Blog Content Writing is Choice Architecture

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Choice architecture is not just about how websites are designed or how policies are implemented, Eric J. Johnson explains in the book The Elements of Choice. We are all designers every day he says, posing choices to our friends, colleagues, and families.
You think you’re choosing dinner from a restaurant menu, a fund for your retirement plan, or a movie to see with your spouse, but the decisions made by the restaurant, by your employer, or by your spouse about how to pose those choices to you influence what you end up choosing.

The author relates a fascinating experiment conducted by a professor named Irwin Levin of the University of Iowa. Two groups of undergrads were asked to rate samples of raw ground beef. One group was shown packages labeled 25% fat”, while the second group was shown packages labeled “75% lean”, with the second group reporting a more positive perception of the meat. Carrying the experiment even further, Levin and his team actually cooked the meet in front of the individuals involved in the study. Half the “customers” were told the beef was 75% lean; the others were told their hamburgers were 25% fat. Those to whom the percentage of fat was told reported that their hamburgers were greasier and of lower quality!

When we create blog content, we realize at Say It For You, what we’re doing involves choice architecture. Without exception, of course, we’re striving to present the most honest and fair information about the products and services our clients have to offer their reader prospects. But in order to offer the most amount of value to prospects and customers, while at the same time creating a “honeypot”, marketing firm ON24 cautions, content writers must first understand what customers want, involving the sales team in the process. In other words, successful marketing involves planning “architecture”.

“Writing is very much about the order of ideas presented and the emphasis given to them,” Brandon Royal explains in The Little Red Writing Book. There are different “floor plans” for pieces of writing, including a chronological structure, where you discuss the earliest events first, then move forward in time, and an evaluative structure, in which you discuss the pros and cons of a concept. Different blog posts might use different “floor plans.” But no matter which approach, readers will expect to see the things most important to them, their needs, given the greatest emphasis.

Blogging is actually an ideal architectural tool, because different blog posts can emphasize different aspects of the overall message. In fact, in offering corporate blogging training, one rule of thumb I often emphasize at Say It For You is using each blog post to focus readers’ attention on just one idea, one aspect of the message.

Blog content writing can be choice architecture at its finest!

 

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Blog to Generate Feelings of Familiarity and Liking

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An experimental psychologist in the US asked a group of people to view various Chinese characters that were displayed on a screen. The volunteers were asked to return a few days later to look at a further batch. Some of the characters they viewed this time around were those they’d been shown the week before; others were new to them. Asked which ones they recognized from the week before, the subjects had absolutely no idea.

In a second experiment using a different group of volunteers, participants were not asked which characters they recognized from the week before. Instead, they were asked which images they liked best. The “mind-boggling fact’, relates John Cleese in his book Creativity, is that the ones the participants said they liked best were those show to them the week before! In the unconscious mind, familiarity generated a feeling of liking. 

Cleese wasn’t talking about blog marketing, but there’s a very important connection here. Precisely because blogs are not one-time articles, but conveyers of messages over long periods of time, they serve as unique tools for building a sense of familiarity (and ultimately trust) in readers. As Hubspot’s Corey Wainwright puts it, “If you consistently create valuable content or articles for your target audience, it’ll establish you as an industry leader or authority in their eyes”

 

A second point Cleese stressed is that “the language of the unconscious is not verbal. Instead, it shows you images. There’s no question that visuals are one of the three “legs” of the business blog “stool”, along with information and perspective or “slant”. Social marketing maven Jeff Bullas lists at least two rather startling statistics to demonstrate the reason images and photos need to be part of any business’ marketing tactics:

  • Articles with images get 94% more total views.
  • 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business when an image shows up in local search results.

Just as marketing professor Demetra Adam explained, increasing the number of “cues” increases prospects’ perception of their own knowledge, making it easier for them to buy (see our post of Feb. 22). Combining verbal and visual “cues” in a blog post increases that feeling of familiarity and “liking”.

Blog to generate familiarity!

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Why Blind Dates With Blogs are a Bad Idea

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Have you gone on a blind date with a book? Lauren Carlton of the American Library Association asks. “The set-up for the display is simple”, Carlton says. “Just wrap books in paper to hide their covers — hence the ‘blind date’ — and decorate the wrapping with enticing facts, hints about the plotline, or our favorite, the books’ first lines”.

To get patrons to want to pick up these blind dates, Carlton advises librarians and book store owners, you need books with attention-grabbing first lines.

  • “Don’t look for dignity in public bathrooms” (Big Machine by Victor LaValle)
  • “It was the day Grandmother exploded” (The Crow Road by Iain Banks)
  • “All stories are love stories” (Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson)

Between Shakespeare’s Juliet asking “What’s in a name?” and father-of-advertising David Ogilby’s emphasis on headlines, there’s simply no contest when it comes to blogging for business – titles matter. Just as those first lines enticed readers to buy “blind date” books without seeing the covers or reading the blurb, blog titles set the tone and arouse curiosity in online searchers.

