Maximising the value of your copy
If your copy’s going to deliver on its purpose, the information flow has to align with your audience’s journey. With everything presented in the right position and context for where they’re at. Mapping out your content before the copywriting begins is the best way to avoid confusion and maintain attention.
Logical
What’s obvious to you may be news to your audience. There’s no sense in bombarding them with details when there’s a chance they don’t know the basics. You need to be sure everything they might need or want to know is accessible.
Relevant
Every piece of content needs to be there for a tangible reason. Reaching towards your goals while being aligned with what your audience cares about. What’s important to you may not necessarily be of interest to them.
Easy to navigate
Different individuals may be interested in exploring different content. You need to provide easy pathways for them to do this and return to base when they want to, without getting lost in a navigational maze.
Credible
Enticing headlines can do more harm than good if their claims aren’t substantiated. If you’re going to draw people in with a promise, you need to be sure you can deliver on it.
Purpose focussed
Every material you produce should serve a defined purpose within your overall strategy. Whether that’s to develop engagement or trigger action, focus needs to be maintained on guiding your audience to the next stage.
Manageable
The more you have to say, the more disciplined you need to be. Content has to be divided into easily digestible segments which are grouped for logical navigation. So your audience can learn and discover at their own pace.
Everything needs a plan
Whether you’re creating a complex website, an individual press release or anything in between, every communication you make is part of a bigger story. Your audience’s reaction feeds into your organisation’s ecosystem, so you need to be sure you’re guiding them in a beneficial direction.
Content planning is about ensuring the substance and context of your content is aligned with both your goals and your audience’s expectations, at every point. So every material you produce adds tangible value, whether you’re trying to sell, advise, instruct, generate enthusiasm or build a following.
A few well-positioned words can embed a brand in the minds of millions
More than words
A photograph can speak a thousand words. Which country does this make you think of?
Content isn’t just words. It’s also what you communicate in images, videos and sound.
Although I’m not the one who’ll create those other elements, I can be involved in writing labels, captions, voice over scripts and subtitles.
When you have a mix of content, I’ll ensure good relevance and synergy between text and visuals. Avoiding unnecessary duplication and making sure everything fits together in a complementary way.
Miriam Young – your content planner
Content planning is the foundation of copywriting. And is just as challenging to get right when you’re too close to the action. Although clients rarely come to me with this in mind, we often discover it’s where we need to start.
I’ll get all your facts and ambitions on the table, establish what binds them together and sort them into a logical structure. I’ll bring effective discipline to how your information, emotive triggers and calls to action are presented. While ruthlessly questioning anything that doesn’t appear to have a place and calling out gaps in your narrative.
Why me? Having held positions of responsibility in sales, marketing, PR and production over the years, I’m familiar with how all the pieces have to fit together. From both a practical business and an audience empathy perspective. My obsessively logical brain just loves solving this puzzle. While my creative side rises to the challenge of executing it with flair.
Failure to plan ahead by bringing proof of age to this Oklahoma bar nearly resulted in a brush with the law. Let’s make sure your content is better prepared!
Other disciplines
