“One of the most intimidating aspects of Wall Street is the seemingly indecipherable jargon,” writes Wayne Duggan in Benzinga, naming.a few of the most commonly used slang phrases from the stock market world. 

• Blue Chip stock

This comes from the world of poker where blue-colored chips are the highest-valued.

• White Elephant

A stock no one wants to own (in Thai folklore, white elephants were given as gifts to disliked people to intentionally burden them with the cost of keeping the animals).

• Bull/Bear Markets

Since bulls attack by thrusting upwards with their horns, a rising stock market is called a bull market. Bears attack by swiping downward with their paws – hence a downward trending stock market is referred to as a bear market. 

• A Falling Knife

This refers to a stock with a rapidly declining price.

Nicknames, or “jargon”, capture meaning.  In the workplace, Brittney Simpson of Savvy HR explains, specialized phrases are used to communicate ideas quickly. Professionals can use this “shorthand” way to get ideas across.  What’s more, she goes on to say, “using jargon helps build a sense of community within a company or industry, becoming a bonding tool that makes conversations feel ore familiar and less formal.”

In content marketing, jargon is a handle-with-care writing technique. On the one hand, you want to reinforce to readers that they’ve come to the right place to find understandable, useful information related to their search. On the other hand, it’s good to add lesser-known bits of information on the subject in order to:

• add value to the “visit” for the reader
• position the business or practice owners as experts in their field
• give readers a sense of being “insiders”, part of a group of like-minded customers
• arm readers with new terminology to help them better understand the subject

Using nicknames, or technical “shortcuts”, can clarify concepts and help readers, armed with “blue chip” information, feel empowered to make intelligent decisions, while avoiding “falling knives”.

No, being cryptic is not a good way to go about introducing marketing content, as I talked about earlier this week in this Say It For You blog.  You want to spark curiosity, but not puzzlement, providing readers with answers and solutions. But, what about using questions in the title of each piece?

In just a single issue of Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine I found on my office shelf , there were plenty of question titles:

• How Should You Take Your Pension?
• Can Buy Now, Pay Later Plans Help You Build Credit?
• Time to Buy Financials?
• Is a Hybrid Car Right for You?

“Using questions in content marketing titles is a powerful strategy to hook readers, spark curiosity, and directly target what your audience is searching for,” Danny Goodwin of Medium.com says – after all, people ask search engines questions all the time.  However, he cautions, content marketers need to question  their own question headlines, making sure that:

1. You fully answer the question in the content, and in an interesting and memorable way.
2. The question cannot be answered with one NO.
3. You’re raising the question to share a theory you have on which you want to solicit feedback.

Don’t use misleading or exaggerated headlines as a fear factor, to obscure facts, or to conceal the true nature of the content, the Terra team cautions, (that’s what Todd Hunt’s telephone company did ,  telling him they were going to be “sunsetting copper”)!

Actually, the tactic of using questions in titles is one I’ve often suggested to content writers, because often we can help searchers formulate their own questions by presenting one in the content itself. It’s best to focus on the expansive and productive type of question, such as “What’s possible?” “What are my choices?” “What’s useful here?”

My speaker friend Todd Hunt shared this rather cryptic message he’d received from his phone company, informing  him that the company was going to be “sunsetting copper”.  “Huh?

What those words turned out to mean was that the telephone company was getting rid of landline service.  (“Sunsetting” was a euphemism for “getting rid  of” or “eliminating”; “copper” referred to the phone wiring.) — Talk about making bad news worse by trying to disguise it!

“When someone asks you  to ‘stop being cryptic’, they are telling you to stop speaking in a mysterious, confusing, or hidden way. They want you to communicate plainly, stop dropping subtle hints, and get directly to the point.”, Merriam-Webster explains. Cryptic comments leave people confused about your intentions.

When we’re creating content, the Word Factory teaches, we have lots of background information to pull from, which often leads us to be less precise than we need to be in explaining things. But in this word where we’re all “inundated with information, it’s the ones who are clear ,conveying information efficiently, who get the eyeballs.

