10 Easy Ways to Become a Better Writer

These days, everyone’s a marketer. You’re writing blogs, posting to social media, writing web content and producing your newsletter. It’s great if you’re a good writer. If not, you’re setting yourself up in a potentially unflattering light. But with a little effort, anyone can become a better writer.

A few global tips:

• Keep it simple. Stick with clear, concise sentences and vocabulary.
• The first sentence of every paragraph should set the stage; with successive sentences supporting it.
• Frontload information—don’t flatter yourself to think that everyone’s going to read everything through to the end. Make that first paragraph count.

Here are a few grammatical pitfalls

Chances are you’re making these common mistakes. Correct these and you’re on your way to becoming a much better writer.

1. Who versus that. That refers to things; who is used for people. This is easy. If you’re referencing a person, rather than using that, substitute who. Jane, the person who cuts her hair, not that cuts my hair.
2. Less versus fewer. These are words you use for comparing something. User fewer when it’s a commodity that you can count. If you can’t count or quantify it, use less.
3. Sorry. This isn’t a word. Drop this from your vocabulary.
4. Where is it at? For grammarians, this is fingernails on a blackboard. Don’t end sentences with a preposition, and at is a preposition. It also goes back to our simplicity rule. Where is it is all you need to say.
5. At this point in time. This one drives me crazy. Eliminating nonessential words makes you a better writer or speaker. At this point in time is redundant. At this point is sufficient.
6. Single spacing after end punctuation. Using two spaces makes you look like a dinosaur. This is what you learned in your typing class a gazillion years ago. Language and customs evolve and you need to change with them.
7. I, me and myself. Something I’m seeing a lot of these days is people saying He gave it to myself. Yuck. Where did this come from? He gave it to me. But it gets tricky and even people who really should know better screw up when there’s another person involved—when they insert another person or pronoun, all hell breaks loose. He gave the ball to Jim and me. Not Jim and I. The way to test this is to mentally remove the other person. You wouldn’t say He gave the ball to I, would you? Of course not—and that’s your little test.
8. e. versus e.g. i.e. means basically. e.g. means for example.
9. Its vs it’s. This is an easy one and I can’t figure out why people screw this one up so badly because they’re really not even closely related. It’s is a contraction that means it is. Its shows possession. Its owner, its alignment, etc. This is one of the worse. It’s so lame.
10. Here’s one that trips up a lot of people who think they’re so smart. Words like neither, either and none are singular, which means they get singular verbs. What makes them tricky is that there’s often a prepositional phrase thrown in there to complicate things. Neither of them is safe. Mentally take out the prepositional phrase, of them, and you end up with Neither is.

Becoming a better writer: become a better reader

Someone asked me one time how to be a better writer. My answer was to be a better reader. Start noticing good writing and sentence structure. Pay attention to those whose writing you admire, the way it gets your attention and keeps it—because that’s what it’s all about. It doesn’t have to be anything stuffy—what are your favorite bloggers or sports columnists writing about? I’m a huge sports fan and I never miss Scott Ostler’s or Ann Killian’s columns. They’re savvy, smart and write with humor and heart. Best of all, they have opinions. Don’t be afraid to share your own. Those who agree with you will love you even more.

Need help with your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

P&G’s #LikeAGirl campaign: Marketing That Tells a Story

Everyone’s panning advertising. Millions of cellphone users have installed adblockers. PPC conversion stats are dismal. The old model is falling from favor. These days, it’s all about connecting and building relationships. Good marketing tells a story—a superb way to connect with an audience.

You have to hand it to Procter & Gamble . . .

They’ve done a brilliant job of harnessing the Olympic momentum and celebrating women athletes with their #LikeAGirl campaign. It’s a sad fact that, while many young girls participate in a wide variety of sports—softball, basketball, soccer, swimming and gymnastics-- confidence for many plummets at puberty and half of them drop out of these sports programs. This is a tragedy on many levels. Kids who are involved in sports form strong relationships that can last for a lifetime. They learn important life skills—how to be part a team, how to compete, how to win and lose. And of course, as P&G points out, sports helps instill confidence in these young female athletes—something they’re going to desperately need as they get older and deal with the world we’re leaving them.

