The Art of Persuasive Content: Three Ingredients and Five Steps to Better Content
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
5 likes•1,469 views
Why does one blog post succeed while another on the same topic disappears without trace? And what does 'good writing' mean anyway? From Aristotle to zombies (yes, zombies), learn how the art of rhetoric can help you to develop, commission and produce more effective and persuasive content.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Featured
Featured (20)
The Art of Persuasive Content: Three Ingredients and Five Steps to Better Content
- 1. THE ART OF PERSUASIVE CONTENT: Three Ingredients and Five Steps To Better Content Jonathan Crossfield Storyteller • @Kimota
Editor's Notes
- I came into content marketing from a writing background. I trained as a scriptwriter and as a journalist before stumbling into copywriting just as social media and SEO and content marketing were taking off. And that means I come at content marketing from a different direction to many other marketers I’ve been fascinated for ages about understanding how a reader can be motivated to do something by one piece of content while the same reader might only be mildly distracted by another piece of content – even if they contain the same raw information We instinctively know in our gut when one piece of writing is just better than another. I wanted to go beyond instinct and gut feel and turn that knowledge into every day practice. So as a writer, I saw it as my duty to dig deeper.
- But what if you’re not a writer? Should you even care about these techniques? After all, like many content marketers you probably pay someone else to do the actual writing of your content. Surely understanding all this is their job. How many of you are content writers? And how many are content managers —in control of the strategy but commissioning and managing other people to write and produce the content?
- If brands are truly becoming publishers – and they are – then content managers are like the commissioning or managing editor. A newspaper editor knows the fundamentals of what makes a great front page story, even if they outsource the reporting itself to journalists. And that means they’re not just relying on hope or a gut feel when choosing stories or approving or rejecting copy. You don’t all need to become writers, but you need to be able to recognise good writing and good content and know why. You also need to recognise bad or mediocre content because that isn’t going to do anything for your strategy. And although you might not have the professional writing skills to fix it, you might be able to recognise what’s missing so it can be fixed.
- Writing is both an art AND a science. We know that stories have a structure, for example. And to deviate from that structure will often result in a film or novel that is somehow less satisfying or less memorable or – more likely – never published. My intention here is to reveal some of the algebra,
- We also have to remember that we are in the persuasion business. Our content actually has to achieve something, so the algebra we use needs to help us to achieve that goal. Robert Rose made this point very strongly at this event last year, and I was surprised to see so many marketers rejecting the point on Twitter. The truth should be persuasive enough, one said. Surely, being authentic is more important, said another. And so on.
- But marketing isn’t about truth. It uses, facts, and yes those facts have to be accurate. But, contrary to popular belief, the facts do not speak for themselves. There is always context. When a potential customer is comparing Brand X with Brand Y, is the decision based on truth or on which brand has made a more persuasive argument based on the facts it has chosen to focus on and the inferences those facts create in the mind of the reader? Some marketers seem to resist the idea of persuasion as somehow negative or manipulative. But it is how we communicate every day. I’m trying to persuade you now by making an argument about persuasion. You possibly had to persuade people to come here to this conference, whether it was your boss or your partner. If you’ve ever asked someone out on a date, you’ve used persuasion. Like the force in Star Wars, some people can use it to turn to the dark side. But the Force itself is neutral. It’s how we use the tools at our disposal that determine whether we’ve gone to the dark side or not.
