How to Write Content That Grabs Your Reader's Attention

How do you write content that grabs your reader’s attention?

When I’m writing an article, or when I’m writing a blog post, or when I’m writing an email, I’m not thinking about a formula. I’m asking a question: “What’s the challenge?”

Why is someone reading your article?  They have to have a reason.  What’s their reason?

Again, they have a challenge.

Let’s say they’re reading a content piece that I’ve written on the easiest coaching program model in the world.  Why would someone read that?  Why would they respond to a post topic like that?  It would be because they have some interest in a coaching program.  So I assume that they’re already interested.  I ask myself what kind of problems they have:

Maybe they’re afraid that having a coaching program is really difficult.
It’s challenging.
It’s too hard.
There’s too many components to it.

If those are their challenges, I want to address those right away.

I want to say, “Hey, if you’re reading this post, maybe you’re struggling with the fact that you want to have a coaching program, but you don’t want it to be too much work.  You don’t want it to own your life.  You want it to be automated.  You want it to be easy.  And, so, in this post, I’m going to tell you how easy it can be.”

And, then, what am I going to do?  It’s just like a coffee shop.  I’m not going to use a formula.  I’m just going to tell you, just as if you and I were sitting across a table at a coffee shop, I’m just going use my content piece to tell you how easy it can be.

How do you close the content piece?  We wrap it up and we say, “Hey, if you like what I’ve shared with you, then I have a training program, and you can click here and buy it if you want to.”

If I’m writing a guest blog post, same thing.  I’m going to ask what’s the challenge for the person I’m writing to, and then I’m going to solve their challenge, and then maybe if I’m writing a guest blog post, instead of taking them to a sales page, I might say, “Hey, if you want to learn more from me, about coaching programs, you just go over to my web site.”  And then I list my web site, and they can come over, they can read articles, they can do whatever.

If I’m writing an e-mail, to my subscribers.  I’m going to ask myself, “What’s the problem, why am I writing this email?”  You see, if I don’t have a reason to write and email, there’s no sense in writing the email.

Let’s say I’m writing an email about writing an email campaign.  Here’s the subject line: Do you need a better email campaign in your business?

Who am I writing to?  I’m writing to people who are interested. Even though my whole list of people are going to receive that email, the only ones that are going to read it are going to be the ones that are intrigued by my subject line.

The only people that should be opening that email are the subset of the people on my list that are interested in writing an email campaign.  I already know that.  The only people that should be opening that are people that have challenges.  Because if they already know everything there is to know about writing an email campaign, they shouldn’t be reading my emails to find out how to write an email campaign!

I might just open the email up with, “Hey, are you struggling with writing that perfect email campaign that’s going to convert people to your way of thinking?  Are you struggling to write an email campaign that helps people become closer related to your thoughts, so that maybe they’ll buy from you?”

I’m entering their conversation right there, by asking the question, “Are you struggling with this?” If they’re not, they should just close the email, because they’re not a good fit for my email.  So then I might say, “If you’re struggling with that, here’s the thing, here’s 3 tips for making writing an email campaign easier.”

Notice it’s the same formula that I’m using for the article or post.  It’s: enter the conversation by asking some questions about the target person’s needs, tell them what they want to know, and then at the end of the email, I could say, “Hey, by the way, if you really want to take this to the next level, I have an email training program, the email mastery training program.  And, you just click here and you can get a copy of it, and you can start studying it tonight.”

These methods for creating great content really work to grab your reader’s attention because you’re immediately connecting with him or her and hinting that you know their problem – and you have a solution.  It’s powerful and it builds trust and relationship between you and a reader or prospect.