Write Why Everything You Don’t Do, You Do For Them

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“Recently, Aldi has started TV brand advertising here in Pa., one of their biggest US markets,” Hacker News reports. “They literally brag about their smaller sku count, small stores, no cart pushers, and no loyalty cards. The tag line is ‘Because everything we don’t do, is for you.'”

“We look at the world through these core values: simplicity to keep costs down, consistency in providing the highest quality products and responsibility in how we reduce our environmental footprint”, is corporate Aldi’s message.

Aldi’s “things we don’t do” include:

  • accepting manufacturers’ coupons
  • offering a loyalty program
  • providing free shopping carts
  • offering thousands and thousands of products displayed in many aisles
  • bagging customers’ groceries
  • providing free paper or plastic bags
  • offering food products containing synthetic colors or MSG.

The Aldi tag line is effective precisely because it’s so unexpected. Companies don’t typically boast about services and products they don’t offer. In marketing a business or practice, we would do well to emulate the concept, explaining what we have decided not to offer and why we think that’s important to us and to our clients and prospects.

In fact, as we teach at Say It For You, the best marketing content gives readers insights into company owners’ or professional practitioners’ core beliefs, explaining not only what they do, but what they choose not to do and why.

Of all the goals served by writing content, the most important might be ”humanizing” and reinforcing trust. Online searchers need to come away with the impression they will be dealing with real, likeable people, not just with ”a company” or “a practice”. That means that whether the business owner or practitioner is creating his or her own content or collaborating with writers like us, the end result needs to be defining the underlying boundaries and beliefs.

What are the things you don’t – indeed won’t – do? And, most important, why are those “don’t dos” done in the best interest of the clients?

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Arming Readers With Words

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Farmer’s Almanac 2025 does something content marketers need to do more often – “putting words into readers’ mouths” Why? To make it easy for them to feel not only comfortable, but “smart” when talking about your business or practice area. 

The Almanac authors explain where several of our most common expressions come from:

I’ll take a raincheck:

In 1880s baseball, spectators were given an actual ticket stub for admission to a future game when a game was called off for rain. Later, retailers who were out of stock on an item offered rain checks for discounts at a later date.

I’m on Cloud Nine:

In the 1950s, the U.S. Weather Bureau would give numbers to clouds depending on how high they were, up to 30,000 feet (9 was next to highest).

It’s raining cats and dogs

The Greek word Catadoxa (try saying it out loud) means beyond belief. Another explanation is that in medieval times, homes had thatched roofs, and domestic animals would hide in the roof when the weather turned severe.

Under the weather

In old sailing vessels, “under the weather” meant under the weather rail (the hold of the ship).  If a sailor wanted to reduce the impact of the waves, he’d go below deck.

In blog marketing, once you’ve established common ground, reinforcing to readers that they’ve come to the right place, it’s important to add lesser-known bits of information on your subject, which might take the form of arming readers with new terminology, serving several purposes:

  • positioning the business owner or professional practitioner as an expert in the field
  • adding value to the “visit” for the reader
  • increasing readers’ sense of being part of an “in-the-know” group

As content writers, part of our challenge is to educate both prospects and clients on the issues relating to their decisions to choose between one business’ products and services and those of its competitors.  Introducing a curiosity-stimulating new term is one way to do just that.

At Say it For You, we believe in empowering readers by teaching them the meanings and the correct use of the terminology in that field. Most important, buyers feel empowered to make a decision when they feel “in on” the “lingo”.

Arm your readers with words – they’ll be more likely  to “lend you their ear”!

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Content That Sets a Standard

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Absolute perfection!  (That was my first thought upon reading this Patek Phillippe ad in a special issue of Forbes:

 At Patek Phillipe, when we make a watch, however hard we work, we can only go at one  speed. One that ensures we adhere to the high standards for which we are respected. 

We understand that some people express frustration at this. They want to us to go  faster. But at our family-owned watch company, fast is the enemy.  Because to accelerate the time it takes to make a watch, we would have had to cut corners  and lower our quality.

 And then the watch might be a very good timepiece.  But it would not be a Patek Phillipe and would not merit the Patek Phillipe seal.

Thierry Stern, President

Notice how the president of Patek Phillipe never puts down competitors, in fact never even mentions other watchmakers. For that reason, he comes across as a leader, not a follower.

In content marketing, we teach, negatives against competitors are a basic no-no. Sure, in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition.  But, to get the point across that readers should want to choose your business or practice, or your products and services over those offered by the competition, it’s best to emphasize the positive.

An alternate approach to mentioning the competition in content marketing includes acknowledges that there may be alternative approaches to reader’s problem or need, then offering evidence backing up your own viewpoint.

