My friend Cindy is a San Francisco middle school teacher. We got to talking about how to best get our thoughts across to our respective audiences. Middle school kids are notorious for misbehaving. Meanwhile, some blog readers frequently leave commentary that completely misses the point or argues the thesis with no background.
Cindy mentioned a communications strategy she’s been using ever since she started. The strategy is to always speak to the “lowest denominator.” This may sound bad, but it’s not. What Cindy means is to never assume our audience knows anything about what we are writing, especially when it comes to personal finance topics like how to legally paying less taxes. Instead, identify the least knowledgeable person in the class and speak or write as if we are talking to him or her.
THE NORMAL DISTRIBUTION IS INESCAPABLE
There’s a bell curve in everything we do. We could be in the top 10% of our high school class, but as soon as we go to college, we probably end up being back in the middle again. Most of us will fit right back in the 68% range of mediocrity. I know I often struggle to just get out of the bottom 14% when it comes to solving statistics equations. Don’t tell my college professor, but my partner and I went a couple hours over our open book, take home final exam because we were that stupid. Funny thing is, my partner is now getting a second post doctorate fellowship in cardiology in NYC.
Here’s a simple IQ Normal Distribution chart to help illustrate my point.
As you can see from the chart, most of us have an IQ of between 85 to 115. What Cindy is talking about is giving ourselves the flexibility of going from left to right in the chart. In other words, if we speak at a 70 IQ level, we will be able to effectively communicate with 86% of the class. Conversely, if we speak at a level only understandable to those with an IQ of 130 or higher, we will miss 98% of the population! Now you know why writers are often encouraged to write at a high school grade level or lower.
Please note that IQ level is just one of many of examples where the normal distribution applies. The actual IQ level is not the point. The point is that the normal distribution / bell curve is inevitable. Most of us are average, which is why politicians pander to the middle class for votes. Getting 100% of the top 1% to vote for you won’t win you the election if you don’t get at least half the middle class on your side!
EXPERIMENTATION ON FINANCIAL SAMURAI
Most of us write on par with high school level English. We’re bloggers after all, not Pulitzer Prize winning journalists with the world’s greatest editors to make our prose sing. Although we lack the resources of our sisters and brothers in traditional media, we make up for our deficiency with three things: 1) Creativity, 2) Opinions, and 3) Marketing.
Many people have asked how I manage to regularly generate so many comments on so many posts ever since the site launched in 2009. The answer lies in reporting as close to the truth as possible about a subject which is evenly split.
Example #1: Retirement Savings
Take for an example the article, “How Much Should People Have Saved In Their 401Ks At Different Ages?” The article has over 400 comments debating my chart on how much I think the average person should have at various stages of their lives. There are a tremendous amount of dissenters who believe it’s impossible to have $215,000 – $331,000 by the age of 35, even though they have no idea because they are still in their 20s! Meanwhile, the older the reader is, the more she or he is likely to agree with my 401K guidelines largely because the reader is within my guidelines.
The truth of the article lies in the fact that if you don’t have close to what I’ve suggested in savings by age, you will have a very difficult time living a financially comfortable retirement. Simply do the math yourself. Do you really think the average savings amount of $100,000 at the age of 65 will last very long, even with Social Security? Of course not. $100,000 generates only $1,800 a year in risk free interest. Even in inexpensive places like Des Moines, $100,000 won’t last much longer than five years.
The topic of retirement savings pertains to practically everyone who didn’t win the lottery. In essence, retirement savings starts off at the very left of the normal distribution curve and allows me to move to the right with various talking points.
Example #2: Structured Notes
What the hell are structured notes? They are a type of derivative investment product sold by financial institutions to those who are willing to give up some upside for some downside protection. Very few people have heard of structured notes as a viable investment class. When I called E*Trade to ask if they sell structured notes, the representative didn’t even know what I was talking about!
Structured notes is becoming a larger part of my net worth as my CDs begin to roll off. As I enjoy using my investments for my writing topics, I introduced the article, “Example Of How A Structured Note Works” as a way to educate readers about derivative investing. There were no comments on the posts for the first several hours, compared to at least 10 comments usually. After several days of existence, the post garnered a whopping 15 comments because nobody really cares about reducing risk and making money in a complex way. It’s boring!
My structured notes post started off at two standard deviations to the right of the normal distribution curve. Only those readers who have a rabid interest in investing in stocks and bonds showed any enthusiasm. Furthermore, readers need to save money in order to have money to invest. We know saving is a big problem in America, which is why writing about archaic topics on what to do with one’s savings is a losing proposition for building robust traffic and conversation.
