Your boss tells you to write an article on X, so you do some research on the topic, draft a tidy outline, write a rough draft, polish it up, and give it a good proofread before handing it in.
What steps did you miss?
Only the most important two:
- Identify your goal.
- Identify your audience.
There’s no point in writing anything, except as a creative exercise, if you don’t know why you’re doing it and who is going to read it.
Identify your goal.
If you don’t know what your goal is, you’re not going to reach it.
In the working world, the reason for doing most things is “because my boss told me to.” Or “because that’s what we always do.” Or “that’s what the contract requires.”
These may be honest reasons, but none of them are good reasons. Every piece of writing should serve a purpose, and ideally be part of a larger plan.
Every blog post, for example, should serve a specific goal and be part of your larger search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, which is part of your larger marketing strategy.
When I started at my current job, I asked the communications director what the organization’s SEO strategy was, so I could make sure my writing tied into that. He told me that we didn’t have an SEO strategy and did not need one. The reason? Because “we were a national lab.” (Don’t ask me to unpack this logic. He was also against creating a LinkedIn page for the organization, and we had a palette of sixteen “brand colors,” none of which were used on our website.)
He has since retired, and our website now is findable on Google, in case you’re wondering.
But the point is, you should not be doing any busy-work writing assignments—and that’s all you’re doing if you don’t know your goal. Everything you do should be strategic and targeted toward a specific goal. Demand a reason, and if your organization is a hot mess and can’t give you a goal beyond “because I said so,” create one for yourself.
Identify your audience.
Your audience is not “everyone” or “the public.” If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll appeal to no one.
If you don’t know who your audience is, think about who your ideal reader would be and who is most likely to stumble across your writing.
However, ideally you do know your audience—both who you’re actually reaching and who you want to reach. Most platforms offer tools and metrics that make this task relatively easy.
If you do have a specific target audience in mind, are you reaching them? Are they using the platform where you are publishing your content? If you’re writing a blog post, do they read blog posts? Or would they be better served by a short video?
Go forth and write.
Once you know your goal and audience, your writing will be stronger and clearer.
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