Eugene Schwartz died in 1995, but his career as a writer of advertising copy has made him a legend in the age of content marketing. Schwartz made most of his fortune writing text for advertisements sent by mail, and later in his career, he wrote ten advice books for writers. Schwartz operated in a world very different from the one in which today’s businesspeople vie for the attention of clients; when he died, the World Wide Web was in its infancy. Despite this, his guidelines for communicating your message succinctly, holding readers’ attention, and generating publishable prose quickly still ring true for the current generation of web content writers. Eugene Schwartz is a superhero for marketing professionals, but you are a lawyer first and a marketer of legal services second, so to what extent does his advice apply to you?
What Made Eugene Schwartz Such a Great Writer?
Eugene Schwartz mastered the ability of figuring out what his target audience wanted and offering them a product or service that would give it to them. He did this in relatively few words and so quickly that he once received a commission of $54,000 (in Eisenhower Era money) for an advertisement he wrote in a single afternoon. In one of his books, he outlined his “rules of great marketing” as follows:
· Always keep your ears open for what is on the public’s mind
· Write for short periods of time, giving it your full attention (a similar principle to the Pomodoro method)
· Concisely summarize information that you know inside and out, instead of creating new knowledge as you write
· Your message can never be too simple; the simpler your thesis, the better
· Show the reader how to get what they already want; don’t try to convince them to want something
· Show how your product meets readers’ needs; don’t just showcase its features
· Get to the point quickly
· You become an effective writer through trial and error
What Does This Mean for Lawyers?
You already apply some of Schwartz’s rules when communicating with clients in person and in writing. You are a good listener, and you know how to tell clients only the information they need to know about the law, without getting bogged down in all the details. You have developed productivity strategies.
You already know how to keep it simple, but in writing blog posts for your law firm’s blog, you could stand to keep it even simpler. In a consultation, you get to listen to your prospective clients’ questions, but in a blog post, you must anticipate them and answer them. Eugene Schwartz was writing about selling gadgets and household cleaning products, but his advice applies also to writing blog content to engage prospective clients of a law firm.
Hire Legal Blog Writers
Comments