Blogging Pointers From a Sales Training Star

/0 Comments/in , , /by

“The introduction and body of your presentation might be in good shape, but don’t forget about your closing remarks,” famed sales trainer Brian Tracy cautions. “Often, your audience will remember your final words the longest.” Back when I was an investment sales professional, Brian Tracy’s tapes kept me on the right track whenever I felt discouraged. Today, I realize, many of Tracy’s tips about a speaker’s closing remarks can be applied to content marketing…

Tie up all the loose ends. Make sure you’ve hit all the points you said you would.
A big part of successful blog content writing involves getting the “pow opening line” right.. “Pow” endings tie back to the openers, bringing the post full-circle. If you’ve used a list to organize the information, use the concluding paragraph to help readers see the connection between the information you’ve provided and the products and services you have to offer.

Use inflection in your voice.
As your speech is drawing to an end, you can use your tone of voice, inflection, and pitch to signal that things are wrapping up, Tracy advises. While we are not using voice in blogging for business, we blog content writers can use typeface and bolding to draw readers’ special attention to parts of the message in each of our posts, including the closing sentence..

Summarize your main message.
The content of the opening sentence can be designed to grab readers’ attention. Two possible tactics include beginning with the conclusion, using the remainder of the blog post to “prove” the validity of the bold opening assertion. Or, if you’ve opened by posing a challenging question in the opening sentence, using the post to propose an answer, the ending can consist of restateing the question and then the answer.

Include a call to action. “Make it easy for your audience to take action by being clear and direct.”
Direct, but never abrupt, caution the authors of writtent.com caution. The CTA must be a logical extension of the blog post itself, they advise.

Around six years ago, BusinessWeek magazine had an article about corporate executives in demand as speakers, advising them to “Choose Your Podium Wisely”, accepting only those opportunities likely to result in business leads, attracting new talent to their firms, or building their company’s reputation. There, too, I found a parallel between speakers and blog content writers. I advised blog marketers to pinpoint their target customers and clients and focus the blog content on the needs of that audience.

Public speakers and content writers – we’re both out to bring the right message in the right way to the right audience!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

In Blogging for Business, Answer the Question: “Compared to What?”

/0 Comments/in , , /by

 

Always “reading around” for background materials for this Say It For You blog, I learned two different startling statistics about the travel industry. First, at a recent networking meeting, I heard from presenter Gloria Thomas of Eight Streams Wealth that travel represents $9.25 trillion worth of business here in the U.S. Then from reading Tourism Review News, I learned that tourism has generated 20% of total world employment since 2013. Conclusion: Travel is a big, big deal.

Same message, just in different words? Yes and no.

Both presentations offered attention-commanding statistics. From Tourism Review, I learned that, in a single year, there are 1.4 billion international arrivals registered across the globe and that fully 20% of the jobs generated worldwide between 2025-2019 were in travel and tourism.

What lent Gloria Thomas’ presentation extra “oomph”, in my opinion, was the “compared to what?” element. That $9.25 trillion in U.S. travel business? Our oil & gas industry generates $330 billion. Our auto industry? $500 billion. Hollywood? A “mere” $300 billion.

It’s been a long-held belief of mine: nothing speaks quite as loud as numbers, which is why, in teaching how to create content for blog posts, I stress the power of using statistics. Real numbers dispel false impressions people have about an industry and can be used to demonstrate the extent of a problem before you set about showing how you help solve that problem. From a customer acquisition standpoint, statistics relate to the theory of social proof – humans are more willing to do something other people are already doing.

The thing about numbers, though, is they’re tricky. Statistics are a valuable form of information, to be sure, and, as my friend Gloria proved, answering the “compared to what?” question invests those statistics with more power. But in blog marketing, I’ve come to realize, there’s even more needed. For every statistic about the company or about one of its products or services, even with the addition of comparisons, the content writers needs to address every reader’s unspoken question – So, is that good for me (compared to what I am doing or using now)?

Bottom line: The raw ingredients of blogging for business need to be “converted” into relational, emotional terms that compel reaction – and action. In describing your products, your services, your business credo, don’t forget to answer the question: Compared to what??

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

All I Want for the Holidays is Blogging

/0 Comments/in /by

You can hardly refer to gift-giving as a modern custom. In primitive cavemen culture, the giving of gifts was fairly common, the Popcorn for the People website explains. During the Egyptian era, gifts were given to pharaohs; in Roman times people would present each other with good luck gifts. In the Medieval age, gifts were used to show allegiance in times of war. “Today, gift giving is still part of our everyday culture…’, the authors continue.

That sentence might be an understatement, because gift giving is so much a part of our winter season these days – Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanza – all involve the custom of giving gifts. Since blog content writing is all about learning new things, I learned even more about today’s gift giving customs in different countries and cultures:

  • Shin Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day in December with candles and gifts.
  • In India, gifts of cash should be given in odd numbers (1 signifies a new beginning…)
  • Chinese people give one another gifts of red envelopes filled with money.
  • In Thailand, gifts in sets of nine are considered lucky.
  • In Egypt, it’s traditional to wrap gifts twice in different-colored paper.

