The reader doesn't turn the page because of a hunger to applaud.

—Don Murray

Draft 3 is when you invite you reader in.

One reader. Not readers. Not an entire audience. Or list. Or all your fans or followers.

One person. Let's call her Petunia.*

Draft 3 is when you swap places with Petunia. Step into her shoes. Slip on her skin. See through her eyes. It's her point of view.

Thinking about Petunia in Draft 3 makes your writing more personable, less uptight.

You are putting a pillow over the face of anything with a whiff of “Dear Valued Customers.”

You're writing to one person at one time—not a stadium full of people turning their faces to a jumbotron, right? (I'm stating this “one person” stuff twice and in two different ways because it's THAT important.)

Does Petunia …

• Follow your logic? Are you making her work too hard to understand the main idea, supporting points?

  Don't fall prey to the curse of knowledge—a cognitive bias that assumes others have the same background and depth of familiarity we do. A gem from my journalism school days: “Assume the reader knows nothing but don't assume the reader is stupid.”

• What questions might she have? Are you answering them?
• Does she see herself reflected in the text? Did you deliver an It's-Me! minute? (We'll talk more about this in Chapter 12.)

Good writing serves the reader, not the writer. It isn't self-indulgent.

Swap places with your reader. Be a skeptic of your own work. Get out of your own head, and into Petunia's.

Relentlessly, unremittingly, obstinately write from your reader's point of view, with honest empathy for the experience you are giving them.

* * *

Your Customer Signs Your Paycheck

A note to marketers battling internal politics and that one exec who thinks they're a better marketer than you are.

Good writing serves the reader, not the writer.

And good content marketing serves the customer.

Yet often in marketing we put ourselves and our products first. We lead with us, not them.

Often that's not the fault of the marketer. Many organizations—especially those with multiple decision makers or layers of bureaucracy—place other agendas above the interests of the customer or reader.

They hold a spot at the front of the line for the boss. The CEO. Legal. That opinionated exec who thinks they're a better marketer than the entire marketing team.

But holding the first spot for anyone other than your customer is a mistake. The only person your content needs to please is your reader. Because ultimately you serve them—not your boss. The CEO. Or anyone else.

That seems counterintuitive. It's not. Here's why:

If your customer loves your content, so will your boss or client or that exec.

The inverse is not true: If only your boss loves it, it won't get any traction, shares, love. Your customer will not value it. Petunia will go somewhere else. It won't achieve what your organization needs it to.

“Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it,” says marketer Michael Brenner.

So create every bit of content to please just one person: your customer or prospect—not your boss. It's up to all of us to nominate ourselves as the court-appointed advocate for our customer.

Evangelize this point internally as loudly as you can. Make signs if you need to, and hold them aloft:

What would our content look like if the customer signed our paycheck?