How Sharp is Your Blog Content Axe?

“This year, consider closing the gap between your actions and objectives,” writes Chip Munn in financialplanning.com. Harking back to Abe Lincoln (who reportedly said that if he had six hours to chop down a tree, he’d spend five of those hours sharpening his axe), Munn believes it’s time for financial advisors to follow that advice in their practices.

As a “financial planning emerita” I find several of Munn’s practical suggestions relevant for our work as blog marketers:

Document your processes
New opportunities present themselves when they’re in front of you on paper, Nunn observes.

The secret weapon for us blog content writers takes the form of an “idea folder”. That folder could be an actual folder in which newspaper and magazine clippings are collected, a little notebook you carry around, or take the form of a digital file on a phone or tablet.  We “load up” with content for future posts and stay current in the “now” by reading, bookmarking, clipping – and even just noticing – new trends and information relating to each of our clients’ business fields.

Embrace technology
There are exciting graphic design tools and email platforms that have improved the speed and ease of client-facing interactions, the author adds.

The blog platform (in the case of this Say It For You blog, WordPress®) takes care of formatting the content in the form of text and images, and provides a framework for getting it onto a website. The blogging platform also makes it easier for a search engine to categorize the blog entries. Content writers do well to take full advantage of the capabilities of each client’s chosen platform.

Focus on your ideal client
How are you making yourself visible to your ideal clients in the community? What are you delivering tangibly to clients that demonstrates your value? asks Nunn.

If what freelance blog writers do is help business owners build their brand, then the process of deciding what to include in the corporate blog becomes one of the writer helping the owner with self-discovery and of discovery of their ideal client profile.

Leverage your cooperation with people
Build collaboration with other professionals and with your own team, the author counsels.

To be effective content writers, we must engage with not only the business and practice owners who hire us, but with their employees and customers. In fact, in order for our content to appeal to a “better kind of customer” (one who buys for the right reasons and remains loyal,), we can incorporate “learning questions” in the blog posts, relying on readers’ ability to arrive at intelligent answers once we’ve provided intelligent questions and options through the blog content.

Engage your unique wisdom and abilities
Delegate or outsource activities that drain you and focus on those that give you energy and excitement, Nunn advises.

With blog marketing becoming such an indispensable customer acquisition tool, ghost blogging becomes an outsourcing solution for busy business owners who have long-long business goals but who are short-short on time.

Financial planning or blog content writing – old Abe was onto something, I agree. Sharpening our content writing “axe” is advice we try to follow at Say It For You!