Gifts for Bloggers
Surfing the web, I even found a blog about gifts for bloggers. The author suggested editorial planners, notebooks, laptop stands, photo subscriptions, blogging courses and books, even housecleaning services (so the blog content writer can use dusting and mopping time creating content). ….”

Actually, you needn’t send me any of those gifts, and here’s the reason why not:: One of my very favorite songs of the season, is Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas is You.

I don’t want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don’t care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you

Although my family celebrates Chanukah, that Christmas song perfectly expresses my own feelings when it comes to blog content writing… This career is a gift in itself, with new things to learn every day, and the chance to constantly experiment with new ways to use words. All I want for the holidays….is blogging!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

To Be Interesting, Think Broad

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

“Many people and most organizations narrowly define what’s relevant and interesting to their followers. They mistakenly assume that their followers want to read about only a narrow band of subjects,” Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzgerald point out in The Art of Social Media.

As examples of how posts can be “broadened”, Kawasaki suggests that a restaurant chain might include news about atomic particles that help solve wine fraud, while an airline might offer news about drive-in theaters or mindful travel photography. It’s not that you don’t want to promote yourself and your own business to followers, the author explains; it’s that sharing interesting stuff and broadening by “catalyzing more interaction,” you earn the right to promote yourself!

As part of blogging training at Say It For You, I do often recommend including interesting information on topics only indirectly related to your specific business or profession (or, if you’re a freelance blog content writer, related to the client’s business or profession). If you’ve unearthed tidbits of information most readers wouldn’t be likely to know, so much the better. I agree with Kawasaki that even if some tidbits of information are not “actionable”, if they are intrinsically interesting, it’s worth including them simply to add fun and variety to your content.

But broadening the scope of information you offer in a business blog needn’t be only for the sake of adding fun to your content. Little known and trending news stories can be offered to readers with some very specific “ulterior motives” on the part of the business owner or practitioner, such as:

  • clarifying the way your business or practice works
  • demonstrating the many uses of your products
  • reinforcing the importance of a widespread problem
  • explaining why your business practices are designed to prevent that particular problem
  • busting a common myth

Online searchers who’ve arrived at your blog post definitely need assurance they’ve come to the right place. But now they’re here, you’ll have a better chance of engaging their interest by “going broad”!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Shakespeare Could Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two

/0 Comments/in , /by

Spacehuntr, Brussels’ fastest growing platform for scouting and booking event spaces in European cities, is apparently in the process of recruiting a content creator. If you feel Shakespeare could learn something from you, the company teases, you’re the candidate we’re seeking. (Myself, I am much too busy copywriting at Say It For You to be looking for a job, thank you. Still, that line got me thinking about the Bard and what he might have to teach today’s generation about content marketing…)

Meanwhile, one of Spacehuntr’s own recent blog posts caught my interest: Know your target audience: 10 ways to understand your people. When building a persona (a semi-fictional representation of the people with whom you’re attempting to connect), don’t consider only basic stats such as age gender, and nationality. Think ‘psychographic’, advises author Gareth Platt. Techniques for gaining insight into this audience, (many of which we have been incorporating in our Say It For You blog marketing for years), include:

1. running focus groups
While even the largest of my Say It For You blog clients is probably tiny compared to the largest of European corporations, I think blogs can perform a focus group function. Blog readers would weigh in on their own time in the form of responding to surveys, offering ideas or ratings – all good techniques to stimulate interaction with target customers.

2. using social media (posting opinions, asking questions, using hashtags)
As a freelance blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I find there’s some confusion about what distinguishes blogs from other social networking tools. Blogs, I believe, are a little more focused. The blogger serves as a “keynote speaker” in control of the discussion, yet still allows for questions and comments from the audience. I would agree with Spacehuntr’s focus on gaining insight into your audience, which means finding out where they “hang out” online and showing up there.

3. studying the competition

Regular readers of this Say It For You blog will recall that I advise business bloggers to read ten articles or other blogs for every blog post they write, and I follow that advice myself. We cannot position ourselves within the marketplace without studying our surroundings. And, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements. Each “visit” should conclude with readers understanding exactly what your unique philosophy or mission is, and why your approach can be beneficial to them.

So… were I inclined to apply for that copywriting position at spacehuntr, I’d be sure to mention that my college major was English and that I studied Shakespeare’s plays in detail. I’m sure the Bard would be properly impressed with the speed of digital communication today. I’m not sure I could teach him anything about understanding people, because his plays are full of the same humor, romance, tragedy, and insight we look for in good writing today. In fact, I suspect Shakespeare could teach us blog content writers a thing or two!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail