The Digital Marketer’s Guide to Content Writing Styles
Content creation lies at the foundation of any good digital marketing strategy. And yet, many business owners, marketers, and other professionals tend to think more of the “marketing” aspect rather than the “writing” aspect. This leads to digital marketing campaigns that rely on content quantity rather than quality.
That’s exactly why digital marketers need to understand how to create high-quality content consistently. More specifically, it’s important to know everything about the styles of writing, the types of content, and the methods of content creation. Hence, here’s the digital marketer’s guide to mastering content creation.
Styles of Writing
The most basic aspect of any piece of text is the style it is written in. Both fiction and non-fiction use four styles of writing:
Descriptive:
As the name suggests, this style is used to describe. You can describe anything from places and events to people and emotions. The descriptive style of writing helps the audience visualize a certain experience or feel a particular emotion.
Most of the time, this style is used for product and service descriptions, content about events and experiences, descriptions of results, value propositions, and more. When using the descriptive style of writing, focus on how something feels, tastes, looks, sounds, smells, etc.
Don’t reveal all the details at once, and instead, try to keep a sense of mystery or curiosity in your audience to keep them reading.
Narrative:
The main goal of the narrative style of writing is to tell a story. Much like descriptive style, the narrative style also pays attention to detail, but there is still more focus on the story itself.
This is when you use storytelling techniques extensively. There can be characters and dialogue that enrich the story, but it’s the actions that move it forward.
Most of the time, there is some form of conflict that gets resolved eventually. Use narrative style of writing to tell stories in different mediums (e.g. commercials, social media posts, blog posts and articles, etc.)
Persuasive:
Persuasive style of writing is used to persuade the audience about something or to make the reader perform a particular action. This style of writing usually uses a variety of arguments, reasons, justifications, claims, and facts to support its message.
The persuasive style of writing is difficult to master because it’s easy to go overboard and sound too demanding. Yet, when you do get better at it, you will be able to persuade your readers to do what you want or to share your point of view on different matters.
You can use this style of writing for emails, ad copy, sales funnels, and any other type of content that aims to get a conversion or sale.
Expository:
One more style of writing is expository. It is one of the most common styles in content marketing as it aims to inform or educate the audience by explaining different ideas, concepts, and processes.
This style of writing aims to deliver valuable information in a coherent and comprehensive way to ensure that readers truly understand it.
The expository style of writing can be used when you want to inform or educate your audience on a particular topic (e.g. product tutorials, news articles, articles on industry-specific topics, etc.)
Types of Content
Another critical aspect to get to know is the range of types of content you can work with. It doesn’t matter if you are working with branding for small businesses or for large businesses – all of these can be used in content marketing to great success:
Articles and Blog Posts:
Articles and blog posts are very common on websites, blogs, and other platforms. They can be long or short, formatted in a variety of ways, and can cover topics of all kinds.
Most of the time, articles and blog posts use descriptive, narrative, and/or expository styles of writing, but elements of persuasion can also be utilized.
Product Descriptions:
Product and service descriptions are essential for any business website or online store. These always use the descriptive style of writing, but expository elements can also be added.
However, product pages can have related content on them which could other styles of writing (e.g. product tutorial or guide, customer testimonials, expert reviews).
Website Content:
Website or web content is pretty much all the content on your website that doesn’t fall into any other category.
For example, your main pages (Home page, About page, Contact page, etc.) will likely have this type of content. Most of the time, website content uses descriptive, narrative, and expository styles of writing.
Press Releases:
Press releases and news articles are used to make announcements on a variety of topics (e.g. product launches, brand partnerships).
This is why they mostly combine expository and descriptive styles of writing no matter where the press release or news article is published (e.g. website, blog, social media, email).
Emails and Newsletters:
Speaking of emails, these are yet another type of content you can work with. Interestingly, emails themselves come in a variety of types (e.g. transactional emails, discount and sales emails) which is what makes them very versatile.
It can be a lengthy email newsletter or a short welcome email or something else completely. That’s why all styles of writing can be used with this type of content.
