It took me more than three weeks to create my first buzz piece, a special report called 101 Writing Tips for Successful Email Marketing. It was written at a time (the late 1990s) when e-mail was just emerging as a viable marketing channel. The best practices had yet to be established. I had to do a lot of thinking and research to come up with those 101 tips! But my efforts paid off big time. Once I started using that report to market my services, I quickly became known as an e-mail copywriting expert and attracted several F-500 clients. Some companies even hired me to teach their in-house writers how to craft effective marketing e-mails!

So prepare yourself for a little work. Like your website, your buzz piece is going to represent you. It’s going to showcase your knowledge and skills to potential clients and others who can help your business grow. It may very well become your number-one calling card.

Let’s take a look at some tips for getting your buzz piece created. These are in no particular order. What I’ve done here is give you the best ideas and strategies I’ve discovered while creating buzz pieces for my business and coaching other freelancers in doing the same.

Don’t worry about being clever. Your title doesn’t have to be particularly creative to be compelling. In fact, the best buzz piece titles are often simple. For example, the special report by copywriter Nicky Jameson, the one I told you about earlier in this chapter, is called The 19 New Rules of Social Media Copywriting. A title doesn’t get much more straightforward than that! Yet its appeal is undeniable. Marketing managers struggling with how to leverage social media sites in their own campaigns want to know what those 19 new rules are!

In fact, buzz piece titles that begin with “How to …” or contain a number—17 Tips to Selecting the Right Wedding Photographer—are often winners. So start your brainstorming there.

Sometimes you’ll develop a title that’s intriguing but doesn’t clearly describe what the buzz piece is about. If that happens, add an explanatory subtitle. I once worked with a freelance copywriter who wrote a buzz piece called The SOS Technique, a curious title, but not one that gives you any idea of the content. I suggested adding the subtitle A Simple 3-Step Strategy for Getting a Higher Response to Your Google Ads. He did, and as a result, the buzz piece became much more successful for him.

When my friend, graphic designer Michael Huggins, sat down to write his buzz piece, The 5 Keys to Creating a Lead-Generating Brochure, he simply divided the work into those five sections and then divided each section into the two or three main points he wanted to address. That made the writing process a lot easier.

For example, if your buzz piece features some instruction on how to select the right color schemes for a corporate logo, turn that into a question: What are three tips for selecting the best logo color schemes? You can answer a question, can’t you? (Assuming you’re a logo designer, of course!)

I once worked with a freelance copywriter who wanted to attract white paper writing assignments. But the only portfolio sample he had was one he did for a fictional company during a course. How could he write a buzz piece on that topic with any real credibility? I suggested that he find an expert to interview and turn that into a buzz piece. He did, and the resultant special report he created helped him become very successful in that specialized market. The expertise of the white paper guru he interviewed rubbed off on him!

In my experience, most experts are more than willing to participate by being interviewed for a buzz piece. For them, it’s free publicity.

If there’s more information on the topic you think is important, add a list of helpful resources where readers can learn more.

One final tip: write your buzz piece in a style that’s informative and conversational. This isn’t the place for stiff formality. (Is there such a place?) This is your conversation with the readers, many of whom will hopefully be potential clients for your services. Let them hear your voice!