One Way to Boost Reader Interest in Reading Our Articles

The introduction is like our profile on a dating site

Writers want to be read. The more readers we have, the greater our audience, influence, and reach, so it becomes easier to market our services and products. The challenge is getting people to become readers of our writing.

Our introduction is the first thing readers see. Just like our profile on a dating site, we want to make it as attractive as possible and craft it to attract the type of person we are interested in. For dating, it’s a romantic connection; for writing, it’s our reader.

You may be familiar with the acronym, WIIFM — What’s in it for me? It comes from marketing, and it describes what the reader will gain or avoid by reading the article. When we answer it effectively, it’s one of the best tools we have for enticing a reader to read. But if we add one more question and answer to WIIFM, we can ramp up the enticement level. The answer to Why should I care? makes the benefit more relevant for the reader because it zeroes in on the reason why they want it. It’s the motivator for reading. It’s what the benefit delivers.

Example: An article on money-saving strategies automatically answers WIIFM for most people since most of us want to hang on to as much money as possible. What if we write the same article, but add the why-should-I-care factor? Now we get an article on money-saving strategies [for investment, college education, vacation, lifestyle, independence, retirement income, financial stability, and so on]. This delves into the reasons why a reader wants money-saving strategies to begin with. It describes what the WIIFM benefit gives them — the thing that they want.

These two questions — What’s in it for me and Why should I care — deliver a one-two punch and make our introductions more compelling.

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