An audio course for book authors, Brainstorming a Better Book Title, emphasizes the same concept. “If you must choose between clarity and cleverness, clarity is more important for success.

At Say It For You, our advice to business owners and their content writers is that you must offer an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up to readers. No, it’s not “new information”, and you’re not re-inventing the proverbial wheel. What’s “new” is the clarity of your views on the subject.

What about when you need to impart unwelcome news to readers? Definitely avoid that phone company’s route in telling Todd Hunt about the change in service. When conveying an unpalatable fact, we explain to our clients, (they’re discontinuing a favorite product; raising their hourly rates;  changing a long-standing policy, etc.),we need to be clear, never cryptic.

“Millions of readers can’t be wrong,” says Michael La Ronn, advising writers to study mega-bestsellers, using them as “teachers’ and emulating their writing techniques, because those are obviously resonating with today’s readers. In a way, in studying bestselling authors, we are “choosing our teachers”.

“There are many ways to set a scene, La Ronn concedes, but one very effective one is “a hero in a setting with a problem”. He suggests picking three top authors:

• one in your own genre.
• one in a adjacent genre
• one “wildcard” from a genre you’d never write in

Reading is an essential element in content creation, we stress at Say It For You training sessions. In order to create valuable marketing content, it’s going to take equal parts reading and writing. Why is what I call  “reading around” so important?

• to keep up with news, including problems and questions that might be surfacing that relate to your industry or profession (or that of your client)
• to keep a constant flow of content topics and styling ideas.to get ideas about selling and marketing
• to get ideas for tailoring individual posts to series to different    segments of the client’s customer base
• to find “tidbits” that can liven up our content
• to curate others’ content for the benefit of our own readers
• to develop our own storytelling structuring
• to unlock our own creativity

La Ronn’s concept of chapters being pieces of fabric, each 400-500 words long, ending with a “seam” or transition – a new development or thought connecting to the next chapter is a perfect example of blog marketing. “Marketing blogs keep readers hooked, acting like an ongoing conversation rather than isolated articles, hostitsmart.com explains. “A blog is more than a digital diary; it’s a living entity—a dynamic platform where thoughts, ideas, and stories converge.”

Exposure to diverse industries and ideas fosters creativity and innovation, and can lead to connections with professionals from different sectors, enriching content marketing efforts, the salesforce.com State of Marketing Report notes.

Writing under pressure has perks, Polly Campbell notes in Writers Digest, encouraging novelists to make a habit of enrolling in writing contests. Contests come with built-in deadlines, and that can help writers motivate themselves to get going, or get going again after they’ve hit a slump.

Some significant aspect of contests Campbell highlights include:

1. The contest sponsor provides prompts which contestants must weave those into the story.
2. Contests provide the opportunity for regular practice.
3. Contests keep individual writers in touch with the writing community.

That’s a good model for blog content writers, I’d have to say. Far too many business owners start out strong with their content posting, but months or even weeks later, begin to fizzle. Daily blogs become weekly blogs, and pretty soon, months go by between posts.

In fact, my company Say It For You was founded to provide professional writing services to business clients, where the owners’ attention was constantly drawn away from content creation because they were putting out fires, making sales, and dealing with personnel issues. Meanwhile, of course, marketing momentum comes only when there is consistency and longevity in posting content.

In much the same way as contests “re-spark” the creative juices in novelists, content marketers must continue to read – news, other websites, other social media posts relating “what’s going on out there” to the owner’s expertise and experience.

Needless to say,” down time” is rare for business owners, and few can maintain the type of drill-sergeant discipline needed to produce unique marketing content  on a consistent basis, playing the kind of sustained game that “wins eyeballs” through search.

The real challenge, for both novelists and content marketers, of course, is “staying real”. At Say It For You, our Unique Selling Proposition is creating content with no reliance on Artificial Intelligence. Our belief is that “real copy” has to live where the product is being sold and service is being provided. Our “prompts” and “contests” consist of a combination of independent research, interviews with clients and  customers, plus lots and lots – and lots – of “reading around”.

In content marketing, we creators are under constant pressure to stay consistent, stay relevant, and stay real.  You might say we’re always in a contest with ourselves!

