A portfolio manager told me his most powerful tip for blogging on a regular schedule.

“I speak my thoughts into Dragon NaturallySpeaking.”

This speech recognition software transcribes his words, so he need not type his first draft. This is a great time saver.

I thought of this investment manager’s comment when I read “Reliable Dictation, Down to a ‘T’,” David Pogue’s enthusiastic review in The New York Times of Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.

Pogue says, “Nuance says the new version is 15 percent more accurate. Which is fine, if barely noticeable (how much better is a 15 percent gain when you’re already getting 99.6 percent accuracy?).”

If dictation helps you to write more regularly or quickly, check out this software.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Financial ads that speak plain English are unusual, so I was delighted to find another example from BNY Mellon in the July/August issue of the CFA Institute’s magazine. This ad does an even better job than the ad I discussed in “BNY Mellon: I liked your ‘truth ad’ until you used that word.”

Here’s the text that opens the ad for BNY Mellon Asset Servicing.

“Our tools measure performance, monitor exposure, and analyze risk. You get all the glory.”

The text is jargon-free. Plus it appeals to readers’ interest in promoting their careers. It’s a nice combination. The rest of the text is also free of jargon.

How do YOUR written materials measure up?

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Thanks to you–and the power of crowdsourcing–I’ve got the following list of potential titles for the monthly financial blog post critique that appears on the Discussions page of my Investment Writing Facebook page.

Which do you like–and why? If you’d like to see a sample financial blog post critique, I think the following link will get you to my Facebook business page, then click on Discussions, and scroll down to my July 13 post: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=234&uid=135544103124387#!/pages/Investment-Writing/135544103124387. While you’re there, it would be great if you could “like” the page. Once only three more of you “like” the page, I can create a custom URL for the page.

Here are the candidates for title of this monthly feature.

1. Advisor Advisor
2. The Blog Makeover
3. Blogability Review
4. Copy Hacks
5. Financial Blogs Made Better
6. Financial Writers Clinic
7. Investment Ink
8. Kickstart Critique
9. Post Doctor
10. Professional Post Punditry
11. Red Pixel
12. Swift Spotter
13. This Old Blog
14. 12 Rounds with Suze
15. Under My Glare
16. Writer’s Block
17. WRITERS THERAPY for Financial Bloggers
18. Writing Hacks
19. The Writing Improvement Show

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Some of us will read about hedge fund managers even if they’re written about in prose as dry as the Sahara. But many people won’t. This is why I’m discussing “One Trader’s Binge on Cocoa Wraps Up Chocolate Market” by Julia Werdigier and Julie Creswell in today’s New York Times (free registration may be required for access to the article). As I type this blog post, this article on the front page of The New York Times is its “most emailed.”

Photo by Profound Whatever

Here are three writing lessons from the article.

Lesson 1: Use colorful images. “To some, he is a real-life Willy Wonka. To others, he is a Bond-style villain bent on taking over the world’s supply of chocolate,” write the authors in the opening paragraph. This immediately draws in readers who may not care about hedge funds. Of course, the fact that hedge fund manager Anthony Ward is buying cocoa, an essential ingredient in chocolate, lends itself to tasty images.

Lesson 2: Explain numbers in everyday terms. “”By one estimate, he has bought enough to make more than five billion chocolate bars,” says the article. That’s a much more colorful image than “7 percent of annual cocoa production worldwide.”

Lesson 3: Get your main point across quickly. By the end of the first column, I learned that “.. hedge fund manager …named Anthony Ward has all but cornered the market in cocoa….and rival traders are crying foul, saying Mr. Ward is stockpiling cocoa in a bid to drive up already high prices so he can sell later at a big profit. His activities have helped drive cocoa prices on the London market to a 30-year high.”

Bonus suggestion: If you’re looking for writing tips, especially for short articles such as blog posts, analyze newspaper articles. The best newspaper articles offer great role models.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

This five-and-a-half minute audiocast is for financial advisors who are considering starting a blog or who would like to expand their blog’s audience.

