audience

My Writing Journey – Keep it Simple (10/13/2016)

klwalker2 My Writing Journey, The Walker Estate , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When you want to deliver a valuable and important message to someone, don’t over-complicate it.  Just keep it simple.

For composing a blog, you want your introduction to be straight and to the point.  Don’t be complex and don’t beat around the bush.  If your content is too overwhelming, you will lose your audience in the first sentence or two.  If the audience can follow it, then you have an effective message.

For Ideation yesterday, simplicity wasn’t really what I was working on .  While it is the end result, it wasn’t the chief focus.  I was working on categories yesterday, which is a continuation of my mapping.  When the mapping is all finished, I will share the results with you.  And that is another lesson in itself.

If your message is complicated already, break it down.  Reduce it to smaller, simpler bite-sized pieces that we can all digest.  It may take time to do this, but remember.  You may understand your message well, but this needs to be repackaged and tailored to your audience.

It’s that simple.  Have a simple message and you’ll have an audience that understands.

Next week, I will cover some more topics that can be helpful as you go through your writing journey.

See you next week!

Your friend in writing,

Kyle

My Writing Journey – What do you Offer? (9/22/2016)

klwalker2 Me & My Muse, My Writing Journey , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What do you offer?  This will be the primary thing that you will be focusing on when you’re writing your blog.

When you go to a store, you usually know what that store offers before you go there.  A sporting good store will provide products that you need for outdoor activities.  A clothing store obviously provides clothing and a grocery store provides food and domestic products that you need for your home.

But what does your blog provide?  If I were to visit your blog, what “products” would I find there?

From the inventory that I began a week ago, I was able to boil this down a little bit myself.  My blog provides writing exercises for defeating writer’s block and a creative journal for those who are here for the entertainment (if you are that audience, Me & My Muse is right next door!)

I am also working on a third product.  This one.  The goal of My Writing Journey is to provide an informative and insightful learning experience for everyone who aspires to write, or make a blog about writing.  It’s for all audiences and experience levels.  While Me & My Muse is a lot of fun to write for me, I feel like this product provides more appeal to a wider audience.  How many people want to read about an imaginary character that I dialogue with?  Am I detecting some nods?  That is the very thing that My Writing Journey is here to address.  This product is just for you, with you in mind.  Don’t understand something?  Don’t worry.  I might be at the same point that you are.  We can learn this together, but I’m always determined to find an answer.  If I am an expert on a particular subject, I will take special care to make sure that everyone is on the same page before proceeding on.

So those are the products that I have.  This is what you start with.  What have you currently created? What products do you offer and can they be monetized?  What do you want to create in the future?

I would focus on what you already have before creating brand new products.  Establish these products first and get very proficient at producing them.  Then work on the new products.

What do you have to offer?  Remember.  The home page is the first thing that the reader is going to see, so you better have a “product” list up front.  10 seconds is all you get and then they’re on another page.  Consider what you already have, the products that you offer, whether you can monetize them, and if you want to create some new products down the road.

It is also important to note your competition, which is what I will address next time.  Who is your competition? What can be learned from them?

See you next week!

Your friend in writing,

Kyle

My Writing Journey – Less is More (9/15/2016)

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How much are you trying to tackle?  Is a 1000 word entry really needed to grab the attention of your audience?

Less is more.

When you’re in the planning stage of your blog, you need to determine how much time you need to complete each service.  During my ideation session this week, I was introduced to a different version of the inventory.  It was based on priority and it honed the focus on fewer categories.

When you’re working with a lot of ideas, it actually makes a lot of sense to find the related ones and pair them together.  This unifies your concepts.  And although it gives you less to work with, it provides more impact.  The clutter is reduced and you have a more clear and concise message.

Now you may be sentimental to some of your ideas that might be very dear to you.  Don’t cut them out entirely, but reduce them where you can.  You need to know where to cut, and make those cuts there.

Less is more.  Ask yourself: what do I already have?  What do I need to add? What steps are needed?  It’s not necessary if your consumer is spending too much work just to get to your message.

Remember.  You are trying to achieve the minimal viable product (MVP).  This is the minimal product required to meet the needs of the customer.  It’s like working on a puzzle and only adding the pieces needed to solve it.  If the pieces are all arranged in a way where the puzzle is easy to solve, this is what we want.  With a simple and concise message, the concept is the same.  Easy to solve and easy to understand.

With the inventory that was made for me, I have what is currently created.  What do I offer to this?  Is it monetizable or not?

So less is more.  The less you have, the more concise your message is, the better.

Next week, I will go over inventories and what offerings you need to have an effective blog.

See you next week!

Your friend in writing,

Kyle