- So this is where we take a trip back to Ancient Greece. They did all this work in the 5th Century BC, two and a half thousand years ago. They worked out and documented the various techniques and structures that make a speech or a piece of writing more memorable, more motivating, more persuasive. Cicero, Plato, Aristotle and others all understood that some people were just better at winning a debate or persuading an audience with a speech and set about understanding why that was. This became the study of rhetoric. And it is works in exactly the same way today. In fact, we still use most of the same rhetorical techniques and devices today without realising. Whatever the language, whether your speaking to the Roman senate or writing a blog post, the same techniques can be spotted. Plato was very against the sophist idea of rhetoric, saying that it was designed to create “belief without knowledge”. And certainly it is used that way every day. You just need to watch a politician at work or someone hammering an agenda without the facts to back it up. But his student Aristotle expanded on the theories of rhetoric so that thy didn’t have to be at war with knowledge, giving logical argument an important place within it – which is why my approach to rhetoric is based on Aristotle’s. In fact, until about hundred or so year ago, rhetoric was one of the foundations of any schoolboy’s education, alongside logic and grammar. Anyone who was lucky to get an education back then left school equipped to use facts to reason out insights, and the linguistic tools with which to communicate and persuade others. Of course this also made them more skilled in seeing through the empty rhetoric of others or to distinguish between a solid argument and one that falls apart on analysis. If only this was still the bedrock of a modern education, the anti-vaccers would never have got off the ground and climate change wouldn’t be open for debate because no one would let someone get away with such poor logic or weak arguments.
- Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address is only 270 words long, but his use of rhetoric made it one of the most influential speeches in US history. Except, Lincoln didn’t give the Gettysburg Address. That honour fell to Edward Everrett, who was regarded a one of the greatest orators of the time and spoke for two hours. Lincoln was added to the proceedings much later, which is why he followed Everrett and four other speakers, much lower down on the bill, and was there merely to give some ‘dedicatory remarks’. Yet in two minutes, and 270 words, Lincoln changed American history. Today, Americans are taught that the Civil War was fought over slavery. At the time, that wasn’t what was commonly believed There were a myriad of factors that led to the war, but Lincoln chose to give a persuasive argument that framed the entire conflict as a war over the equality of all men. In short, he used his speech to put forward a proposition and used rhetoric to persuade all who heard him – or later read the transcripts of his speech – that his proposition was correct. He completely reframed the political debate and gave a terrible war a noble purpose that is still celebrated today. It was a short speech, but it contains all of the key ingredients. Virtually every line, every word, employs a rhetorical technique designed to carry the listener or reader. It also builds upon what Aristotle described as the three appeals or three proofs of rhetoric.
- Aristotle’s approach is particularly useful because it breaks down in ways that can be easily adapted with a bit of creativity to fit a content marketing process. But before we get to the five steps, we need to cover Aristotle’s three appeals of rhetoric. These are the three pillars on which any good speech, or any great piece of content will stand. Maybe to differing ratios, but when a piece of content knocks your socks off, I’ll bet you can spot these three ingredients in there. If your gut tells you that the piece of content is somehow lacking a certain something… that something is most likely one or more of these.
- * There is no particular priority to these because they are equally important. But Ethos does go beyond the page itself * This is your credibility as a speaker or as the name or brand behind the content. But it’s more than that. It’s your relationship with the audience. Are you “one of us” or are you someone I’m not going to credit with authority on this topic. I used Ethos at the very beginning of this talk when I mentioned my background as a writer. That’s telling you that I know a bit about writing good content. But I’ve also talked about my experiences and observations as a marketer, which hopefully many of you relate to and therefore see me as one of you, worthy of listening to on this topic. Not surprisingly, storytelling works best when there’s a powerful ethos, when the audience identifies with the main character. It’s why case studies should work, by telling stories of people that the reader can identify as similar to them, making the content more relevant to their situation.
- Logos is the argument you’re making. Never mind truth. This is about using the information and evidence to build a convincing series of points that the audience will find reasonable. A courtroom is a perfect example. We talk about courts trying to find the truth behind a crime, but they do that by arguing both for and against, based on the same set of available facts. Again, if the facts spoke for themselves, why would we need lawyers and judges and juries? No, both the prosecution and defence put forward an argument to persuade the jury that the defendant is either innocent or guilty. Our content might not be trying to achieve anything quite as serious, but we’re still putting forward a position, arguing a case. And this argument can be different depending on the target audience. You may use a completely different set of points to convince your boss that you need to come to content marketing work than you did to your partner.