Example #3: Lavishly Spending Money
Given America has a savings problem, most of us are by default spending experts. We tend to comment on posts where we show an interest or can add value, therefore, it comes to no surprise how well received the post, “How To Blow Lots Of Money And Not Give A Damn” was well received with about 47 comments.
The post was obviously a facetious response to CD Investment Alternatives given only people who save would care about CD investment alternatives. The problem with my “How To Blow Lots Of Money” post is that I wrote it in a way that provides TOO much truth. For example, one point I made was that people who blow lots of money on themselves or who are always in debt don’t care about the poor. Nobody argued against this point because the fact of the matter is, people who spend more than they make are selfish and don’t have money left over to help someone in need. Maybe they can volunteer their time, but so can everybody else so that’s a wash.
LOOK AT THE BIGGEST BLOGS
Instead of talking about how to make money work for you so you don’t have to, let’s talk about more ways to be frugal! Making money is easy compared to making money from money. As a result, I don’t think very many people will care or try. On the flip side, everybody can easily follow tips on how to cut costs. It may be maddeningly boring to talk about how to save money. I can see some of you shaking your heads now. But if you notice carefully, the biggest blogs in our space all focus on telling stories of frugality.
Of course we can’t just copy what the biggest blogs do in the space. 10 ways to save on soap has already been written already. We’ve got to put our own unique spin on things such as, “8 ways to save on liquid soap.” See the subtle difference? I’ve been stubbornly opinionated and focused on a small niche for a while. Perhaps it’s time to broaden out a bit to ensure growth.
TOPICS THAT ENABLE YOU TO GO FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
* Creating a budget.
* Getting out of debt.
* Buying a car, saving on car insurance, maintaining a car.
* Saving money on groceries, couponing, and eating out.
* Getting a job, getting promoted, interviewing well.
* Saving for retirement.
* Renting or homeownership.
* Dealing with setbacks, sadness, depression.
* Taking care of a family and aging parents.
* Selling the dream of being rich by doing minimal work.
* Finding happiness and love.
* Regurgitating the latest headlines.
TOPICS THAT LOSE YOUR AUDIENCE
* Anything that takes a tremendous amount of effort to understand.
* Anything that takes a lot of work to implement even if it helps the reader tremendously down the road.
Publishers, what are some strategies you’ve employed for developing robust traffic and dialogue on your sites? How do you balance keeping your site interesting and writing about topics that relate to the most people to build traffic?
Looking to learn how to start your own profitable website? Check out my step-by-step guide on how to start a blog. It’s one of the best things I did in 2009 to help earn extra money and break free from Corporate America!
You can’t talk to everyone but you are certainly limiting your reach if your posts are too technical for the average reader. I’d rather focus on having an engaged smaller community than a bigger site with no identity posting lists every other day. Those engaged readers are more likely to share posts socially and bring other readers over. I am trying to provide a well written post and not try to hard with SEO at the moment.
Engagement really is important. It’s definitely a fine balance between SEO and personality.
I’m not sure there’s a correlation between IQ and number of comments. Examples 1 and 3 were written to garner a reaction. Which they did. While #2 seems more educational, I agree requires interest, it doesn’t entirely correlate to IQ either. Just because there were less comments doesn’t mean #2 any less relevant. It’s probably more so because it helps answer a question.
Hi John,
The IQ chart is misleading. I should clarify as one’s IQ is not the relevant point.
I meant to just use the chart as a demonstration that the Normal Distrubtion curve is inescapable. Go from left to right to address as big an audience as possible to grow traffic.
Btw, post #1 on 401k savings is not meant to be controversial at all. It’s what I honestly believe is what folks need to accumulate to live a comfortable retirement.
Thanks
Sam
Thanks for clarifying. Then to get back on topic. I view is similar to Eric’s below and your reply regarding the big blogs. Most are owned by media companies that rely on high volume posts that cater to the hit and run reader. In return you get list posts and puff pieces you hinted at that anyone with a limited knowledge base can churn out. It’s a shotgun business model that I don’t believe scales well for unestablished or growing sites.
My opinion is to have a site focused around 1 or 2 topics that builds relevant, timeless content and traffic over time. It means the blogger needs a good understanding of the topics though.
Makes sense and that is something we’ve been expounding here at Yakezie. The reality is, traditional media and big sites are going the other way. It’s a shotgun barrage approach now and we will either join, thereby lowering our quality and return on effort, or stand our ground.
According to check-domains, I write for a fifth grade audience — hell, if fifth graders learn how to live within their means, then great!
Congrats! You are really taking the “speaking from left to right” concept to heart!
