Proofing Your Blog Posts

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“When you’re writing to attract customers, what you’re really doing is persuading them to choose you over someone else,” writes Amy Pennza of the Content Factory. “People tend to take action when they’re presented with facts, not assertions,” she adds. 

At Say It For You, we know that, when searchers arrive at your blog, they already have an interest in (and probably some core knowledge about) your subject. Blog marketing reality is that, in order to move searchers to the next step, you need to “prove your case”. Some of the ways to do that include:

 

  • Statistics about the problem you’re proposing to help solve. (Implications: a. The searcher is not the only one confronting this issue. b. Your company/practice has helped many others solve this very problem.) 
  • Credentials highlighting the experience, training, and degrees earned by you and your staff members. 
  • Social proof emphasizes the fact that many others have benefited from the solution you’re proposing. Simply Psychology explains that people are more willing to commit to a course of action if other people are doing it. Blog content writers can use testimonials and success stories to create “normative influence”.
One particularly powerful form of proof is known as reverse proof, a term that comes from
coin collecting. Rather than featuring a fronted raised image on a mirrored field, reverse proof coins feature a frosted field with a raised, mirrored image.  According to APMEX®, reverse proof coins are considered more beautiful and valuable than standard coins. 

Translated into blog marketing, reverse proof involves comparing your proposal with alternatives that prospects might consider. But, rather than focusing on competitors’ shortcomings, focus on the customer’s solution, advises salesforce.com, allowing the customer to see solutions they didn’t think were possible. In fact, Sales Force advises, don’t use comparisons at all, never allowing the discussion to turn to competitors.

 

Kevin Phillips of iMPACT Learning Center strongly disagrees. “What is your biggest concern with telling website visitors that there are others out there that do the same thing you do?  Are you afraid that if you tell them there are more options, they’ll choose those other options every time?”  You should write about your competitors, Phillips says, and for the following reasons:
  • It shows consumers you’re honest.
  • It establishes you as an industry thought-leader.
  • It allows you to control the conversation.
If your goal in blog content writing is not only attracting customers, but persuading them to choose you over someone else – you need to be “proofing” your blog posts!
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5 Ways to Create Delicious Omelets and Blog Posts

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There are four types of omelets, Course Hero explains: American style, French Style, Frittata, and Souffle. Interesting information, I thought, but Upfront Magazine’s article “Good Eggs: 5 Ways With Omelets” is a better example for my blog content writers. Why?  The Upfront piece went beyond providing information to readers, offering ways they can put that info to use.  blog post illustrations

The five “ways” (each attributed to a particular chef) include:
  1. using pizza toppings
  2. trying sweetness (tucking banana slices into the omelet, with powdered sugar and chocolate sauce)
  3. adding richness with goat cheese, meet, and herbs
  4. adding yogurt
  5. going Midwestern by adding fried kielbasa
I found a number of things in the “5 Ways” article that illustrate good practices for blog content writers:
It’s a “listicle”. 
Lists spatially organize information, helping create an easy reading experience, and by most accounts, search engines like lists as well.
It uses “chunking”.
Chunking is a way for business bloggers to offer technical information in easily digestible form, tying different pieces of advice and information into a unifying theme. The “5 Ways” article combines cooking advice (“It shouldn’t be brown or crisp” with a variety of ideas.

It uses visuals.
Visuals are one of the three “legs” of the business blog “stool”, along with information and perspective, or “slant”. Whether you use actual original photos or “clip art, visuals add interest and evoke emotion, in addition to cementing concepts in the minds of readers. “5 Ways” is headed by pictures of the 5 types of omelets being discussed.

It has an effective title
“How long?” is one question I hear a lot at corporate blogging training sessions, referring to the blog post itself, but also to the title. While the most effective length for a title is whatever it takes to signal to online searchers that “right here” is the place they want to be, titles should not be overly complicated or cumbersome.

It curates and properly attributes to sources
Quoting others in your blog adds value – you’re aggregating resources for the benefit of your readers. Then, as business blogging service providers, we need to add our own “spin” to the material based on our own business wisdom and expertise. At the same time, it’s crucial to properly attribute quotes and ideas to their sources.

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To the Blog Writer, It’s One Thing; To the Reader, It Might Be Another

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blog marketing
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it dozens of times in this Say It For You blog – blogs are not ads.  Still, always on the prowl for good ideas, I happened upon a full page ad (for sleep chairs, of all things!) that could actually serve as a model for us blog content writers. 
The headline consisted of a quote from a customer:
“To you, it’s the perfect lift chair. To me, it’s the best sleep chair I’ve ever had.”

Then, beneath a picture of the lift chair, there was a three paragraph article.  “You can’t always lie down in bed and sleep. Heartburn, cardiac problems, hip or back aches, dozens of other ailments and worries. Those nights you’d give anything for a comfortable chair to sleep in.”
It’s a good idea to build the occasional blog post around a customer success story. Good testimonials give prospective customers peace of mind, providing proof that people have tried your products and services and approve of them.

