Writing Archives - Page 6 of 35 - The Attorney Marketing Center

The novelty effect and writing

July 22, 2022 by David M. Ward

A writer says that when he is blocked or stuck or unmotivated to work on or finish a piece, he knows he has to come at it with fresh eyes.

One way he does that is switch to a different “word processor”—computer or phone or tablet.

I do that, too. It works.

The author thinks it is the “novelty effect” which was first discovered in the 1930s during an experiment at a factory where researchers changed the lighting levels to see if it would improve the productivity of the workers.

When they raised the lighting level, productivity went up. When they lowered the level, it also went up.

Which told them it wasn’t the lighting, it was the novelty of the changed environment.

The author says, “It almost doesn’t matter what type of change you make to your work environment — just so long as you make a change. So long as it renders your work slightly askew, you get a novelty effect.“

I agree. Our brains like novelty. It helps us focus. This is true no matter what the task, project, or goal.

If you’re stuck, change something—about the task or how you do it. Changing the place, the tools, the time of day, the order of the steps—anything different can trigger the novelty effect and help you move forward.

For writing projects, another writer has an interesting idea. He says he does all his writing “one sentence per line”.

Sentence, hit return, next sentence.

(Note, this is for his eyes only. He doesn’t publish his writing like this.)

He’s been doing it this way for 20 years and cites several benefits to writing this way.

He doesn’t specifically mention the novelty effect, but the next time I’m stuck, I’m going to try it.

Filed Under: Productivity, Writing Tagged With: Novelty Effect, writers block

The 5-minute interview

June 30, 2022 by David M. Ward

If you like the idea of interviewing lawyers and other people with something to say, don’t be put off by the thought that an interview will take up a lot of time because it doesn’t have to—you can do everything via email.

Including “the interview”. No need to schedule anything or talk to anyone.

Step One: Email (or call if you want to), explain that you’d like to interview them for your blog or newsletter or book, tell them why you chose them and what they get out of it, e.g., exposure, supporting a good cause, etc.

And. . . tell them everything can be done via email and should only take a few minutes of their time.

Step Two: Once they agree, send them 5 to 10 questions and provide some context about your readers—what they do, what they know, what they want to know, and why this is important to them. Thank them for helping and give them a brief window of time to reply, say, a week or so.

Generally, don’t ask yes-or-no questions or questions that invite one or two-word answers. It’s an interview, not a survey. But don’t expect them to write long, detailed answers.

On the other hand, encourage them to add any additional information or thoughts they think your readers might like to know.

Ask for their bio or a link thereto so you can properly “introduce” them. Finally, ask if they have anything they want to promote or offer to your readers.

Step Three: When they respond, do a light edit, write your post (including their intro and offer), send them a copy and thank them again. When your post appears, email a link and yes, thank them again.

Because there’s always next time.

For more about email interviews, see my book

Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Writing

The problem with story telling

June 27, 2022 by David M. Ward

I once had a client who asked me to. . .

Yeah, a story.

You probably want to hear how it goes. But I’m not going to tell you that story right now, I’m going to give you some advice about story telling.

My first piece of advice is to do it. Put stories in your articles and presentations and conversations.

People love a good story, which means they’ll be more likely to read or listen to you when you tell one. They’ll be more likely to understand and remember your story, more than your other words, and remember you as the one who shared it with them.

Facts tell. Stories sell.

Second, talk about people your reader will relate to, and tell them three things:

What did they want? What did they do? What happened?

The essence of every story ever told.

Third, use “The Goldilocks Rule”: Not too much, not too little, just right.

People love stories, but they don’t have time to read them when they are impossibly long or there are too many in your emails or blog posts.

If they wanted to read a book, they’d read a book.

Which is why most of my emails and blog posts are short and sweet and yours should be, too.

The good news is that you can tell a good story in a few sentences.

Like the time a friend asked me to sign a letter she had written to her landlord, with my name and address typed at the top and filled with typos, and when I refused and told her I would write the letter, on my letterhead, she was hurt and thought I just wanted to ‘make money off her’.

One sentence.

I need one more sentence to tell you ‘what happened’.

What happened is she dropped the subject but never forgot that I ‘refused to help her’ (the way she wanted) and our friendship was never the same after that.

Stories don’t always have a happy ending.

Anyway, I’m done telling that story. I’ve got another one to tell you, but that will have to wait until next time.

If you related to my story, maybe remembered a time a friend or client asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, I’m pretty sure you’ll come back to hear another.

Which is what your readers will do when you tell them stories. But not too many or too long.

Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Content creation, Writing

Playing with words

June 23, 2022 by David M. Ward

Sometimes, I get an idea for a blog post, write it, and add a title. Sometimes, I start with a title and start writing without knowing what I want to say.

It’s all good. And sometimes, it’s a lot of fun.

The other day, I read the phrase, “Use it or lose it” which we’ve all heard a thousand times and thought I could use this as the title of a post about the value of practice and keeping your “instrument” well tuned.

I thought I might get a good article out of it. But I’m weird.

When I see a phrase like “Use it or lose it,” I play with the words. I turn them around, mix and match them with other words, punch the sentence in the face, kick it in the groin, and see what happens.

Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes, something interesting emerges and I use it.

In this case, I turned “Use it or lose it” into “Lose it or use it” and wrote about “losing” bad habits so you don’t use them and make bad things happen like alienating your clients.

And I got a pretty good article out of it. Arguably better than what I would have written had I stuck with the original meaning of the words.

If you’d like to add a creative spark to your writing, consider playing with your words. It can help you look at things differently and generate ideas you might never have thought of.

Try it. Go find a quote, aphorism, song or movie title, or other pop culture reference, and give it a poke in the eye. Twist and turn it and see what you come up.

If nothing else, you’ll come up with something original that people will notice and remember.

It works especially well when you start with something well known. Your readers will recognize something familiar in your title and be curious. Is this a typo? Is something missing? What’s this all about?

And read your article to find out.

If so, mission accomplished.

Email Marketing for Attorneys

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Writing

Murder your darlings

June 16, 2022 by David M. Ward

Relax, it’s a literary metaphor, suggesting that when you edit your writing you cut out some of your best passages, your ‘darlings,‘ to leave room for the even better ones.

Make your writing lean by removing the fat.

That’s good advice for everything we do. A romantic version of the Pareto Principle (aka, The 80/20 Rule)—prioritizing the “precious few” over the “trivial many”.

If you’re like me, things often take longer than they need to. Projects that might be completed in a weekend are still in the planning stages weeks or months down the road.

Sometimes, it is our inner perfectionist bedeviling us. Yeah, we should murder him, too.

But it might simply be we have too much on our plate.

The simple solution—do less.

When doing research, focus on the key cases and arguments. Give yourself two hours to distill the essentials, not two weeks to categorize the entire library.

With tasks and projects, choose a few (at a time) and put the rest on the back burner.

Use fewer tools or systems to do the job and don’t get seduced by productivity porn.

When we have fewer options, fewer things going on in our life, we can focus on the precious few and do them well.

We can accomplish more and have plenty of time to attend our darlings’ funeral.

If you only use one marketing strategy, make it this

Filed Under: Productivity, Writing Tagged With: 80/20 principle, pareto principle

If God wrote your blog post

May 27, 2022 by David M. Ward

You sit down with your favorite hot beverage, ready to write your blog post, only to find that it’s already written. You look at the blinking cursor and the words on the page and realize that during the night, God himself wrote your post.

What do you suppose the Lord would write? The eleventh commandment? A call for world peace? Would He demand something? Explain something? Promise something?

I don’t know. All I know is that whatever He wrote, it would be important. His words would be magnificent and would change the world forever.

I also know that anything you or I might write will never be that good, or that important.

What we write isn’t unimportant. We inform and inspire people. We help them gain clarity and make better decisions. But while we might like to think so, our blog posts and articles aren’t earth-shattering or history-making.

Most people will read what we write, learn something, smile or groan, and get on with their day.

So, if you haven’t written a blog post lately, if you’re on your 27th edit, if you’re searching for the perfect words for your perfect message, stop all that fussing, publish that sucker, and get on with your day.

Your worlds won’t change the world, although they might change the life of someone who reads them.

But don’t think about that or you’ll never get the thing done.

How to write blog posts that make the phone ring

Filed Under: Blogging, Content creation, Writing

How to make the law interesting to lay people

May 23, 2022 by David M. Ward

When you write or speak about the law to a lay audience, you have several objectives:

You want them to understand their problem, their risks, and their options
You want them to know why they should talk to a lawyer
You want them to see why the lawyer they should talk to (and hire) should be you
You want to inspire them to take the next step

Before you can do any of that, you have to get them to read or listen. You have to get their attention with your headline or title, and make your article or presentation interesting enough to compel them to take that next step.