Social Media Posts:
While it’s easy to lump all social media posts into one category, it’s important to realize that there is variety among them. Depending on the platform you use, you will have to follow certain text length limitations and sometimes even rely on visuals more than on texts.
Likewise, some articles and blog posts can actually be republished on social media as well. Most social media posts combine two or more styles of writing.
SEO Copy and Ad Copy:
All the content on your website or blog will have to be optimized for search engines. However, it’s also worth noting that there’s also SEO copy and ad copy.
Different snippets of sales or marketing copy on your website that use SEO would be considered SEO copy. Likewise, you can write sales and marketing copy for other formats, including ads, commercials, and so on. Most copy uses the persuasive style of writing with elements of other styles.
E-Books:
Lastly, e-books can be used to further educate your audience when you can’t put all the valuable information just in one or two articles or blog posts.
E-books can be given away for free or offered as premium content. Most of the time, you will use descriptive, narrative, and/or expository style of writing for them.
Methods of Content Creation
One more thing to consider during content creation is the method you use. In fact, sometimes it won’t even be you who creates the content in the first place. Here are the major methods of content creation:
Influencer Content:
This is the content you use when working with influencer marketing. This content can either be created by you or by the influencers themselves.
Because influencer marketing is mostly used on social media platforms, this kind of content will mostly use a combination of writing styles.
Data-Driven Content:
Case studies, white papers, and any other type of long-form content that uses statistics and facts heavily can be considered data-driven content.
Most of the time, this type of content uses descriptive or expository style of writing as it aims to educate the audience.
Storytelling:
Content that uses storytelling techniques or relies heavily on lifestyle writing is mostly used on social media, your website or blog, emails, and even in customer testimonials.
This is not a method of content creation per se but rather a certain approach to content creation that heavily relies on personal stories. Thus, descriptive and narrative styles of writing are key here.
News Writing:
Press releases and news articles are written in a certain way and can be used to make your own announcements or to write about other relevant news. Use descriptive and expository styles of writing for these.
Technical Content:
User manuals and guides aren’t usually considered a part of content marketing, but they can be offered as e-books which is when they do become a part of it. Technical content usually relies on descriptive and expository styles of writing.
User-Generated Content:
User-generated content or UGC is the content created by others that you use in your content marketing campaigns. Most of the time, these are customer reviews and testimonials that you can showcase on your website, blog, or social media.
You can even use UGC in emails. You can’t control how such content is created, but it mostly uses descriptive and narrative styles of writing.
Microcontent:
Microcontent is simply content that comes in small bits. Headlines, snippets, subject lines, captions, tweets – all of these can be considered microcontent.
Depending on the reason why you are using a piece of microcontent, you will want to use one or more styles of writing for it.
How to Master Content Creation
Now that you know everything about styles of writing, types of content, and methods of content creation, you can use this knowledge to master content creation and start shaping your brand identity. Here are some tips on how to combine the three:
1. Focus on Diversity
Instead of sticking to a single style of writing and only a limited number of content types, aim for more diversity. The more diverse your content marketing is, the more people you can reach. And the more people you can reach, the more potential customers you will have.
2. Be Versatile
Reuse and repurpose different types of content. Combine different styles of writing. Try out all methods of content creation. Every time there is a new challenge, be flexible, adapt to it, find a new way to solve the problem.
3. Experiment A Lot
Even once you’ve mastered content creation, don’t sit back and relax. Experiment with different styles of writing, types of content, and methods of content creation. Try new things and see what works and what doesn’t.
Conclusion
Ultimately, creating high-quality content for your digital marketing campaigns is a necessity rather than a luxury. It’s crucial for you to understand how content works and how to make the most out of its strengths and weaknesses with different styles, types, and methods.
Use this guide to help you get started with content creation and improve your digital marketing strategy as a result.
About the Author!
Wanda Lafond is an expert writer who specializes in creating various training and professional upgrade courses, materials, manuals, and reviews for Ratedbystudents. She also provides consultations and creates expert writing materials for the Topwritingreviews. She likes traveling and speaks German and French.
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