Please note that there is only one slide, so don’t worry if there’s no movement after you push the start arrow.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Registered investment advisors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants you to communicate more clearly with your clients and prospects.

The way you write and share your Form ADV Part 2, commonly known as the “brochure,” will change under a new proposal by the SEC.

Here’s the part of greatest interest to advocates of better writing, as described in the SEC fact sheet:

“Under the new rules, advisers will have to provide new and prospective clients with narrative brochures that are organized in a consistent, uniform manner and that include plain English disclosures of the adviser’s business practices, fees, conflicts of interest, and disciplinary information.”

You can learn more of the details at “SEC Approves Disclosure Form Changes to Provide Investors Greater Information About Their Investment Advisers” on the SEC website.

Thank you, Philip Lawton of Stonehouse Consulting for bringing this to my attention!

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

A great financial article that you find online does NOT make a great blog post. At least not by itself. It simply gets you to the starting line of writing your blog post.

Photo by Diana the Math

It’s an excellent idea to link to a provocative or helpful article, as many financial advisors do. But your job is not complete when you post the website address to access a web page or an Adobe Acrobat file. You must also give your reader at least one reason to click on the link.

You can

1. Explain why you feel the way you do about the link–You may agree or disagree with author’s point of view. It’s fine to link to articles with which you disagree.
2. Briefly summarize the article’s relevant points–Many people will be too lazy to click through.

You may think it’s enough to share articles that you like because you’re giving readers a sense of who you are. But link-only communication works better on Twitter. It looks funny on a blog.

You needn’t invest lots of time to turn a link into a blog post. Imagine you’re talking with a client or friend about the article in your blog post. Write out your thoughts and you’ve got a blog post.

Before and after examples

I’ll illustrate what you can do by outlining a blog post based on “A Market Forecast That Says ‘Take Cover,’ ” a column by Jeff Sommer in The New York Times.

BEFORE

Here’s how the minimalist blogger presented Sommer’s article.

You probably don’t feel inspired to click on the link. You may even feel irritated that the blogger expects you to act on so little information.

Next, I’ll sketch an outline of how you blog the same article.

AFTER

In just three paragraphs the “after” example gives readers a sense of the blogger’s opinion. They may be intrigued enough to click through. Or, they may prefer to ponder the blogger’s point of view.

Make sure you express an opinion when you write a blog post that focuses on an article you admire.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

“There is no one exactly like you. Raymond James financial advisors understand that.”

These lines from a Raymond James advertisement get right what so many financial ads and brochures get wrong. They focus on you, the client, instead of us, the firm. They also make the client feel unique. These are qualities I’d like to see more of in financial advisors’ marketing and communications.

How do YOUR marketing materials measure up?

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) is an excellent networking organization. I’ve made some great friends through my membership.

A blurb about my blog appears for today only on the ASJA home page.Thank you, ASJA!

But I have been lax. I need to update the ASJA directory with my new blog URL, which is http://www.InvestmentWriting.com/blog.

If you’ve changed some of your URLs lately, are they up-to-date everywhere they should be?

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Scattershot marketing of your investment or financial advisory services will sap your energy. Plus, it makes it harder for you to distinguish yourself from your gazillion competitors. This is why I’d like you to pick your target market–the group of people whom you target–and niche, meaning the services you provide, before you write any marketing materials, including your blog.

Don’t know how to choose your target market or niche? “Why People Buy What You’re Selling,” Chapter 2 of Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid offers exercises that will help.

“What are your clients’ compelling desires?” asks Port in this chapter. Understanding the answer to this question is a key to your marketing – and blogging – success.

Knowing your target market, niche, and your clients’ “compelling desires” will tell you who to address in your blog and which benefits of your services you should stress.

Edited July 21, thanks to comment from Ben.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.