A point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions is that you’ve got to have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, content, to be effective, can’t be just compilations of other people’s stuff, making that be your entire blog presence. Yes, aggregation may make your site the “go-to” destination for information on  your subject. The bottom line, though, is that Thierry Stern understands the power of thought leadership, of staying true to the care values on which your business or practice was founded.

Sure, your competitors’ products and services may be very good products and services, but they wouldn’t be uniquely yours, and your content wouldn’t set a standard.

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Made-Ya-Read Trivia in Content Marketing

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I know I’m not alone in enjoying trivia. In fact, through my work in content marketing, I’ve developed the theory that readers’ curiosity is triggered when they’re presented with “idea bytes”. In fact, when it comes to blog content, I like to say, trivia is hardly a trivial matter. There are at least four ways trivia can be used to keep content fresh:

  •  defining basic terminology
  • sparking curiosity about the subject
  • putting modern-day practices and beliefs into perspective
  • explaining why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way

Of course, blog content needs to be about much more than trivia tidbits. The tidbit is simply the jumping-off point for the message. Almost two years ago, in the 2023 Almanac for Farmers & City Folk, I’d come across an article, spending the next couple of blog posts suggesting ways in which different types of business or professional practices might use the trivia I found in that article.  The piece happened to be about (of all things!) antlers on deer.

  • The fact that every spring male deer grow themselves a new set of antlers might be used by a company selling fire extinguishers, water filters or dried herbs, each of which should be replaced at least once a year.
  • The fact that Chinese medicine has used antlers for thousands of years to support bone health could inspire a blog for an orthopedic medical practice – or a vitamin supplement manufacturer.
  • The fact that deer use their antlers to compete with each other for mates and territory might be mentioned in a martial arts studio’s blog.
  • Since antlers fill an ecological role (once shed, they become an important source of calcium and other minerals to a variety of small animals) those facts might be used by any company to show ways in which they are environmentally aware.

Where, other than a Farmer’s Almanac, do you find trivia? Everywhere, actually – magazines, newspapers, TV, social media sites – you name it. One of my favorite sources is MentalFloss.com. Here are just a few of their recent gems and possible content uses for each:

  • Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was a wrestling champion. (Personal trainer? Gym? Physical therapist?)
  • Frederick Bauer invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one. (Snack food company? Funeral home?)
  • The 100 folds in a chef’s toque are said to represent 100 ways to cook an egg. (Grocery store? Cooking school? Home meal delivery service?)
  • The mobile phone throwing world championships are held in Finland. (Phone vendor? Travel company?)

No, you can’t make ’em buy. But in online marketing, it all starts with “made-ya-look” content.

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Effective Marketing Content Makes It Achievable

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“To succeed with a decision-maker, the person proposing a change needs to demonstrate that the plan is achievable,” Garett Mintz writes in the Indianapolis Business Journal. If you’re in business development, you need to position yourself in a way that demonstrates you are the low-risk option, he explains – not necessarily in terms of costs, but in terms of the buyer’s time and reputation.  In “de-risking” the option you’re offering, Mintz suggests the following formula:

Proximity + Follow-through = Trust

Proximity through frequency

There’s a lot of wisdom here for online content marketers, I couldn’t help thinking. For example, in order to achieve “proximity”, Mintz says, the more time a business development professional can spend with a prospect, the more rapport and connection will be built. When it comes to online “pull marketing”, we know at Say It For You, proximity is achieved through frequency of posting new content.

The issue we find so often (and this has not changed in the seventeen years I’ve been the business of creating content) is that, even knowing that winning search and driving business to the website involves frequency of posting content, the majority of business and practice owners simply cannot spare the time – or maintain the discipline – of researching, creating and posting content frequently enough to make a substantial difference in their marketing results.

Proximity through recency

As we work with the owners of businesses or professional practices, we always stress how important it is to use the blog to provide information – especially new information – related to their field. Whatever the nature of their business or professional practice, we always advise using the blog to provide that kind of new information.

Couldn’t online searchers find more complete and authoritative sources of information, some ask?  Certainly, is my response. but readers need you to help them make sense of the information. And, the very fact that you’re posting new content frequently demonstrates that you’re maintaining “proximity” to what’s going on around you and in your profession or business area.

De-risking through content

Since, as Mintz so strongly emphasized, buyers are protective of their own time, content consisting of case studies, anecdotes, and testimonials (showing how your product or service saved valuable time) are important in building trust. In another sense, de-risking through content involves “de-bunking” of prospects’ unfounded fears and biases. By offering content in the form of “guiding principles”, you can allow prospects to move forward.

To succeed in our content marketing efforts, we need to demonstrate that the plan is achievable!

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