The second paragraph went on to highlight some special features of the product – heat and massage settings, battery backup, and a lift mechanism that tilts the chair forward.
In one of my favorite books about selling, Mitch Meyerson’s Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, the author points out that features tell us two things about a product or service:  what it does and what goes into it. In this ad, of course, the benefits (what the product does for the customer) are emphasized first, with the features described second.

The third paragraph highlighted “white glove delivery”, with professionals unpacking the chair in the customer’s home, inspecting and positioning it, even carrying the packaging away.
Since at Say It For You, our content writers serve the needs of both product vendors and professional practitioners, I was very interested in this paragraph about extra services associated with the product. Blog content writers should make lists of ways their business individualizes and personalizes services to customers and clients.

The bottom of the page had the phone number (with a special code), along with a color and fabric chart.
While blogs are not advertisements, I often explain to content writers that a Call to Action does not at all invalidate the good information provided in the piece. As long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer. In fact, the Call to Action in the form of a phone number to call or a link to click makes it convenient for readers who are ready to buy.

To the blog writer, the product or service might represent one thing; to individual readers, it might represent another, all the more reason to vary the approach in different posts. 
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Help Blog Readers See Themselves in Your “Home”

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In “Stage a Home That Sells”, AARP’s Upfront/LIVE magazine is talking about appealing to young couples when selling real estate, but what I noticed is that three of the recommendations listed under “What Buyers Want” are made to order for blog content writers, no matter what the product or service we’re marketing:
“Buyers want a home they can see themselves in.”
Help online visitors to your business blog assimilate your message through visualizing, I advise at Say It For You. Painting word pictures is an important part of blog marketing. Sure, there is room for technical, precise language in discussing your product or service, but you want listeners to “put themselves in the picture” by becoming customers or clients.
“Buyers want a sense of wellness in the home.”
According to the Writing Center at The University of North Carolina, “In order to communicate effectively, we need to order our words and ideas on the page in ways that make sense to a reader”. Assume your readers are intelligent, the authors advise, but do not assume that they know the subject matter as well as you. Using familiar words and word combinations gives readers a sense of comfort and “wellness”.
“Buyers want a home with potential for connectivity.”
Does creating connection relate to blog marketing? In every way. “How would most people describe their relationship with your company?” asks Corey Wainwright of hubspot.com. Is the relationship purely transactional, making you just a place they go to get something they need, or do you elicit more personal feelings
Each claim a content writer puts into a blog post needs to be put in context for the reader so that the claim not only is true, but feels true to online visitors.
Home buyers typically look at under a dozen  homes before making a decision, but, in that same timeframe, online readers can scan dozens upon dozens of posts before making a decision about a product or service.
My way of describing the process of blog marketing is this: painting the picture (“staging the home”) is only Step #1; What comes next is putting the reader into the picture!
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A Recommended List of Reading Genres for Better Business Blogging

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“Reading fiction, it seems, could be a way to break old habits and unlock more effective, empathetic marketing,” Carina Rampell of the Content Marketing Institute observes, quoting William Faulkner. (Good news for me; since the pandemic stay-at-home thing began, I’ve worked my way through some 18 different novels!)

Like all writers, marketers have a lot to gain from exposure to literature, Rampell continues. “Marketing is all about empathy and storytelling, and great stories are proven to make us more empathetic.”’ But not all reading – and not all stories, she cautions, are the same, and “some genres are more effective than others in helping you “improve your marketing chops”.

 

Rampell lists advantages we content writers can gain from reading:
  • Reading poetry teaches us clarity and precision.
  • Reading the classics teaches us compelling storytelling structure, building tension to pull an audience along to a satisfying resolution.
  • Reading helps us get away from our subject or product expertise and unlock our creativity.

One of the principles I stress at Say It For You is that, in order to create a valuable ongoing blog for your business, it’s going to take equal parts reading and writing.  I’m often asked when I train business owners and employees or newbie blog content writers for hire is this: Where do you get ideas for blog posts? My answer is – everywhere!  But that doesn’t mean the ideas are going to jump right onto your page. At least half the time that goes into creating a blog post is reading/research/thinking time! The lesson I try hardest to impart in corporate blogging training sessions is: “The more you know, the more you can blog about”.  Business content writing in blogs is the result of a lot of reading and listening on the part of the blogger.

 

The Rampell article discusses the value we blog content marketers can gain by reading and classical novels. A genre I can add to her list is one that, on the surface, seems the very antithesis of the “fresh” content we aim for in blog writing – historical fiction.

The insight I gained? Material doesn’t need to be “new” in order to be “fresh”. Readers may already know some or all of the information you’re presenting in your business blog, but they need your help putting that information in perspective.  In fact, that’s where blogging for business tends to be at its finest, helping searchers with more than just finding information, but helping them understand its meaning and significance.
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