are flowing easily or not. If you find it easier to speak naturally in videos, transcribe them and turn them into written posts. Alternatively, you can work with a writer like me who’ll listen to you talk about your business and write new content for you.
What are you offering?
Do your products and services help the people you want to work with? For example, I love working with business owners who have a marketing plan and want a writer to deliver the words. I get excited about working with new people because I want to be part of their team. I still have products and services to help people who are learning, but it’s not what I spend most of my time doing.
Ask yourself whether you’re offering services that don’t get you excited or products you’ve fallen out of love with. Could you drop them and still help the people you want to serve?
If you’ve created a plan and want help writing engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.
Or, sign up to my mailing list for hints and tips straight to your inbox every month. You can unsubscribe whenever you like.
“Of course, I didn’t realise I’d just seen a murder.”
They all stopped talking when I said that.
“You saw a what?” Thomas said, his mouth half full of the mince pie he’d shoved in moments before.
“A murder. I mean, when I saw them together, I thought they were just getting some air and he slipped. They said it was an accident. But now I look back, none of it made sense.”
“Anna, are you serious?” Vanessa was staring at me, leaning on the back of the sofa with a glass of sherry in her hand. It’s funny how all of my cousins had got to thirty and suddenly turned into our grandparents.
“Of course I’m serious. It was the view that made me remember.” I realised that my pause had lasted rather too long when I saw Daniel out of the corner of my eye, gesticulating with the remains of his mince pie. His sister Catherine was staring at me, looking rather pale.
“You know how we all joke that Gran and Gramps always put us in the same rooms as if we’re still nine instead of thirty-nine?”
“Speak for yourself,” Thomas replied. Was he still chewing the same mince pie, or had he crammed another one in?
“OK, thanks for the reminder. Anyway, I was looking out of the window in my room earlier and realised I was looking at the same view. The snow on the drive and top of the gateposts and the frosty trees beyond. It felt like I was a little girl again.”
“When was this?”
“Thirty years ago. Thomas, it was your first Christmas, so I must have been nine. Ness, you’d have been six, which means you two would probably have been too young to remember.
“But – who was m-m-murdered?” Catherine sounded terrified. There was a question. What was his name?
The Christmas routine in my grandparents’ house hadn’t changed since 1958, when they brought their first child, my Dad, home from the hospital. Christmas Eve was for church, Christmas Day for family, and Boxing Day brought their friends from the village for lunchtime cold cuts and pickled onions, followed by drinking and nibbles that could go on until the early hours. Each Christmas celebration blended into the next. The only difference was that one of Dad’s three siblings occasionally added a new cousin for me to play with. I tried to remember the man who died that day. He was a big man, tall with strong, broad shoulders and dark hair. Loud voice, too. I remember being three years old, mute and wide-eyed, when he’d burst into the room and shouted ho-ho-ho down at me. What was his name?
“Brendan. I think. Something like that. I’m sure he had an Irish accent.”
“Oh, him!” Vanessa exclaimed. “Yes, I remember him a bit. Absolutely massive and with a habit of pretending to be Father Christmas even though he never wore the suit.”
“Yes!”
“I don’t remember anything happening to him.”
“Do you remember ever seeing him again?”
Vanessa frowned slightly, then shook her head. “Now you come to mention it, I thought – actually, I don’t know what I thought. I can’t say I missed him.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t remember anyone mentioning him again.” Vanessa’s brow was still wrinkled. “Is that odd?”
“Of course not,” Daniel replied, “would you talk about it if someone had died in your house?”
“It wasn’t in the house, though. It was out there.” I waved my hand towards the bay window. The moonlight reflected off the snow, but I could only see the outline of the cars parked outside and the gateposts beyond.
It didn’t matter whether you were a baby or a teenager. In Gran and Gramps’ house, all the children went to bed at seven o’clock. By the time Vanessa and I were teenagers, our parents had learned to bring a stash of snacks and moved the TV from one of their rooms into one of ours. As long as we kept the volume low and our giggles muted, we could chat and watch cheesy Christmas shows until we were actually ready to go to sleep. At nine, I was old enough to feel slighted at being forced into a baby’s bedtime. I had hoped that Vanessa, only three years my junior, would have joined me in protest. However, our traditional post-lunch Boxing Day walk had worked its magic, and Vanessa had to be carried up to bed halfway through the teatime buffet.
I was left, grumpy in my nightdress, to amuse myself in a bedroom that smelt of fresh paint and musty curtain fabric. Mum had left me with a torch and a copy of ‘Matilda’ along with my bedtime milk, but I was still wide awake after I finished the last few chapters. I wriggled out of the tight layers of sheets and blankets and found an eiderdown in the blanket box at the bottom of the bed. If anyone caught me, I could say I’d been cold and needed an extra blanket. It was a complete lie, of course. Gran’s bedmaking resembled something from the ‘Princess and the Pea’, except most of the layers were on top instead of underneath.
I wrapped the eiderdown around me and shuffled to the window. My room was above the drawing room, which was Gramps’ way of describing a place with sofas but no TV. The party was rumbling on below me, with indistinct music and the occasional shriek of laughter. Light from the vast bay window illuminated the snow at the front of the house and turned the parked cars into dark shapes. I recognised the outline of Dad’s trusty Ford, although the snow that had settled on the roof since we arrived on Christmas Eve gave it an odd, lumpen look. The trees kept watch in the distance, reaching their branches towards the dark velvet sky.