It’s just like the KISS principle–Why use 10 words when 3 will do? Why write in a manner that isn’t close to how people naturally speak? Otherwise, you’re pretty much showing off your vast vocabulary and turning people off.
Personally (and I admit I am in a very small minority), I hate reading and writing about the topics you listed. They’ve been covered to death, and most times in the same exact way. If I can’t come at them from a fresh perspective I stay away even if it means missing an opportunity to attract a bunch of new readers. And therein lies the problem–people seem to like that generic, repetitive stuff being told over and over–and I refuse to supply it to my own detriment.
It’s not a problem if you’re happy with the current state of your blog. It’s when someone is frustrated by their lack of growth, then complains by not writing pertinent content that relates to the majority of people which gets confusing.
I’m not a fan of reading about the same stuff over and over again either, but the reality is, that’s what the biggest blogs in our space do. They write about stuff that everybody can relate to, even if it’s not fresh.
I think there definitely has to be a balance between simplified writing and tackling harder concepts. I may be wrong because I am new at blogging but it seems to me that audiences would prefer someone they are taking advice from to sound at least a little more well-informed than them. :)
Definitely experiment and see what works for you. It’s a long trek, but if you make it to Ye end, you will see rainbows.
I’d largely agree, although I’ve found reading levels to be a tenuous concept and difficult to actually measure. When I was in middle school, I was told that I was reading at a college level, but now in my 30’s, I find myself enjoying YA literature. Does that mean I’ve gotten dumber over the last two decades?
Meanwhile, depending on what measure you use, my writing for my food blog is either grade level or college level. It all depends on what the scale looks for. Dall Chall compares your text to a dictionary of 3000 words. Problem 1 is that the average native-speaker’s vocabulary is between 8000 and 20,000 words, depending on whose research you are citing. Problem 2 is niches can have certain jargons that aren’t going to appear in that small dictionary size. Sautee isn’t in that list, so I loose points on the Dalle Chall scale every time I break out my frying pan!
Good points. I think our attention spans have all gotten extremely short.
Hence perhaps it’s good to mix short posts with long epic posts.
Even the Wall Street Journal is asking it’s journalist to write flash pieces now!
In the classroom, I tend to seek a middle road and explain the unknowns. I think it is an opportunity to upgrade the audience. I think I use some of that in my blog as well. I spend a lot of time on the idea and a title that attempts at grabbing you. If it is not interesting or at least a interesting viewpoint, why bother! I try to stay away from some of the topics because they have been beaten to death by others. If I cannot add to the discussion, I definitely won’t write about it. I find that the articles that resonate are ones where I am original and use some of my personal experiences.
Sometimes you can get yummy mashed potatoes if you beat a topic hard and often enough.
I forgot you are a teacher. Thanks for the perspective! How do you whip the bad students in line though?
That may be true, but I would lose interest! Most kids want limits or structure so behavior is not an issue with me. I try to motivate the underachievers by showing them that they can achieve. I helped several kids turn around, unfortunately not enough of them, but I keep trying.
Hahahahahaha, A+, would read again.
Now, I can read between the lines (even with my 63 IQ… 65 on a good day!), but that exact phenomenon bothers me as well. I enjoy strongly opinionated comments on my technical and argumentative pieces, but more often the comments I’ll receive run the gamut from “Great post!” to “I agree!” (assuming I get more than a handful of comments at all). It’s when I toss up inflammatory post titles like “Would you lie to your spouse about money?” that I see the 60-70+ comments the first week it’s posted.
However, even when you lose the battle I’ve noticed you sometimes win the war – and I think you clued into that with your recent 5,000 word a week challenge. Even though I didn’t participate (I apologize) I do find that my best performing articles are generally:
1) Calculators and Visualizations
2) Technical Pieces
3) Long (1,000 – 1,500+) pieces
Those pieces are like a fine wine – I’ll still get drive-by comments months after the fact, and even if they never accumulate a lot of comments they still get the most overall page views. Some of my highest commented articles? A distant memory. My highest viewed article by far? Four comments, all of them with some variation of the phrase “Thank you”.
Of course, those take hours to put together. Still, when I’ve got time I’d rather spend 6 hours on an awesome calculator (defined as: a tool I’d like to use) versus 20 minutes to toss up some filler. Oh, blogging, you’re a crazy hobby…
Thanks mate. I’ve never gotten an A+ for a post, so I appreciate it. I’m glad you’ve noticed the subtleties in this post as well, which I’m sure have been lost by plenty.
Fine wine, I like. Let’s build a cellar of the finest!
Sam, I think what makes your site so easy to understand are the charts. I find readers love charts and other tools that make things simple. I know I do!