A video of young girls playing nontraditional women’s sports

The video interviews young girls playing sports—particularly those sports that have been traditionally considered suitable for men—weightlifting, boxing and rugby. These young girls clearly think that girls should not only be able to play rugby—a very rough sport—but also be captain of the team!  

P&G calls for Olympic athletes and organizing committees to inspire a world where “every girl truly feels that she can play sports and will Keep Playing #LikeAGirl.” Of course this is a plug for Always feminine products, but the message is heartfelt and timely, and it’s never been more relevant.

A new tagline for Always: Rewrite the Rules

While this is an excellent example of marketing as a story, it also shows a big brand’s stepping up to support—or create a cause. One final note—for this campaign, Always has added a new tagline: “Rewrite the Rules”. I’d love to see P&G turning this into a real cause—not just a one-off ad campaign.

Do you need help with your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts.

Should You Be Outsourcing Your Content Marketing Program?

Outsourcing is a growing trend across industries, for companies of all sizes. It makes sense on a number of levels.

1. A cyclical economy. Regardless of industry, there are always going to be dips when staff layoffs become necessary. Severing a relationship becomes much easier when there isn’t the long-term investment that accompanies full-time employment.
2. A cost-effective solution. According to a survey conducted by Northwest Staffing Resources, an employee can cost approximately 57% more than the stated wage due to the cost of benefits and the amount of time they’re actually focused and on-task. A $50K employee could actually cost the company almost $78,500/year. An outsourced contractor, on the other hand, can often provide a higher level of expertise for a much lower cost—an estimated $36,000 per year, for example.
3. A higher level of expertise and efficiency. For the monthly fee, the client receives a higher level of expertise since the contractor brings experience from a variety of client situations. The work is done in much less time because there aren’t the normal distractions of an internal employee, such as routine staff meetings and vacations.
4. Access to skilled resources. Recruiting and training are significant workforce investments. It can take months before an employee is really producing at a high level. But when your highly trained employees leave after intensive training, your ROI plummets. With contractors, you get those same skilled workers performing at a high level, but someone else has put in the time and expense to train them.

Business owners may be the experts, but that doesn’t mean they can write about it

When it comes to a company’s content marketing program—blogs, website content, email blasts and social media posts—many business owners are reluctant to outsource these efforts because they believe that they’re the experts. They’re the ones who know their business. And they’re absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean they can write about it.

As a writer and content marketing expert, one of the best examples I run into is developing website content. Business owners become adamant about writing their own content. The problem is that they’re often poor writers and they have their day jobs. Writing content for websites is a skill. It requires being able to organize information and a writing technique that’s different from other writing formats. When companies insist that they’ll provide the content, these web projects often completely stall. When they work with a writer, the projects stay on track and meet deliverable dates.

Other business owners worry that if they outsource their content, they’ll lose control

They’re concerned that with an outsourced solution, a professional writer won’t be able to match their voice and brand. But that’s nonsense—a professional writer is trained to be able to work with a wide range of brands. We’re intuitive and smart. We work hard to understand the nuances of the businesses about which we’re writing. We get it right the first time. We save time by coming up with good content that needs just a quick review and approval—not massive edits and rewrites.

Good marketing—and good content–isn’t just about marketing, it tells a story

It captures the audience’s attention, relating with them on some level, and transferring knowledge or compelling action. We work hard to follow industry news and people, making blogs and other posts relevant for our audiences. We look at the big picture, creating editorial calendars to identify important holidays, dates and events that we should be leveraging in our blogs and social media posts. Chances are that your internal team, especially if it’s not a dedicated content marketing team but a haphazardly appointed group that deals with content marketing when they can, is not doing this. The result: the entire effort often falls apart. Content marketing, to be effective, needs to be steady and consistent; it should inform and entertain, help people do their jobs.

To keep in mind: Outsourced content providers don’t work in a vacuum. We’re careful about review and approval cycles, keeping our editorial calendars updated, making sure that we’re checking in regularly with our business unit partners. Best of all, we prepare reports to show that what we’re doing is working.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts.