In marketing, if advertising is compared to moves in martial arts, then soft articles are internal skills and mental methods. The highest level of advertising is to generate internal skills and mental methods from moves; while soft copy is just the opposite, practicing moves from mental methods; in addition to moves and mental methods, it also requires excellent weapons, which are marketing activities. Integrating these three is the highest state of martial arts and the highest state of marketing.
As the saying goes, every walk has its own path. In the operation of soft articles, there is also art and realm. For example, I am working on a health website (http://www.0795jkw.com), and I have taken a fancy to a few popular keywords, such as sex, beauty, and various diseases. On the surface, it does not have much traffic, but in fact it has a lot of traffic. It’s scary, so I made a special page dedicated to these words. Deliberately optimize these words. But the initial traffic was still not high. Later I discovered a more effective method. Just write soft articles.
If you look through the newspapers and magazines at hand, you can easily tell the level of soft writing. A high-level soft article can easily outweigh the tangible with the intangible, allowing you to unknowingly accept the information that the company wants to spread, while a low-level soft article will either be seen by readers for its true nature at a glance, or simply regarded as junk advertising. , without even looking at it.
In order to prevent companies from wasting advertising and public relations expenses, or spending money to treat others to dinner and being looked down upon by others, those of us who do publicity have to "endure the humiliation" and concentrate on studying the realm of soft article operation.
In my opinion, soft articles can be divided into three types according to their level. Enterprises need to check them out to see which type they belong to in order to determine the direction of future efforts.
spam ads
Such soft articles are often seen in newspapers. Its characteristics are: usually in the advertising pages of newspapers, there are few pictures, and some even have borders. The content from beginning to end is like selling melons to brag about the company, such as how advanced the product technology is and how functional it is. Strong and so on; most of the titles lack creativity, and the address, contact person, and phone number are all clearly marked at the end of the article, as if they are afraid that others will not be able to contact them.
Such soft articles are almost all paid, because for newspapers, these pages are sold as advertising space. Readers who actually read the content of the newspaper usually turn the pages without even looking at it. Therefore, its communication effect is extremely poor. It is a pity that companies spend a lot of advertising costs on this kind of soft articles but cannot get good results.
Obviously, this kind of soft article is the worst. But most companies stay at this stage. They are often overwhelmed with product research and development, capital operations, sales channels and other tasks. Advertising production is also entirely left to advertising companies, and they do not pay attention to soft articles at all.
So, how to improve it?
First of all, we must conceptually understand the difference between soft articles and print advertisements. Soft articles are completely expressed in text, and they convey content through readers’ reading word for word. Therefore, whether soft articles are effective depends first on whether it can attract readers’ interest in reading. Print advertising is different. A creative design, a powerful picture, or a few poetic sentences may give people an irresistible appeal. Therefore, the production of soft articles must fully pay attention to these differences, make use of strengths and avoid weaknesses, and never treat soft articles in the same way as advertising.
Specifically, we must adhere to two principles:
First, it must not be placed on the advertising page. It is best to surround the article with text, preferably special issues, special pages, and columns related to the industry in which the company is located. You cannot publish a full page, as that would be considered advertising. What? Can’t handle the text page? That’s not possible! You can’t produce good soft articles in the advertising page! You have to create conditions even if you don’t have the conditions!
Second, the writing of articles must be non-commercial, and self-promotional and boastful tone is strictly prohibited. Try to avoid any nouns, pictures, and forms that may easily make consumers think that the article is an advertisement. If it is not particularly necessary, do not leave contact information. Do you think it's a pity? It's a pity, but it must be like this! Soft articles are not advertisements. What they want to change is consumers' concepts and understanding. If it is marketing information, it can be reflected in more impactful advertisements.
Positive coverage
This kind of soft article belongs to the middle level. They often appear in the main text pages of newspapers. They are characterized by small length and news reporting style. Of course, the content is to report on the company from the perspective of the media, praising the company implicitly or directly between the lines. This provides "objective" publicity for the company. Because they are in the form of news and read by most readers, this kind of soft articles still have a certain reading rate. However, with the proliferation of "paid news", readers' eyes are becoming brighter and brighter, and they are well aware of some obviously biased reports, which will sooner or later affect the reading rate of the article.
What you need to pay attention to in this kind of soft articles is: first, be careful that editors and reporters write reports that are too bland and even have a negative flavor (the latter may be due to poor public relations); second, prevent them from being irresponsible and using the promotional materials provided by the company. Send it as it is without any changes, and set the tone of the manuscript so that it doesn't feel like overt bragging.
Do you think others should "use their money to eliminate disasters for others" and do everything for you? No, no. They are very busy at that time and have no intention of matching your meaning word for word. Moreover, this kind of manuscript is just like garbage to them. Many of the manuscripts written for you are not willing to sign their real names.
"Triple Win" approach
The highest level of soft writing is: no matter how you look at it, it is difficult to determine whether it is soft writing. It is a "win-win", that is, readers, media, and enterprises all benefit. This type of soft article is more complicated to talk about. In a sense, this kind of soft article is no longer a "soft article" in the ordinary sense, but a text spontaneously published by the media that represents its "fairness." It is generally divided into two categories, one is that the company does not need to pay, and the content in the article is a very valuable thing provided by the company; the other is a positive or neutral report about a certain company that the media pays to write. Generally speaking, the characteristics of this kind of soft article are: the media produces valuable articles, readers obtain useful information, and the company's visibility and reputation are enhanced through media reports. This kind of "win-win" result should be the dream of all soft article operators.
Once the soft articles in the three realms are listed, the judgment will be made. But how to achieve the "three-win" state? There is a question of experience and understanding.
Experience means knowing how the media works. Because the communication carrier of soft articles is the result of the interaction between enterprises and the media, to create good soft articles requires specific operators to fully understand the operating characteristics of the media, have a certain understanding of the rules of news dissemination, and be knowledgeable about news events. Strong awareness.
Comprehension, it all depends on whether you are careful or not, whether you can delve into it like crazy and reach a state of selflessness.
Of course, this does not mean that there are no methods and techniques to follow. Later I will talk about some of the ideas and methods we commonly use. Who says there are no shortcuts to success?