Write What You Know

"Write what you know" is a piece of writing advice commonly attributed to Mark Twain. Don't worry. I have no plans to compare myself to Twain — that would be ludicrous, but I agree with the statement. I think it's an excellent place to start when trying to talk to your audience and conquer your content.

For me, "write what you know" is writing about something I am passionate about — helping people retire. Passion is different for everyone; it doesn't mean you have to live and breathe it. If you are reading this blog, you are likely looking for ways to tell people about your business or service, and if you can take the part of the work that you are passionate about and "write" about it, you can connect with potential clients or customers.

I'm using the term "write" to encompass all types of content: podcasts, YouTube, social media, brochures, email, blogs, print ads, TV or radio commercials, and so on.

Position Yourself as the Expert

The goal is to use the content to position yourself as an expert. This doesn't mean you have all the answers — I know I don't — it means you know how to get the answers, and perhaps more importantly, you understand your audience's questions.

Recently, new legislation was passed that changed the landscape of retirement planning. The first thing we did was tell the families and individuals we work with that we were diving into the bill and working to understand how it would impact their retirement. There are 300 pages and 90 retirement provisions in SECURE Act 2.0. We immersed ourselves in the parts of the bill that impact those 50 and older (our audience). Next, we worked on content that answered the question: how does this impact our audience? Write what you know.

Our content team drafted emails, podcast scripts, YouTube strategies and internal communications (we wanted the team to be aware of what we were going to say to our audience too). Our retirement planners familiarized themselves with the details of the bill. Once we had a strategy outlined, it was time to start talking to our audience through the channels we've worked hard to establish over the last seven years.

We understand the concerns of pre-retirees and retirees, so that's what we "write" about. Our content offers solutions and helps people make sense of complicated topics. Then when someone is looking for a team to help them retire, we hope our ability to "write what we know" and convey our passion and expertise stands out.

 Watch the Top Five webinar on conquering content below:

Merkle Retirement Planning produces more than 17 content pieces each month including its podcast Retiring Today, the Merkle Retirement Planning YouTube channel, the TV show Retiring Today with Loren Merkle and more.

Check out these links!

YouTube: youtube.com/@MerkleRetirementPlanning

Podcast: anchor.fm/retiring-today

TV Show: merkleretirementplanning.com/in-the-media

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