Last week we told you how to reel your reader in, and how to keep them hooked on your writing.
If you haven’t checked it out, it’s here: https://www.jumpstartmarketingsolutions.com/post/how-your-writing-turns-clicks-into-clients
If you follow our advice, your content will look the part. It will be easy to read and you won’t scare your reader away with a big block of text.
Now we need to keep our reader here. Your writing needs to be like nectar, so good that they can’t get enough of it.
So how do we do that?
It’s the same as speaking to a friend in a bar.
This is the bar test.
Take this example:
“Being a business owner is extremely difficult, and you need the best social media strategies around you to ensure that you have digital success as well as physical success. If people don't know what you do then they won’t reach out to you for your services. That’s why you should choose us to manage your social media as we will guarantee you more engagement and so you can focus on other aspects of your new business. We have a very specific strategy that we will follow that will actually allow us to gain more clients and make more sales blah blah blah.”
If you don’t manage to get through that without your eyes glazing over, we won’t blame you.
If we posted that for Jumpstart Marketing, well there would be no point because no one would read it.
More importantly, it doesn’t pass the bar test.
“So what is this magic bar test”
It is an undefeated test that has been used for centuries and will continue to be used for centuries more.
Even if all bars cease to exist, this test will still work. As long as humans exist, you can use it to dramatically improve your writing.
Here’s how to use it:
You look at a piece of text you want to post, and you ask yourself:
Would I actually say this to a human being in a conversation?
It’s a simple test - but it works every single time.
Let’s take this sentence:
“As a business owner, your job is to solve problems. That is the basic premise that businesses have worked from for all of time, but you can’t solve problems if people don’t know if you even exist”
In a real-life conversation, it would sound something like this:
“Most business owners know they solve problems for a living. But that’s hard to do if people don’t know you exist right?”
See how that makes more sense? See how much easier it is to read?
If someone said the first sentence to you in a bar, you would definitely wonder if you were talking to a robot.
The second sentence sounds like you’re talking to an actual human.
There’s a quick and easy way to fix your writing using this test.
It will sound simple and also a bit childish, but trust me, once you try it you’ll be hooked.
Read your writing out loud.
You will see where it flows, where it stumbles, where it sounds robotic. You can see if you would actually speak like that to a human.
You can pretend you are speaking to a friend, and you will see a whole host of things you can change.
Here’s one final example:
“Most business owners don’t even think about the power of social media and the great opportunities it can present to their businesses, let alone think about the fact that social media can help you gain many more clients and target people who are interested in your business.”
That is a 47-word sentence. If you read that out loud you would realise that it drones on and it sounds like you are waffling.
You would see that you need a full stop in there somewhere.
A conversation should have a flow. Some sentences are long, some are short.
Like this one. Only three words.
Get into this habit. It will change your writing for the better. I can guarantee it.
Apply this advice to your content and see how much more attention and responses you get.
Talk soon,
Jamie
P.S. Want me to check, rewrite and improve your writing using the techniques we’ve spoken about?
Get in touch by filling out the contact form on our website. If we’re a good fit then I will take a look at your company and your marketing, and tell you what could be done differently.
No cost, no obligation.
Sounds good? The link to the form is below:
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