I was recently asked, “What makes you different to other marketing professionals?”

It’s a fair question and in a space where anyone can be an online influencer, I have found it even more important to share why my approach to marketing is different. However, to do so, I need to tell you about my educational background.

Professional Writing & Rhetoric

When I attended college, the only path for wannabe writers was a Bachelor’s in Journalism or Communications, but I quickly discovered that journalistic writing didn’t work well with how I processed information. Thankfully, my counselor pointed me to the English department where the professors were developing a budding program called Professional Writing & Rhetoric. Students learned about how audiences consume content, the rationale behind writing techniques, and why there isn’t a one style fits all model when it comes to writing.

Flash forward 13 years and for the first time, I’m finally sharing why I think about ancient philosophers every time I analyze a consumer product for a client and how I know my ad copy will perform well.

It all comes down to persuasive rhetoric with a content marketing lens. Below, you’ll find Aristotle’s three pillars of persuasion language with current marketing tactics tied to concepts often used by brands.

Persuasive Pillars From a Customer’s Perspective

Taking Aristotle’s work one step further, I use these pillars to better understand a client’s audience and potential customers. In other words, I determine what counts as proof or trust for a customer and tie that back to content marketing tactics, often using language semantics.

Customers don’t just trust a brand or a product because of a review or a story, they trust a brand or a product because the customer that reviewed it or the brand’s approach is like them. There is often an emotional connection. Creating the connection through imagery and language is the secret sauce of digital marketing and while I know I’m not the only marketer that does this, I often find that I’m in the minority — at least on the language front.

Authentic Language Semantics

When I dive into a new campaign, I think about who is buying a product and instead of brainstorming fun catchphrases for an item, I go where my primary audience lives.

Currently, I’m working on a Millennial/Gen-Z product that is most often consumed by individuals with discretionary income. Want to guess where I spend 90% of my free time, learning about how these consumers talk to each other? If you guessed the comment section of TikTok, then yes, you are absolutely right. Phrases and words like bevragino or It’s the {fill in the blank} for me or CEO of {fill in the blank} are signals to a generational audience that they might be interested in what I’m about to sell them.

Even with hours dedicated to TikTok, that’s only one layer of audience analysis and what I like to call the Vibe. Download my quick 3-step guide to creating your base-level audience analysis by diving into the Self, Joy, and Vibe of your potential customer.

DOWNLOAD YOUR AUDIENCE ANALYSIS 101 CHECKLIST

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