“Don’t be a snob when it comes to media,” Paula Rizzo advises authors trying to get media attention for their books,telling them never to turn up their nose at any chance to promote their content, “because you never know where it will lead”. “You don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Rizzo stresses.  “You just have to find creative ways of repurposing your content to make it fresh and engaging for your audience.  It’s that simple.”

Content repurposing is a term used to mean recycling content into new formats or new channels, optimsely.com confirms.  After all, “in today’s content-hungry world, the ‘create-publish-forget’ approach wastes resources. But there’s an even deeper purpose to repurposing, Kobi Ben-Meir points out in Forbes: Repurposing reinforces your brand message. Not only does constantly creating fresh content require resources that many brands may not have, trying to avoid repetition avoids repeating your key messages. “A wise marketer looks for efficiencies when it comes to content output,” Hubspot Academy teaches.

At Say It For You, I stress that it’s absolutely essential for blog marketers to learn to reuse content. Maintaining consistently high rankings on search engines depends on longevity. That means writers must maintain the discipline of regularly posting relevant, value-laden content over long periods of time. But as a business blog writing trainer, I see repurposing as having a broader meaning than simply turning content from blogs into video scripts, social media posts, or email blasts. My idea of repurposing involves turning existing blog posts into new ones. The content in the new posts reinforces the content from the former posts. But the new version progresses to new information and perhaps a new slant on the subject.

Don’t be a snob, and why? The powerful mantra we content creators can hold onto – “Someone might need to hear your message.”

If you know your story is not quite coming together, but you can’t quite put your finger on why, Tiffany Yates Martin advises writers in Writers Yearbook, the problem may be a missing, vague, or undefined central story question.  While stories have many unknowns, she explains, a central story question, she explains, is:

• a concrete, specific, and specific unknown
• one universal enough to be relatable
• one that has a clear, tangible answer

The story question doesn’t work in a vacuum, Yates Martin explains, but goes hand in hand with the other essential elements of story:

1. Readers won’t care what’s happening until they care who it’s happening to.
2. Readers need to see what actions the characters take to attain those cherished goals.

 Blog and LinkedIn posts, as we so often stress at Say It For You, are not advertisements or sales pieces (even if increasing sales is the ultimate goal of the business owner).  Whatever “selling” goes on in effective content is indirect and comes out of business owners sharing their passion special expertise and insights in their field.  When content marketing “works”, readers are moved to think, “I want to do business with those people!”

As providers, we know visitors to our website want to know whether we have experience with customers just like them and that we therefore understand their needs. They want to know how approachable we are, and flexible and adaptable we can be as the needs of customers change. In content marketing, those are the elements of our “story question”.

Whether readers formulate their questions in precisely these words, as business and practice owners, we can answer to three possible queries:

• What was our inspiration in birthing our enterprise?
• What were the greatest challenges we have faced, and how did we overcome them?
• What inspires our ongoing commitment to providing excellence in product and service?

Behind every enterprise there is a question. Behind every content marketing piece is a story question – and its answer.

Earlier this week, I shared thoughts about Daniel Bradley’s life sciences article in the Indianapolis Business Journal describing the complex, 3-stage process leading to final approval of a new drug’s brand name.  Every drug is first assigned a compound code, then a generic name reflecting its chemical structure, then a scientific name describing how it works, and finally — after a several years’ process, a brand name….

Can this very three stage process be applied to creating effective titles for content marketing articles and posts, I wondered?

The compound code (for drugs, these are numbers and letters from a database). Simply jot down items from your “mental data base” -of terms, adjectives and phrases that immediately come to mind around your specific topic idea.

A generic name (for drugs, this has a prefix describing its chemical structure and then a suffix describing how the substance works). For titles, the generic part involves the problem you’re proposing to help solve; the “suffix” involves the tactic you’re recommending, or the answer to the question you’ve raised It is here that SEO keyword phrases would be researched then selected for use in your title.”

The “brand name” (for drugs, this is the name used in selling the substance.).When it comes to selecting titles for your blog posts or articles, “the most important consideration is that the title accurately conveys the value of your blog post to your reader,” Holly Larson writes explains.