I winced and shrunk back from the window as the lights blazed before me. Was there a car? The sudden flare reminded me of headlights, but I couldn’t hear an engine. As I edged back towards my vantage point, I realised that someone had turned the lamps on. They were never lit, and I’d always assumed they didn’t work, but there they were, halogen bulbs blazing and turning everything behind them white. The front door swung open below, and two men emerged. I recognised Brendan immediately. He was the biggest man at the party by half a foot and at least two stones. His companion was harder to identify, but he was obviously a member of the family. All of my male relatives have the same walk—a loping gait that looked like a shrug was travelling forward. At first, I thought it might be Dad. Then the other man turned, and I realised it was Uncle Arthur. My Dad’s youngest brother was the only one of the four who hadn’t contributed any grandchildren or even a significant other. He was the funniest man I knew, always ready with a joke. At Christmas, he’d pull chocolate coins from behind my ears as if by magic. But this wasn’t the Uncle Arthur I knew.
As he turned, I saw his face, screwed up in fury. I leaned closer to the glass but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Even so, I could tell he was shouting. His mouth moved quickly, releasing droplets of spit and foam. He finally paused, and I saw Brendan amble towards him, his arms moving slowly. It was the first time I’d seen that movement, and I didn’t understand what he was doing. Now I do. He was trying to calm things down. It didn’t work. Uncle Arthur started shouting again, except now he was crying too. Why didn’t anyone else come to stop them? Were they watching from the window, expecting it all to blow over? Uncle Arthur put his face in his hands, and Brendan moved to put his arm around him. Big mistake. My Uncle grabbed him and pushed him away. Brendan slid towards the gatepost and hit it head-first. At the time, I thought it was a horrible accident—an error in judgment. Now, I remember seeing Arthur grab Brendan and check the gatepost’s position before throwing him. I remember the expression he wore as he turned back towards the house after seeing his friend’s head split open on the corner of the post. He was happy. Smug, even. I watched as he deliberately rearranged his face and screamed in horror, calling the family to help him. As the others emerged, speaking of ambulances and doctors, I realised I’d been holding my breath. I sunk back through the curtain and buried myself back under the blankets.
“Oh my God.” Everyone was wide-eyed, and only Thomas spoke, “What happened then?”
“The police were there when I got up the following morning, but I was kept out of the way. I overheard someone saying it was an accident then clamming up as soon as they saw me. There was a weird atmosphere, too. No one seemed to want to talk to each other. We all stayed together until New Year’s Day, but it was as if Gran and Gramps, and our parents, had had all the fun sucked out of them. Then suddenly, Uncle Arthur was gone.”
“I don’t remember him,” Catherine said, “is that why?”
“Yes, I think so. A few months later, Dad told me he’d got a job in Australia. I thought that meant we might be able to go and stay with him, but we never did. He never came back to visit, either. I asked about the accident once, a few years later. I wondered whether he didn’t come back because he didn’t want to think about his friend. Everyone looked at me like you did just now. Later, Mum told me I must never mention it again.”
“So, did they just send him away? Did nobody think it might just have been an accident?” Daniel looked at each of us in turn. “Couldn’t they have tried to protect him?”
“I think that’s what they were doing. Sending him away so he’d never have to face suspicion.”
We all drained our sherries and drifted off to bed after that. The last ones to turn in, perhaps as a way to finally rebel against all those early bedtimes. We might never find out why Brendan died that night and why Uncle Arthur had to leave. Perhaps someone was protecting him from suspicion. Or maybe they knew he’d meant to do it. I couldn’t have been the only person looking out of the window that night.
You might not think words and numbers have much in common, apart from co-existing on a school curriculum. However, your analytics can tell you a lot about what content is striking a chord with your audience and helping you achieve your business goals. Here’s my guide to help you look at your numbers and write engaging content.
Plan your business goals
I’m not going to tell you how to set business goals. For one thing, it’s not my department. For another, your version of success might look very different from mine. However, when you’ve decided what targets you want to hit next year, think about what your marketing needs to do to achieve that. Do you need to reach more people, improve your social media engagement or increase your email subscribers? Knowing where you want people to go helps you focus on the right platforms.
Look at your numbers
You can use your marketing analytics to work out what’s working in terms of the marketing platforms you use and the type of content you create. Reviewing your numbers helps you see what’s working so you can do more of it or tweak things to test a different approach. When you talk about your business, some posts get a better response than others, often due to the language you use.
Remember that what your audience responds to can change over time; regular reviews help you stay up to date.
Think about keywords
I’m hearing more marketing professionals say that SEO is getting less effective. While that’s probably true, there’s still a place for it. Google is the first place many of us ask questions, and if you offer a service in your local area, there are still plenty of people searching ‘service + town’.
So, look at your website analytics. What keywords attracted the most visitors? Where did they go next? Did they leave or visit another page? Look at keywords, but think about the customer journey, too. When people land on your website, what do you want them to do next?
Are your sales pages working?
As the name suggests, sales pages focus on selling one product. Everything on there should be targeted towards persuading someone to decide to buy. If you’re getting lots of visitors but not many sales, look at your language. Does it help your customers understand how buying from you will help them? Does it focus on their needs or your product? If you have some sales pages that work while others don’t, compare the words. Spotting the differences can help you update existing pages to improve their performance.
Social media engagement
If reaching your goals means getting more eyes on your content, look at your social media reach and engagement. Reach is good as it means the algorithm shows your stuff to more people. When your followers engage with a post, it’ll also start showing your posts to more of their friends.
Check your analytics to see which posts got lots of reactions and comments. It shows that the post struck a chord and that you used engaging language. You can create more posts with similar subjects and analyse your tone of voice. Are you using a different style on different posts, and how does that affect the response?
If you want to write engaging content that lets your customers get to know you, I can help. I’ll write blogs, posts, emails and whatever else you need to engage your audience and encourage them to get in touch. If you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.
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