Content writers from Mars. Expressive writers from Venus.

Content writing demands an approach that supports a goal; be it a sale or a desired action. Having come up in the advertising business, this is pretty much the only writing I’ve ever done and I’ve come to love the cool efficiency it demands. It begins with clear goals for each posting. (1) Write and engaging piece for those who follow my blog. (2) Optimize the content for a key phrase. Those more artful writers among us often find these goals in conflict with one another.

As the founder of a company that specializes in high-value content writing, my main concern is the blending of both these goals. Some would argue that the two polar opposites can never meet, but I think this is based on a needless polarity, likely put in place by the expressive side of the business. (It can’t have been put in place by the content writing side. We’re too busy writing.)

Business OR Pleasure?

What? There’s no pleasure in business? There’s no business in pleasure? (If you ever went to 42nd Street in New York in the old days, you’d know the answer to the later question.)

If you run a business, you know great writing when you see it. It’s why I read the Economist, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times. It’s a pleasure for me to read them. It’s my hobby. Every night, my wife sits with the latest novel for her book club and I sit with a business publication – usually online. I’m just as passionately glued to my reading as my wife is to hers.

At Ion Leap, we don’t get pulled in by the dichotomy. It doesn’t exist for us. Writing great content for businesses is an absolute pleasure. Pointing out some new way of looking at things is a necessary kind of writing for an audience who eats it up; and it’s a joy to read it. Like a good novel, I almost dread getting to the end of it, the exciting conclusion.

The Exciting Conclusion – Asking for the Sale

The last chapter of good content writing is often the same. We content writers find our way there via different roads, but we almost always arrive at the same conclusion. I think it may be this part of what content professionals do that expressive writers find so vulgar.

A great conclusion, woven beautifully into the context of solid content writing is an art unto itself. It’s this artful weaving of compelling content with the right sales message that makes Ion Leap so successful for our clients. We introduce Venus to Mars every time we put pen to paper.