Use” power’ terms”, is That Geeky Girlfriend‘s advice.  Power adjectives create enthusiasm, while power action words such as “maximize”, “eliminate” and “and “show” and strength to your message.

Surprise can be an element in selecting a title. In fact, Using the element of surprise to lure readers’ attention is a favorite technique of book authors, I’ve found. In order to clarify what the subject matter is, authors often use what I call “Huh/Oh” titles. The “Huh?s” need “Oh!’”subtitles to make clear what the article is about.

Successful titles come about in three stages.

“What’s in a name?” asks Daniel Bradley in a life sciences article in the Indianapolis Business Journal, describing the complex process leading to a new drug’s identity   Every drug receives three names, I learned: 

1. A compound code (a series of letters and numbers registered in an internal database for drug discovery
2. A generic name, serving as a universal identifier, containing a two-syllable prefix (reflecting its chemical structure) and a suffix (scientific family name describing how the drug works), resulting in an agreed-upon name published by the World Health Organization after passing through the International Nonproprietary Names Programme)
3. A brand name, which must be unique and not infringe on any copyright. (Usually the drug company settles on 6-8 names, submitting their favorites to Europe, then to FSA, which approves it.

“Titles play a make or break role in content marketing and publishing success,” Roger Parker of the Content Marketing Institute stresses. The title should clearly indicate:

• who should buy or download the piece
• why they should buy or download it
• how they will benefit from it

The Institute has created a “title evaluation scorecard”:  Does your title”

1. clearly promise a desired benefit?
2. use supporting details to add specificity and urgency?
3. emphasize your intended readers?
4. differentiate you from competitors?
5. communicate in a conversational tone?
6. Include keywords?

“Alliteration, or rhymed consonants,\  titles easier to remember, Parker adds. (In the title of this very piece, the words “sound” and “sweet” begin with the same consonant.)

A technique not mentioned by Parker is one I like to use – the cultural allusion. In content writing, we’ve found at Say It For You, the “big deal” about cultural allusions is that, when they work, they instantly put the reader and you “on the same page”. Since, in this case, I’m alluding to the line in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – “A rose by any other name would small as sweet”, I’m assuming that my audience is going to recognize – and appreciate – the reference. In the case of  the post you’re reading today, that’s on purpose  — I’m trying to differentiate myself  (from possibly less sophisticated content writers?), but also trying to appeal to a more sophisticated audience. 

Before finalizing the title of your next article or post, ask yourself, “What’s in this name?”

Earlier this week, we talked about the “sensitivity”” factor in creating marketing content that avoids stereotypes and biases, content that informs but never offends.  To help grow a brand, campaigns must be designed with a specific audience – and with those target readers’ sensitivities – in mind…

 Your “angle” will work if it starts where the target reader already lives, Olha Bodner  of Ethos Leads explains.  “The goal is not to sell.  The goal is to make the reader think: ‘Someone finally understands what I’m dealing with.”

At Say It For You, we advise content creators building a plan to connect with an audience to consider not only age, gender, and nationality, but where members of their target audience are “hanging out” on social media, interviews, and focus groups. What’s more, as our own content writers are aiming to connect business and practice owners with their constituencies, figuratively “putting words in those owners’ mouths”, we need to be sure those owners are truly embracing the tone of the messaging.

One hard, but crucially important, lesson we content marketers must keep learning is that nothing about our “stuff” really matters – not the features, the location, the service, the benefits, or the cost. The only things that matter are what aspects of our “stuff” will be most likely to appeal to our audience.

When we’re telling the story of a business or a practice to consumers, we choose, in each case, to “frame” that story a certain way. Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks, reminds speakers to do a jargon check based on audience research, eliminating technical terms and acronyms that will be unfamiliar to listeners.

By its very nature, content marketing involves presenting information in the way you want it to be perceived. Yes, the “worldview” of the business owner is “framed in the content, sharing owners’ opinions, experience, and perspective.

But, to earn the right to present your own “side”, first come from their side in your marketing content.