- Pathos is the passion, the emotion in your content. And it doesn’t have to be sad or misery either. That’s a more modern misuse of the word. It can be delight, laughter, fear, sympathy whatever is appropriate. But there needs to be an emotional spine to your content. Psychologically speaking, we make decisions based far more on emotion than we like to think. So many studies have shown this. We might think we bought that flat screen TV based on a cold, rational study of the various specifications, but that’s post rationalisation. Plus we remember emotional responses more than we do cold information. We remember when something moved us. But we become bored when we’re presented with information devoid of any emotional attachment.
- So those three appeals are essential ingredients. But there’s still a lot more that has to happen for our content to get out there and for it to be great. These are the five parts of rhetoric. These were originally described by Aristotle to describe the five stages involved in a great speech, which I’ve adjusted to fit content marketing. Back then there was no printing, so oratory and debate in the senate was pretty much the sole domain of rhetoric. But by understanding the principles behind each, we can fit them into a working content marketing process.
- The first step is INVENTION. Gotta start with an idea. This stage also includes doing the research and gathering the information. The two things usually go hand in hand. Doing the research often reveals whatever it is you need to say. You can’t have insights before getting the data.
- So yes, we’re talking about the creative process here. For me, as it is for Stephen King, it is almost always as simple as taking two ideas and combining them to make a fresh third idea. Unfortunately, a lot of content marketing I see stops with one idea, producing quite literal content that doesn’t necessarily add anything new. I do a lot of work with hosting companies and it appals me how much content in that industry is the same wherever I go. Every blog has a similar list of articles, covering the same information. So how do you make that information fresh? The juxtaposition of ideas is where the magic lies. It’s one reason why I don’t read may marketing books these days. That’s the echo chamber. Instead, creativity hits when I’m reading Frankenstein, say and I suddenly see how I can use Frankenstein as an analogy to make a point about repurposing content can sometimes have very bad results – stitching together old content to produce something new that somehow lost it’s soul along the way. I always read with my ipad next to me and the Notebook app open, because when these ideas hit, I need to jot them down.
- This is one of my favourite piece of marketing content from the last couple of years. It’s from Sungard Availability Systems in the US and was released in time for Halloween. It went on to win creative awards in 2013. I love it because it perfectly illustrates the five stages of rhetoric, starting with invention. The idea came up as Halloween was approaching and World War Z had just been at the cinema. Walking Dead had become one of the biggest shows on TV – basically, zombies were hot. They combined the information they wanted to impart with the elements of a good zombie tale. This created something fresh and highly memorable. This idea also demonstrated the three appeals very effectively. Ethos is shown by tapping into the same cultural references as their audience. IT guys are usually geeks about this kind of stuff. It creates an analogy that allows them to demonstrate Logos, forming a persuasive argument for the need for enterprise disaster recovery services. And it has oodles of pathos by being highly entertaining while also tapping into the fears of what can happen should disaster strike.
- The other thing to mention here is about the research we do. So many stats are bogus. They’re just too vague to have any value and don’t adequately back up the case. I remember a couple of years ago a piece of research came out saying how 75% of Facebook users said they had been influenced by brands on Facebook. So there was lots of discussion about how brands should use Facebook more. But what if your brand is not represented in that 75%? The data in the report was so broad that it was virtually useless in making any persuasive point to a specific audience. Now if the stat broke it down more, so that the toilet paper manufacturer could see whether there was any compelling reason for them to use Facebook, then that would be different. But instead, broad and meaningless stats were used to back up spurious arguments. The other point to make here is about sources. Ive lost count of the times I’ve seen a stat or a fact quoted in blogs and in social media, but can’t for the life of me trace it back to any original source. I wanted to use a stat about the way we read on the web differently from reading print – it was something like how 89% of people only scan webpages – but I couldn’t find the source. It may well be true, but I’m not going to attach my reputation to guesswork. Where’s the research paper or person who first proved the fact? Providing sources – and reputable ones at that – backs up the Logos of your argument with the Ethos of credibility.
