3 Ways To Write Content To Captivate A Bored Audience (even if you’re not a copywriter)

Think of converting your content from grainy black and white to sparkling color.

“I want to give my audience solid information. After all, that’s why they’re in my audience, right? They want to get something from what I send them.

“But let’s face it. Every audience these days is jaded, bored, exhausted, and overwhelmed. So everybody’s advising me to entertain, captivate and engage.”

Many business owners feel they’re being asked to taking an old-fashioned black and white television and demand, “Show up in color!”

The television just doesn’t have the tubes to do it. It’s hard-wired at the factory. Black and white is that television’s destiny.

But your copy doesn’t get built the same way. You aren’t hard-wired to write dull, boring prose. You can open the back, move things around, and — there it is! Your ideas just came alive in Living Color.

The three techniques I use and recommend to my own clients are:

Storytelling

Stories keep listeners hooked because they want to hear how everything turned out. They allow you to promote yourself without bragging. Every online business owner should have a portfolio of 3 stories and an awareness of what makes storytelling work.

Metaphors

Metaphors are stories in capsule form. When you’re trying to explain what you do, who you are, or how you help people, it’s often useful to come up with a metaphor. For instance, I like to say that web development is like football, where the copywriter is the quarterback and the design team is the offensive line. (I say this a lot, so it’s probably not new to you.)

The problem with metaphors? You can overdo it. Or you can let the metaphor drive the strategy: I’ve done this myself, more than once.

Word Pictures

Instead of saying, “I organize your home so you can find everything,” you can say, “Imagine … you’ll never spend a minute or an hour looking for that…