USING A CREATIVE WRITING FRAMEWORK TO DRAFT WRITTEN MARKETING MATERIALS

When leading creative writing workshops, I usually show the participants this graphic toward the beginning of class. It depicts my personal view of the creative writing process. This process can be applied to any type of writing, not just poetry, novels, and creative non-fiction. Let's say you have a marketing piece to write but you don't know where to start.

First, do some free writing. Get out a notebook and pen (or computer if that better suits you) and write down everything that pops into your head about what you want to say. Describe the ideal person who will read the piece. Where are they when they read it? What do you want them to think as they read it? Feel? What do you want them to do after they read it? Brainstorm as many ways as you can think of to convey the idea or message. Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, or even if it's written well. Just get everything in your head down on the paper or up on the computer screen.

As you write and re-read what you've written, you will start to formulate ideas. Do some additional free writing focused on these ideas about what form the writing should take (blog post, ad, article, etc.) and more specifically how to say it. As you can see from the diagram, this is a cyclic process. Writing leads to ideas which leads to more writing which leads to more ideas, etc. until you're ready to catapult down the line into the revision phase.

Think of the revision phase as the overall crafting of your piece. Put it in the form on which you've decided. Move things around, fix sentences, add in graphics, etc. You can also picture a cyclic arrow within this phase as you keep revising until it is almost just right. If you're working with a team or have someone you can share it with, go ahead and do it at this phase. You don't want to have them read it at the very end only to hear some great over-arching ideas for change.

Next is the editing phase. This is where you look at the piece on a sentence-by-sentence and word-by-word level to make sure there are no typos or errors. During this phase, you will want to read the piece out loud, at a minimum, or, if you can, have one or several people read it over for you to point out any errors you've missed.

Finally, is sharing. Post the blog. Run the ad. Publish the article, etc. And, like with creative writing, get started free writing for your next piece.

Want to learn another creative writing technique to help you connect with your target market (especially a service-based market)? Then click here to subscribe to my enewsletter and get my free report.

-The Wordsy Woman