There are a number of different approaches in choosing a title for a blog post:

  • titles with an agenda (making clear the writer’s point of view)
  • emotional “grabber titles”
  • how-to titles
  • “truth about” titles

Blog post titles have two seemingly contradicting jobs to do – arousing readers’ curiosity while still assuring them they’ve come to the right place, I’ve often explained to blog content writers at Say It For You. Unlike the case with the blind date book promotion, where bookstore customers and library patrons are looking for “a good read”, online searchers are looking for specific answers to questions and specific solutions to problems they have. Searchers who’ve found your blog site won’t linger longer than a couple of seconds if what they see doesn’t reassure them they’ve come to the right place for the information they need.

In a blind-date-with-a-book promotion, the book jackets are covered with plain brown wrapping, so that appearances play no part in readers’ choice of their next read. In contrast, images and photos need to be part of any business’ blog marketing, because, as digital marketing maven Jeff Bullas points out, articles with images get 94% more total views. In fact, at Say It For You, we try to use images the same way, selecting one for each post that gives readers an idea of what to expect in the post.

If you’ve recently gotten out of a long relationship or have lost confidence in yourself, a blind date can really encourage you to get back into the dating arena. Blind dates with books are a fun promotion libraries and bookstores use to attract customers. In general, though, one is forced to conclude, blind dates with blogs tend to be a bad idea.

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In Blog Marketing, Know Their Until and Unless

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At the quarterly meeting of the Financial Planning Association I attended earlier this month, a highlight was attorney Brian Eagle’s two hour lecture on estate planning. After describing each strategy available under our gift and estate tax laws, Engels would pose the question to the audience – So why don’t clients use this strategy? Why don’t they make big charitable gifts? Why don’t clients reduce their taxable estates by using some of the many ingenious trust arrangements available to them?

It’s because, Engels explained, before any clients (no matter how wealthy they are), make decisions to part with assets, they must first feel confident that they will have enough to take care of their own needs for the rest of their lives. Until and unless any client has that feeling of security, he or she is simply not going to make any big decisions or implement any complex asset transfers….

What stands between your prospects and their decision to become your customers? What assurances do they need about your product or service before they make their move? Until and unless what are they not going to make a buying decision?

“Unless you’re intimately familiar with the psychology of your target market, any demographics you claim are mere semantics,” Entrepreneur.com cautions. Some recommended steps include reading up on case studies and analyses by industry reporters, conducting question-answer sessions with a small sample of audience members, looking at products and services your audience is using (unrelated to your own industry), and reading what potential buyers are saying online.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, advises step-by-step risk elimination. There’s some mental or physical barrier, real or imagined, Gitomer says, that causes a prospect to hesitate about ownership. The salesperson’s job is to identify that risk and eliminate it. Some of those fears include:

  • Financial – am I spending too much? Is this a budget violation?
  • Quality – does something better exist?
  • Is salesperson lying – (risk of nondelivery or overstated promises)Until and unless your blog readers feel sure their fears are unfounded, nothing is likely to happen..
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Blog Your Sit-Means-Sit

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Judged by Shakespeare’s famous line “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, the Bard didn’t think monikers were very important. Apparently, to investors selecting stocks these days, they are: on average, Harvard Business Review found, companies with short, simple names attract more shareholders and generate greater amounts of stock trading than companies with hard-to-process names.

While I’m not currently a pet owner, the other day I came across what has to be my all-out favorite corporate name – Sit Means Sit. No explanation needed – not only do you know immediately that what the company offers is dog obedience training, you get a sense of the owner’s stance is on the subject.

Blog readers need to perceive you as an expert in your field, I teach at Say It For You.  And for that to happen, I believe, you need to clearly demonstrate a firm perspective on your subject. There’s no lack of information sources – and no lack of “experts” (purported or real) on any topic In blog marketing, therefore, we need to go beyond presenting facts, statistics, features, and benefits, and get authentic and yes, even opinionated. Taking a stance on your subject, using the blog content writing to express a firm opinion on issues in your industry and community, is how you leverage your uniqueness.

Blogging, remember, involves providing new material week after week, month after month, year after year. We can highlight less well-known facts about familiar things and processes. We can suggest new ways of thinking about things readers already know. Still, that’s not enough. Whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve got to have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In short, as blog content writers, we must help our clients become influencers.

“We don’t train dogs the same, because not every dog is the same,” the Sit Means Sit website continues, going on to explain that the company offers programs geared to “any dog, any age, any problem”. In fact, the Sit Means Sit website contains information about different training approaches, and, in your own blog posts, there will be ample opportunities to explain and explore different aspects of your own products or services.

“When writing an opinion piece, you are taking a side on a particular issue and trying to communicate to your audience why you believe your chosen side to be the correct one,” 201digital comments. “In fact, research shows that the only type of content more popular than that which encourages reads and shares is negative or controversial opinion.”

What are those things that you really mean when it comes to delivering your service or product to your customers and clients? Blog your own “sit means sit”!

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