Thanks Robert. I think you are right regarding the charts. Gonna keep that up from now on.
I try to write in a style pretty similar to how I speak. Most of the topics I write about aren’t that complicated either, so they can be understood by a wide audience. As far as reading technical articles goes, whatever the subject matter I tend to stick with sites that have credible writers who are able to get into the nitty gritty that I can learn from. But everything needs balance. Articles written at a more basic level are good for search and for less experienced readers.
This article puts me in trouble in that all I talk about are tax, estate and business matters that are fairly technical and complicated. I get what your are saying but it is hard to do for some of the topics I discuss. However, your points are well taken and will influence the way I present any new posts. Thanks for the wider and more well considered perspective.
Perhaps try and cross pollinate your topics with everyday things?
For example, write about how to hide your estate from an estranged spouse so you get to hoard as much of your wealth in the after life!
Not a bad idea. Perhaps I should bring the Tutenkamon (spelling?) perspective and tell my clients to get buried with their lifetime treasures. Just kidding but I do get your point and it is a good one!
K.I.S.S. is the strategy I like to use and prefer to read. I’m definitely more interested in posts I can understand than those that are very complicated. Maybe that puts me in the dunce category, but if I’m lost half way through, I give up. Wonder where I’d fall on the IQ chart!? P.S. where the heck is my gravatar? I updated it eons ago and it still doesn’t show up in these comments I leave.
Which fits well with this play’s theme. Not sure about your gravatar. Does your G not show up elsewhere as well?
Well, my blog is based on one of your topics listed above, and I have found a mojority of people are still struggling with getting the basics down. I have a “Budgeting Basics” series that is one of my most popular pages to date. I think it’s why guys like Dave Ramsey are successful, because he realized where to focus based on decades of financial counseling. People need basic help with money, and I don’t see that ever changing. Not that you always have to write about simple topics, but you may need to start there and then lead them to more and more advanced topics.
I think of it like a financial advisor. You don’t start the conversation on how they are going to invest in REIT’s with 20% of their savings, you start it by asking, “How are things going financially? Are you currently investing or saving any money? Do you want to save more? What are your goals and dreams? Ok, let’s break it down so we can get you there?” Then once they are investing steadily, you can educate them on more advanced investing strategies and ways to manage their money.
Good point about starting slow and working your way up to more complex issues. Dave Ramsey kills it indeed. And he’s not killing it by talking about options as a strategic investment either. Just plain old cut up credit cards, get out of debt, save money.
I think blending personal experience with a useful financial topic such as retirement or budget can help create bond with your readers. You have done amazingly well in that respect, Sam!
Thanks Shilpan. A blend is nice, although if one wants to become a juggernaut, it looks like bland and general is in.
Thought provoking article, Sam. I have noticed that blogs (and bloggers) can be placed on a matrix along the following lines: content and style. Hence, as content they are: personal, informational and educational (all these can be combined but one is always dominant); as style these can be technical or story telling.
If I have to place The Money Principle I’d say that it is educational story telling. My most commented pieces though are the once where a bit of personal (emotion) seeps in. Does it make sense?
Makes sense. Good matrix imagery to have.
I enjoy the story telling element. Unfortunately, the biggest sites have very little personal elements to them. It’s all about basic reporting of the news and providing helpful information.
Interesting concept. In fiction, it is recommended not to go into simple details explaining everything because it is a huge mistake to assume that your readers are idiots. Details can kills the story, In blogging it seems that this principle is not working that well. But I believe it also depends on complexity of a topic we are writing about. And the audience we are targeting.
I loved everything about this article and I completely agree with you. My biggest aritcles as far as traffic are concerned are articles catering to the “dreamers” rather than the “achievers” as I like to call them. I completely ignored my stats and started writing about stuff I really cared about and know a lot about… then nothing. So, for the next few months I’m going back to the basics to see if this theory works.
I try to write about things that are interesting to me. Sometimes they’re not that difficult to explain (an editorial style piece about saving money) and sometimes they’re more complex (stock analyses). It’s always a challenge to write at a level that can engage anyone along the personal finance spectrum and have the reader take something away from the article. Hopefully, I’m succeeding at writing posts that are informative and useful enough to keep people coming back.
[…] working more. Now the message is crystal clear thanks to my readers complains.Example #3 Build Robust Online Traffic By Speaking From Left To RightThe post’s original title was, “Build Robust Online Traffic By Speaking To The Lowest […]
[…] more generic on Financial Samurai. This way, I’ll get less comments to respond. By “speaking from left to write” where I talk about the basics so that everybody can understand, I’ll have a larger […]