Content Marketing: 3 E's to Include When Writing

(Note: Patsi's on vacation this week. What follows is a series of blog posts about better business blog writing, originally published in Spring, 2008.)

Content Marketing Goals: 3 E's to Pay Attention To

Keep these 3 E's in mind when reviewing your content. Your blog posts, ezine articles, and even your sales copy should meet these three goals:

1. Does it educate?
2. Does it entertain?
3. Does it engage?

I'm sure I didn't originate this easy to remember formula; it just flew out of my mouth when I was on stage yesterday at Tom Antion's Butt Camp for Internet Marketing. Denise and I were giving an overview of what goes into better business blogging to 50 professionals at the LA Chapter of the National Speakers Association.

Some content you write for your business will educate clients (ebooks, mini-courses, special reports and white papers), some will entertain (blog posts, articles, interviews), and some will be specifically written to engage readers (sales copy, landing pages, email promotions).

If you can include all three elements in your writing, you're on the right track. "Okay, Patsi, that makes sense," you might well be saying, "...but HOW do you do that?" Here's my stab at giving you a few tips...

Keep these 3 E's in mind when reviewing your content. Your blog posts, ezine articles, and even your sales copy should meet these three goals:

1. Does it educate?
2. Does it entertain?
3. Does it engage?

I'm sure I didn't originate this easy to remember formula; it just flew out of my mouth when I was on stage yesterday at Tom Antion's Butt Camp for Internet Marketing. Denise and I were giving an overview of what goes into better business blogging to 50 professionals at the LA Chapter of the National Speakers Association.

Some content you write for your business will educate clients (ebooks, mini-courses, special reports and white papers), some will entertain (blog posts, articles, interviews), and some will be specifically written to engage readers (sales copy, landing pages, email promotions).

If you can include all three elements in your writing, you're on the right track. "Okay, Patsi, that makes sense," you might well be saying, "...but HOW do you do that?" Here's my stab at giving you a few tips...

Educate: Anytime you can include 3-5 tips or key points you are educating readers. Always include benefits, how their lives will be better by knowing and following your tips. Example: this post is about the 3 E's in content marketing.

When you educate, entertain and engage readers with your content, you are gaining their trust, building your credibility and paving the way for them to become loyal customers.

Entertain: This is the hard part for me, and I'm getting better. Include stories from real life. Tell a story about someone who used these tips and what happened. Here's an example from two of Tom's own sales letters that shows how pure content outsells graphics 4 to 1.

He wrote an "advertorial" or page that tells some stories about public speaking. It is all text, no pictures, just a few links at the bottom to buy his public speaking program.

He also wrote a traditional sales page for the public speaking training program, with color pictures of the product.

Guess which page sells the most product? The one with all text, no pictures. Why? Because it draws the reader in with stories, and once the reader is engaged with Tom's writing, they learn more about why they need his program.

The advertorial outsells the sales page four times.

That's the advantage of writing copy that entertains and educates: it's more engaging. People begin to trust the author, and will let themselves become influenced and persuaded.

Engaged: By now, if you've read this far, it's because you've become engaged in my story and examples, and Tom's advertorial that got 4 times more sales.

There are many ways to engage readers, and by far, this is the hardest to achieve. It's what happens when your content works. Readers call, email, or click to buy. But I'll write more about that another day.

In the meantime, please contribute your own examples of content that works for you because it educates, entertains, or engages.

Educate: Anytime you can include 3-5 tips or key points you are educating readers. Always include benefits, how their lives will be better by knowing and following your tips. Example: this post is about the 3 E's in content marketing.

When you educate, entertain and engage readers with your content, you are gaining their trust, building your credibility and paving the way for them to become loyal customers.

Entertain: This is the hard part for me, and I'm getting better. Include stories from real life. Tell a story about someone who used these tips and what happened. Here's an example from two of Tom's own sales letters that shows how pure content outsells graphics 4 to 1.

He wrote an "advertorial" or page that tells some stories about public speaking. It is all text, no pictures, just a few links at the bottom to buy his public speaking program.

He also wrote a traditional sales page for the public speaking training program, with color pictures of the product.

Guess which page sells the most product? The one with all text, no pictures. Why? Because it draws the reader in with stories, and once the reader is engaged with Tom's writing, they learn more about why they need his program.

The advertorial outsells the sales page four times.

That's the advantage of writing copy that entertains and educates: it's more engaging. People begin to trust the author, and will let themselves become influenced and persuaded.

Engaged: By now, if you've read this far, it's because you've become engaged in my story and examples, and Tom's advertorial that got 4 times more sales.

There are many ways to engage readers, and by far, this is the hardest to achieve. It's what happens when your content works. Readers call, email, or click to buy. But I'll write more about that another day.

In the meantime, please contribute your own examples of content that works for you because it educates, entertains, or engages.

Comments

[ShriNagesh]

Great post. I'm more a tech writer than a narrative writer. Clearly, writing an entertaining educative post has been a challenge for me so far.

I'd like to include another 'E' for Elucidate. People with varied degree of mileage read blogs. Writing posts that chalk out a solution to a problem in a concise way, and makes them go "Aha!", are important.

[Mark Nagurski]

Hi Patsi,

I completely agree with your three points but wonder which comes first - the old chicken and egg question.

If you educate and entertain then there's a decent chance that your marketing will be engaging - precisely because it entertains and educates.

Similarly, if you want to engage, you'll be hard pressed to do that without educating or entertaining. Why else would someone read what you've written?

Personally I start with the goal of engagement and work my way back from there - how will I engage my readers on this topic?

Doing all three is certainly the goal but which do you think should be the priority?

[dr-patsi]

Shri, I can only say "Ahi!" Elucidate is a good one, nice. Thanks for that. Yes, the entertaining part is challenging for us all!

Mark, not all questions you ask readers are educating or entertaining, but they are designed to engage their interests. I suppose it doesn't matter which comes first or is a priority. I usually start with what I intend to write and then ask myself before publishing if I've covered the other E's.

Since writing this post I added a 4th E: try to enrich the lives of your readers. If you can save them time, money or energy or in someways enlighten their paths, you've hit a home run.

I shall continue my vacation here in Mexico now...;-)!

Patsi

[dr-patsi]

I'm publishing a post on Wednesday, 12/3, about how to entertain readers. This is important to anyone in any field. Shri, you might want to come back to read this for learning how to entertain readers in the tech field.

Patsi