All You Have to Do is Blog

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According to the 1-800-GOT-JUNK commercial, when you want something removed from your home or yard, “All you have to do is point” As a blog content writer, I love that commercial.

“Persuasive ads are advertisements designed to elicit a desired action,” Mary Lister writes in Wordstream. Ad campaigns for products or services are designed to communicate two main ideas:

  1. Problems your product or service solves
  2. Ways your product or service does that better/quicker/cheaper than that of your competitors.

Confession – for me as a consumer, there’s always been a third piece. I’m not handy. And, since I don’t know how to assemble, much less fix, mechanical devices or pieces of furniture, I’m always looking for what’s going to be required of me in the process of achieving a solution to my problem or fulfilling my need.

The 1-800-GOT-JUNK motto must have been made for people like me. Right up front, they’re assuring me that they will handle the issue, do the dirty work, figure it out. All I have to do is identify the problem.

All business owners and practitioners have products and services to sell. But sometimes, the marketing and advertising skips over the convenience factor.

A little over ten years ago, an editorial cartoon in the Indianapolis Business Journal showed a harried lady returning a gadget to a merchant’s Returns window. “It’s not that I don’t like the product,” she said – “I just can’t get it out of the package!”

  • Yes, you understand your target audience and the specific problems they’re facing.
  • Yes, your product or service provides a way to solve those problems.
  • Yes, your product/service compares favorably to others on the market.
  • Yes, but…but…but, just how much effort am I going to need to expend to “get it out of the package”?

Put yourself in the shoes of your online visitors:

How easy is it for them to navigate your website? Follow your Calls to Action? Set up an appointment with you? Pick up the phone and call if they choose to? (Is your phone number clearly displayed on the page?)

How easy is it going to be for a prospect to: get started on that program you’re touting? Start on the diet plan? Install the app or get the device to function?

Let them know – “all you have to do is…….._!

Borrowing the line from 1-800-GOT-JUNK, blog marketers’ new mantra might well be this:

All you have to do is blog!

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Send Yourself a Rejection Blog

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“Nobody likes receiving rejection letters. But one way to reduce their sting, and perhaps even avoid one altogether, is to pre-empt the rejector by writing the letter yourself,” Daniel Pink suggests in the book To Sell is Human. In the letter, list the reasons your prospect is turning you down. “When you read your letter, you’ll probably laugh,” the author says, but more important, “the letter might reveal soft spots in what you’re presenting, which you can then work to strengthen”.

Because our team at Say It For You is involved in blog marketing, I was especially interested in what Daniel Pink had to say about “non-sales selling”. That consists of convincing others to exchange their resources (their expertise, time, effort, and attention) for something they want. Today, he explains, instead of product pushing, we must move people into action“. That’s because, whereas in the “old days”, sellers had more information than buyers; today’s buyers have almost equal access to information. Effective selling today, therefore, is no longer about being persistent and aggressive, but about being transparent and empathetic, helping buyers make sense of available facts and options.

So, in your rejection blog post to yourself, what reasons will you give for not sticking around to enjoy your content?

  • Your blog was very slow to load and then, to make matters worse, you annoyed me with pop up ads.
  • Your blog posts have “a wall of text” with long paragraphs – they appear to be a pain to get through.
  • Despite the fact that your title was a match for my search, I quickly realized you were not addressing me – just providing the same information I’d heard many times before. In short, you quickly managed to bore me with same-old, same-old.
  • You didn’t show me who you are – your reason for being in your business and your strong beliefs about how what’s going on could be make better.

After closing your self-rejection blog with the classic line – “After careful consideration, I did not select you for further consideration,” stop selling. Instead, get to work on helping buyers make sense of their available options.

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In Blogging for Business, Great Questions are Those the Audience Used to Know

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“Creating the perfect quiz is an art form,” Breathe Magazine authors explain. In a virtual quiz, they point out, “Great questions are those that the audience used to know and will strain to remember.” That way, rather than being frustrated, giving up and clicking away, audience members will stay engaged and be able to venture an educated guess. A good question should:

  1. Inform
  2. Educate
  3. Entertain

Even if they don’t know enough to even guess the answer, participants will be glad they learned the information after they’ve learned the answer, Breathe advises.

In corporate blogging training sessions, I’m sometimes asked whether quizzes are a good strategy for business blogging. The answer is yes, and for several different reasons. Blog readers tend to be curious creatures and, as a longtime Indianapolis blog content writer, I’ve found that “self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to information presented in a blog.

Breathe’s advice about entertaining an audience is especially important in business blogs. One concern I hear a lot from business owners or professional practitioners is that sooner or later, they’ll run out of things to say in their marketing blog posts.  “I’ve already covered my products and services on my website – what else is left to say?” is the question. Paradoxically, effective business blogging is centered around the repeated use of keyword phrases and key themes! One of the biggest challenges in blogging for business over long periods of time is keeping the content fresh. Quizzes constitute a way to vary the menu.