Here are some guidelines for creating more interesting articles and presentations:

Talk about people more than concepts
Talk about cure more than prevention
Talk about benefits more than features
Talk less about the law and more about “what this means to you”
Don’t warm up; get to the point and stay there
Assume they don’t know much; don’t assume they know nothing
Talk to them, don’t lecture them; ask questions to bring them into the “conversation”
More show, less tell; use examples and analogies that are familiar to your audience
Get them to feel something; use dramatic stories
Minimize and/or explain jargon
Don’t write about history or precedent unless necessary
Don’t tell them everything; be thorough but not dispositive

How do you know you’ve done it right?

Your audience will ask questions or make an appointment or go to your blog and read more.

Watch your email, your phone, your stats, and your bank account. If your content is interesting, your numbers are growing.

Filed Under: Communication, Content creation, Presentations, Writing

If Ernest Hemingway wrote your blog

May 19, 2022 by David M. Ward

Hemingway was a master of lean writing. If he was in charge of your newsletter or blog, he would probably tell you that ‘less is more’—that you will often be more effective in your “story telling” and persuasion by writing fewer words.

As long as you choose the right words.

To prove his point, it was rumored that Hemingway wrote the following short story, consisting of only six words:

“For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

A powerful and poignant story that captures the readers’ imagination and makes them want to know more.

In just six words.

My posts and articles aren’t that brief, or that good, and I’m not suggesting you should use this as the standard for yours. My point is that your blog posts and articles can convey big ideas in small spaces.

A few hundred words are plenty. A few paragraphs might be all that you need.

Make most of your posts short enough that they can be read in a minute or two. If you use the right words, your readers will gobble them up and hunger for more.

How to write newsletters that bring in repeat business and referrals

Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Writing

6 things I learned from writing 2,853 blog posts

May 9, 2022 by David M. Ward

I’ve written a lot of blog posts and thought I’d share some things I’ve learned along the way, to encourage you to either start or re-start your blog:

It gets easier. The more you write, the easier it becomes to write—to find ideas, get the words down, edit, and publish. And the more you write, the better you get at writing, which helps with your other writing and speaking.
It gets faster. The more you write, the faster you get at writing. You can write and post something in less than 30 minutes and get on with your day.
Ideas are everywhere. Everything I read, everywhere I go, everyone I talk to provides me with ideas to write about. The idea for this post came from reading a similar post by a guy who started a blog to build his business.
You can write whatever you want and have fun with it. You don’t have to use your formal lawyer voice if you don’t want to, or spend time finding images, formatting, responding to comments, adding citations or links. Your blog, your rules.
Marketing gets easier. People find you—not just clients and customers, but people who want to interview you for their blog or podcast or present other opportunities (to speak, network, etc.).
It works. My blog brings me a steady stream of (free) traffic, subscribers, clients, and customers. Each post gets indexed and brings more of the same.

And, having a blog means you can also have a newsletter—just copy and paste your blog posts and email them to your list.

You can add a blog to your website or on a separate domain. You can start by posting a handful of articles or anything you’ve written in the past, or answer 5 or 10 frequently asked questions you get from prospective clients (or new clients).

The technology is easy. You can set up a blog in a matter of minutes. And your blog can help you Make the Phone Ring

Filed Under: Blogging, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Writing

How to convert more prospects into clients

May 3, 2022 by David M. Ward

Between you and a new client is your website. And your articles and blog posts, sales pages and other content. It’s the same on social media, in your presentations and interviews.

And if you do what many lawyers do, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

What do they do? They publish a lot of long-winded, heavy-handed, technical, and otherwise boring content.

And you can’t bore someone into becoming your client.

The solution is simple. Leave out the boring parts.

Edit, cut, simplify. Make your content and copy interesting and easier to read.

And make sure people want to read it by telegraphing your message.

When someone comes across something you wrote (or recorded), they should immediately know that your article or video is for them. Put benefits in the title or headline. Let them see what they’ll learn or get or be able to do if they invest a few minutes reading.

And I do mean a few minutes.

Long articles and copy have their place. But that place isn’t at the entrance to your website or sales funnel.

Up front, keep it brief. You want them to read or watch, not save it for later.

Ever see a movie that took waaay too long to get to the action? You got bored, maybe you fell asleep, maybe you didn’t stick around to watch the whole thing.

Cut those scenes out of your movie.

Get their attention. Tell them what’s in it for them. Get them nodding their head and telling themselves they’ve found someone they need to talk to.

Okay, you get it. Cut out the boring parts and lead with benefits. What else?

There isn’t anything else. Because if people don’t read or listen, they’re not going to hire you.

Assume your readers are impatient, distracted, distressed, and have many other options.

Because all of that is true.

Don’t bury the lead. And don’t expect them to watch your movie if they can’t stay awake