- The second stage is Arrangement, taking your information, and forming the various points of your argument to make the most convincing case What do you leave out and what do you keep in? How does one point lead to the next, building upon each other to take the audience to an inevitable conclusion?
- Yes, every presentation has to have the obligatory storytelling slide Each fact or point you are making becomes like a scene in a narrative. The ordering of those scenes can dramatically change the possible interpretation. Each leads on from the previous point, like breadcrumbs, taking the reader or viewer to a seemingly unavoidable conclusion. The way our brains are wired means we make inferences based on the order we receive information. We are not passive receivers of information but are constantly interpreting connections, seeing connections and finding patterns between otherwise seemingly unconnected things. Hence why so many people are superstitious. – their brains have formed a cause and effect connection between wearing those lucky underpants and winning on the pokies, or whatever it is. We see cause and effect everywhere. We’re wired to interpret every fact within the context of everything that led up to it and follows from it. We have real trouble interpreting information in isolation. Comics are a classic example. Each comic frame is a single fact or depiction of a single moment. We read all kinds of things into the gaps between the panels to connect these single moments into a continuous narrative. Change the order of those panels and the story we infer from them will be completely different.
- So plot out your argument and your facts. Get out the index cards or start a bullet point list. I often start articles as a series of bullet points to quickly put the points I want to make on paper and then rearrange them until I have a logical structure I can then flesh out into the final piece However, this stage can overlap with the first. Sometimes arrangement and Invention can be entwined. Sometimes a strong idea just isn’t coming fast enough – and we all have deadlines, just start writing. If I know I have to write my magazine column or a blog post but I’m not quite sure what my argument will be yet – maybe I only have a topic – I just start writing and brain-dumping onto paper. Sometimes bullet points to cover everything I know and every opinion I have about a topic. It’s amazing how sometimes the act of putting things on paper can crystallise them. Usually something will pop out of me. A bullet point or phrase will leap out and I see “wow, that could make a cool analogy” or “That’s the most important point and no one else is making it” Then I can go back through, cut out the points that are no longer relevant to this argument and fleshing out the point I want to make, finishing off the Arrangement I find this a more time consuming and less efficient way to work, but it’s better than letting the clock tick by without an idea to start with. At this point, the quality of writing isn’t important at all. If you’re commissioning someone else, this is the background to your brief. If you’re writing it yourself, this is the structure you’ll work from.
- So Sungard have come up with a great analogy. The next stage was mapping the information they wanted to impart against the idea. How does the zombie apocalypse follow the same steps as a business disaster recovery process? This is where they would arrange those points to make the analogy fit Only then does the real writing begin
- If you’ve done the first two stages well, this stage is about fleshing out that content plan with stylish and effective language. But there’s still a lot to be done. The problem is that often it is assumed that the freelance writer or agency will do those previous stages as well. They get a brief saying to write an article on X topic or an ebook on Y. And they’ll meet that brief. But what’s in it for them to deliver more than that? What’s in it for them – particularly if you’re not paying a premium – for them to look for wildly creative new ways of presenting that content that you haven’t asked for? Keeping your business by exceeding expectations? You might think so, but there’s no shortage of clients right now. And why would I want to overdeliver and then have an expectation of delivering the same every time at a rate that doesn’t merit it? And I can tell you now, the rates most brands pay doesn’t merit it. So if you want to outsource the first two stages as well as the third, then you need to negotiate that and be prepared to pay more. If you don’t want to pay then you need to produce better briefs and have more sin in the game of coming up with ideas for winning content. And you know what? I think any brand should be more involved in coming up with the ideas and formulating the arguments. Otherwise, your content doesn’t represent your company’s expertise and creativity.