It’s not only the effort needed to remember information learned long ago that engages readers – they love “straining” to understand information about themselves. Over the years at Say It For You, I’ve found that “self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to the information presented in a marketing blog.

There’s yet another advantage to quizzes, I’ve learned. People are looking to their advisors for more than just information; they need perspective. In blog content writing, we provide information to searchers, but they also need guidance as to what they can do about those facts, and ways in which the information can make a difference to them.

The quiz, test, or survey engages online readers’ curiosity.  The next step is “nudging” them towards a point of view – or a course of action!

 

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Going for the No in Blogging for Business

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There are three kinds of yeses, Chris Voss teaches negotiators in the book Never Split the Difference. There’s commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit “yes” because they’ve been trapped by the confirmation “yes” so many times. The way to clinch a deal, Voss, believes, is by understanding the different meanings of “no”.

Negotiation, Voss teaches, means making it about other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust for a real conversation to begin. He reminds readers that “No” can have different meanings, including:

  • I am not yet ready to agree.
  • I do not understand.
  • I don’t think I can afford it.
  • I want something else.
  • I need more information.
  • I want to talk it over with someone else.Can the insights offered by Chris Voss be of use in content marketing through blogs? Definitely. In a guest post for my Say It For You blog, Karen Sullivan compared shopping to education. That’s particularly true when a buyer is searching for professional services, and wants to “interview” different providers, she explained. Sullivan asks buyers to respect the sales process; it’s dishonest to come to the sales process to get free consultative services.

Since blogging is part of “pull marketing”, the “negotiation” process is based on the “seller’s” skill in providing valuable, usable information, in essence anticipating all the possible “no” reactions, allowing readers to arrive at a “yes” in their own way and in their own time frame.

A second factor to consider is that blogging for business is an ongoing process, rather than a one-time event. With a blog, you can offer different kinds of information in different blog posts. If readers “are not yet ready to agree”, or need more information, you can convey the idea that there are different levels of involvement possible. They may share the blog post, subscribe to the blog, request a list or informational piece. You’re welcoming them to your website, yet ultimate decisions need not be made just yet. Make sure to provide plenty of valuable information for them to mull over, and perhaps “talk it over with someone else”.

To get to the “yes”, go for the “no” in blogging for business!

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The Magic of 3 in Blogging for Business

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Humanity has had a love-hate relationship with numbers from the earliest times, Ian Stewart writes in Britannica. Ancient Babylonians used numbers to predict eclipses; priests in ancient Egypt used them to predict the flooding of the Nile. Millions of otherwise rational people are terrified of the number 13. In Jewish culture, 18 represents good luck.

Over my years at Say It For You, I’ve come to consider the number 3 important when it comes to writing blog content.

3 elements of a blog post

  1. pictures and charts (the visual presentation of the blog
  2. the content itself (the facts and figures)
  3. the “voice”, the way the message comes across – first person vs. third-person reporting, humorous or serious, casual or formal

3-minute Shark Tank principle
From the time an entrepreneur is introduced to the time one of the sharks says “I’m out”, it is almost always three minutes, writes Brant Pinvidic in The 3-Minute Rule. If you can’t distill a sales presentation down to three minutes or less, the listeners will begin to make their decision without all the pertinent information. Given the very brief attention span of online readers, the essence of the message needs to come across in 3 seconds!

3-legged stool
In business blog posts I recommend a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of a business, a practice, or an organization.  Other aspects can be addressed in later posts. Offer three examples or details supporting the main idea of each post.

3 levels of involvement
While having a clear Call to Action is important in blog marketing, truth is, not every searcher is going to be ready to make a commitment. In your business blog, therefore, It makes sense to offer 3 different levels of involvement (subscribing to the blog, submitting a question, taking a survey, for example), and an ”ultimate decision does not need to be made now

3-pronged strategy
Working Mother magazine is an example of a 3-part plan of attack: Compliment-criticism-course correction. In discussing various “Mon” personality types, writer Katherine Bowers would compliment the “Drama Mama” or “Snowplow Mom”, suggesting ways in which that parenting strategy is great, followed be a critique – where that mothering style is off-track, then offering “course correction” options. Those same 3 prongs could be used in a blog focused on financial management, healthy living, pet care, or fashion.
https://www.workingmother.com/content/you-know-type-mom-parenting-styles

The rule of 3 in writing
The rule of three is a writing principle that suggests that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers. The audience of this form of text is also thereby more likely to remember the information conveyed because having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern.

How The Power of Three Can Make Your Communication Effective

When it comes to blogging for business, make sure to remember the Rule of 3!

 

 

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