Let your marketing ROAM and create compelling content
Getting — and keeping! — your potential customer’s attention is crucial when you’re working to build up a business. If you’re in charge of writing direct emails, blog content, or any other marketing materials for your company, make sure you ROAM before you begin to write to stay focused.
What’s ROAM? The acronym comes from Josh Bernoff, author of “Writing Without Bullshit.” His goal in life is to make sure that the internet isn’t flooded with terrible content, and he offers great advice about respecting your readers and getting to the point in your writing.
Before you write, you need to ROAM. Here’s how.
The 4 Components of ROAM
- R is for Readers: Understanding your target audience is crucial. This includes knowing their likes and dislikes, the way they speak, and the delivery method they prefer. If you have research on your target and buyer personas, use them!
- O is for Objective: Why are you writing this particular piece of content, anyway? Is your plan to show off your company’s expertise, promote a new product or improve your brand with thought leadership? Ideally, your blog post or email is sharply focused to do one thing well.
- A is for Action: What do you want the reader to do after reading your content? This is an oft-ignored component of content writing, but without spurring your audience to do something, you’ve wasted your time on all that careful writing. The action could be purchasing, but it could also be sharing, engaging in other ways, or just moving down the funnel.
- M is for iMpression: What do you want the reader to think of you when they’re done reading? Are you trying to look smart, funny, or like a total expert? In the push for likes and clicks, it’s easy to forget that everything you do needs to be at one with your overall brand.
Putting It All Together
After reading this piece, [readers] will realize [objective], so they will [action] and think of [your company] as [impression].
All you have to do is fill in the blanks above to create a bullet-proof mission statement for your next piece of content. Try typing it at the top of your open document as a reminder to help you stay focused, and your content will be much more effective in very short order.