- But you don’t need a formal understanding of rhetoric to use it, just as a child of three can speak with near perfect grammar without ever knowing what a verb is. It is hard wired into language. Rhetoric merely codifies the various ways in which we use words to make a point. In fact, rhetoric is so instinctive, we often use it without realising – both in our own use of words and in our subjective memory of others. For example, the Tricolon is one of many, many rhetorical techniiques designed to make a sentence or phrase more memorable – and you probably use it almost every day quite naturally. ‘Ready, Steady, Go’, ‘Friends, romans, countrymen”. ‘An englishman, irishman and scotsman go into a bar. Three is just a more pleasing structure to our ear. Three is also the minimum number you need for rhythm. And this can lead us to retrospectively improve upon the words of others, often quite unknowingly. For example, the common phrase “Blood, sweat and tears’ is a classic tricolon, but it’s also a misquote from a famous political speech of Winston Churchill. In repeating the phrase, it became altered as people instinctively adjusted it to what sounded more correct – and even more importantly – more memorable. Rhetoric is full of hundreds of such stylistic techniques. But you don’t need to know them all. Many come naturally. But by understanding that there is a codified reason why something just reads or sounds better, we’re able to take our view of what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘mediocre’ writing and content out of the realms of mere gut feel. Rhetoric gives us a series of techniques to help us analyse and understand why a piece of content or writing works well, and gives us the tools with which to fix it it when it doesn’t.
- So – when adding word there are an absolute plethora of rhetorical techniques to help us to create memorable and persuasive phrases and passages. If you’re interested pick up a little handbook, there are plenty out there. I could spend the rest of the day discussing them but it would get very boring. But one aspect of style I want to discuss is Decorum. This isn’t meant in the same way many people use it today – being polite. Showing decorum literally means adjusting your behaviour and language to suit the audience. Some people are naturally good at this and can fit in equally with the boozy blokes at the footy as well as at a high end cocktail party. I love this example where Argos in the UK totally used Decorum when replying to an irate customer in Manchester. It might look like a piss-take, but it really isn’t. They really do speak like that in Moss Side. And the customer really liked the response. It made him feel understood. Argos was the same as him. So you can see here that Decorum is heavily wrapped up in Ethos too. We’re like you. We get you. We literally speak the same language. So let’s agree something right here and now. Let’s all agree to show a little decorum. Let’s stop producing white papers that read like an academic thesis unless – and it would be a rare brand this would apply to – unless we’re targeting university academics. Can we just use plain English please?
- There are many, many points I could make here when discussing style, but this is also important. Good writing rarely happens on the first draft. I know content marketers who are proud that they can knock out a blog post in half an hour. I’ve not read many that I would call anything more than mediocre though. I can’t help wondering if their content might be a whole lot better and way more effective if they actually spent a bit longer to do at least a second draft before pushing it online. Whenever possible, I will always sleep on it at least. I’ll write a blog post one day, and then go through it again the following day. It’s always amazing how much I want to change just after a few hours distance. Mistakes leap out at me that I just couldn’t see before. Better phrases pop into my head. Sometimes whole new points pop up that I can’t believe I missed (and I know others wouldn’t miss that point and would let me know in the comments) So this comes back to our expectations of deadlines and allowing enough time for a couple of drafts and revisions. It really is worth it. But so often we’re obsessed with get it out, get it out, that we’re publishing content that is still raw and unpolished. It’s a genuine missed opportunity that could so easily be solved with a little planning
- One of the reasons I love this content so much is the way it’s written. It takes the idea and the arranged points and uses fantastically evocative language to make it into such an entertaining read The idea could so easily be ruined by a writer lacking the skills to bring it to life. The sentences are punchy and full of puns. Even the call to action raises a smile: While you still have a brain, visit Sungard.com There is absolutely no way the writer behind this knocked it out in a couple of hours in a single draft. This is highly polished and hones until it’s razor sharp.
- Production is the next step and I’s so important you don’t get ahead of yourself with this Aristotle called the step ‘Memory’ because a speech didn’t get printed or filmed or designed. Once planned and written, the orator had to memorise it so it could be presented correctly. We don’t present our content in the same way and have many more channels involved in this step, hence memory is really the stage of Production. Adding the design, actually producing the content, printing the magazine, shooting the video, recording the podcast, and so on.
