How to Optimize Your Writing Process
The process of writing can be time-consuming, frustrating, and boring. We’ve all stared at a blank page once before. But optimizing your writing process is essential to becoming a faster, more proficient, and more adept writer. I’m going to outline the step-by-step process I use when writing any piece of material, whether it’s a blog post or client work.
Step #1: Know your audience.
The first step to any sort of writing is understanding how the audience will perceive your writing. You need to think of the types of topics that will get your target audience to click on the piece.
Answering questions like these can help get you an idea of the POV of the reader.
How will your reader be impacted by the writing?
Why would the reader want to continue reading?
How does your writing benefit the reader?
Can you help the reader?
Is there a specific action the reader can take after reading?
Doing research on the topics you are writing about is vitally important if you don’t have experience with the topics directly. Having knowledge about the topics will give you direct insight into the perspective of a target audience.
There are other factors to consider. Sometimes you will be sending out an email, or it could be another form like an ad, website, or blog post. Finally, you should consider the context they will be reading the copy. Some people only check their email on their computer, for example.
By figuring out how the audience will react to certain pieces of writing, you can figure out how to structure the piece.
As another example, let’s use this blog post.
70-80% of people reading would be on a computer
They are probably located somewhere that they work frequently.
They have probably found me through social media, or a link, so they are probably reading the post to see what my writing looks like.
(so we need to impress! :) )
Step #2: Outline the piece
In order for your writing to be coherent, compelling, and SEO friendly, it needs to be structured beforehand. Let’s say we are writing an email.
Subject Line
Title with hook and description
Body 1
Thank you - Appreciation
About the brand - Value Prop
CTA - for reviews
Body 2
In-depth about us
Token of appreciation + 10% off next order with CTA
End.
This is an actual outline that I wrote for this email:
You have recently made a purchase from Odiggo. Your feedback is truly important to us as we've worked really hard to make a long, difficult process feel both simple and fast. Please fill out our short review form below.
At Odiggo, we are committed to making your life easier with the lowest prices, easiest software to use, and unlimited filters to narrow your search.
That's why we appreciate you leaving a review.
A lot goes into what we do and you're one of the reasons it's possible, [Name].
That's why if you leave a review today, we will give you 10% off your next order!
If you haven't yet, please click here to leave a review for our site.
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And that brings us to the final step.
Step #3: Write. Make sure you fulfill at least one goal with your writing. After 12-24 hours, edit.
If you have done Steps 1 and 2 correctly, Step 3 should be fairly straightforward and effortless. The key here is just getting a lot of words onto the paper. Just start writing. Use simple sentence structure. Try not to use words that are too big. Another tip for conveying your message is to use storytelling.
Storytelling is all about emotion. I recommend learning and memorizing specific words that invoke a specific emotion. This website has over 100 different adjectives that invoke specific emotions, and all these words can be implemented into your writing today!
Tip for conclusions: Always end with a call-to-action, and right before that should be a “so-what” statement. This means your last few lines should hit home with the reader. They should take a second to think about what they just read and proceed to take action on whatever you’d like them to.
Researching topics and target audiences is an entire process in and of itself. Then comes outlining & writing. If you use outlines, your writing is automatically higher quality than 90%+ of people.
The final step, though, is Editing.
I like to keep the entire editing & rewriting process separate from everything else for two reasons. One, it gives my brain time to process what I wrote, and two, to give my brain adequate rest before looking at the writing again. You know the brain fog you sometimes get when you’ve been working on a project for too long? Yeah, I try to avoid that as much as possible.
Editing should be about cutting out all words that don’t add value. But there is one crucial part I’m leaving out; rewriting.
Yes, rewriting and adding extra valuable details, ideas, & content to your finished piece will be the frosting on top.
There will be no errors.
There will be no BSing.
There will be valuable insights.
There will be results.
And that’s how to optimize your writing process for results based upon your goals, and the perception of your reader.