- Almost all channels will start with writing though. A video script or a discussion outline, ant some point tall three of the previous steps SHOULD have led to this point. I don’t want to labour this step too much, except to say that each format also has its own grammar and rhetoric. Video has its own rules about what works and doesn’t, not just thee words on the screen or being said. The way the shots are framed can convey all kinds of mood. The way it’s edited. The same goes for a blog post. There’s a best practice for how to lay out headings and subheadings to have the best impact,. The layout of a magazine or newsletter also is based on how the reader will take in the content and is designed to highlight and emphasise certain things. One point I do want to make here though is that too often this stage is started too early. To save time, the ebook template or layout is started before the first three steps have been completed – sometimes before they’ve even been started. The push to be productive means people are performing image searches before the words are written. People are booking video crews before the idea is there. Because they’ve decided they want a video. Because they’re too eager to wait.
- But imagine if the production of this ebook started before the first three steps were in place. Imagine if this was forced into a generic ebook template because the design was completed before the idea? Happens all the time. There’s a reason this is step 4. I can sometimes overlap with the previous stage if the brief is clear enough, but I would advise against any earlier. The difference can be stark. This won a creative content award in 2013 and its not hard to see why.
- When Aristotle called this final stage Delivery, he meant the performance of the speech. The gravitas in the voice, the pauses, the theatre of it. But delivery means a lot more to us today. This is how we get our content across to the audience. Social media, SEO, email and so on.
- Marketers focus a lot on Delivery. Weve become pretty good at it. Some are completely obsessed with it. How can I get more traffic to my content? Sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy do this very well, and that’s why there are so many marketing articles that seek to take lessons from them I have issues with Buzzfeed, particularly with the way it has been seen as an effective way to do content. Buzzfeed is the McDonalds of online content. We all go in there for a quick bite every now and then, but that doesn’t mean we should emulate its approach for our own gourmet restaurant. There’s a common belief going around at the moment that you shouldn’t give too much away in your social media as you need to make people curious enough to click through. That’s fine if the click is all you want. It works for Buzzfeed. But if you genuinely believe that it is possible to make your content redundant in a 140 character tweet, giving so much away that someone might no longer feel the need to click, then your content wasn’t that meaty to start with, was it. This approach to content is, I think, partly responsible for the explosion in ‘listicles’. I think listicles are a cancer on content marketing. They’re designed to persuade the click, and draw content in from social and SEO, but the actual content within them is usually so lightweight and cursory that it’s not going to persuade anyone much of anything.
- Listicles are almost always a single idea piece of content, which as we’ve already discussed isn’t being very creative at all And most listicles merely regurgitate information already available everywhere. I’ve seen so many business blogs filled with listicle articles that, if I pasted the titles into Google, I’d find loads of similar blog posts, probably from their competitors. They easy to produce and demand almost no creativity and virtually no skill fro a writer. They are a perfect example of content marketing that is being driven by the desire to maximise Delivery instead of maximising the persuasive quality of the content itself. Thing is, Delivery is the easiest step to skip. We can buy reach if we need to. But you can’t buy Invention or a good argument that represents your brand quite so easily. That’s where you need to invest more time and effort – not here. If the goal of your content is better SEO, you’re an SEO practitioner, Not a content marketer. If your goal is more social media followers and likes, you’re a social media marketer, not a content marketer. If your goal is to have something in your email newsletter, then you’re an email marketer, not a content marketer. If you’re a content marketer, Delivery has to come last in the process. It’s important - hugely so. But don’t; ever let it become the cart that pulled the horse.
- Sungard built upon their ebook concept with an infographic for various social channels as well as a Facebook promotion for a competition to win some tie-in zombie apocalypse stuff. This kind of social media campaign wouldn’t have been possible – it probably wouldn’t have even been dreamed up – if the social strategy preceded the content idea.
- So that’s three key ingredients and five steps to better and more persuasive content. Any questions?