Do-You-Know-the-Difference Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in , , /by

 

White tea is made from young leaves, green tea from more mature leaves, with the white  named after the silvery-white hairs on immature buds on the tea plant.

Does the difference matter? According to the Beverage Guidance Panel, which includes the chair of the nutrition department at Harvard University School of Public Health, white tea blocks more than 100% of DNA damage in vitro against cooked-meat carcinogens, while green tea blocks only about half.

Enhanced meat is fresh meat that has been injected with a solution of water and other ingredients such as salt, phosphates, and flavorings. According to the USDA, about 60% of all raw meat and poultry products have been injected with or soaked in a salty solution. If you’re trying to control the levels of sodium in your diet in order to reduce blood pressure, opt for labels such as “contains up to 4% retained water”

Helping online readers know the difference is certainly a core function of blog content writing. Exactly what factors distinguish your products and services from everyone else’s?  Even more important, why should those readers care?

Sometimes, to add variety to an informative blog post, you can “season it” with an interesting tidbit. Speaking of salt levels in meat, for example, you might mention that the number one use of salt in the United States isn’t related to food at all!  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, almost half of our salt goes towards de-icing roads.

In fact, corporate blogging training sessions, I often recommend including interesting information on topics only loosely related to the business or practice. If it’s information most readers wouldn’t be likely to know, so much the better, because that tidbit can help engage online readers’ interest.

The word salary, for example, comes from the word “salt”, because in ancient Rome, soldiers had to purchase their own food, including salt. We’ve all heard individuals described as “not worth their salt”.

“The toughest job selling value to customers is getting them to picture the full depth and breadth of everything your company has to offer,” Tim Donnelly writes in Inc. magazine. In other words, customers need to “know the difference” and then understand why that difference matters!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Don’t-Bother-With….Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in , /by

blog formats

 

At Say It For You, I’m always on the lookout for different “templates”, not in the sense of platform graphics, but in terms of formats for presenting information about any business or pro practice.  Possibilities include:

  • how-to posts
  • list posts
  • review posts
  • op ed opinion posts
  • interview posts

By varying the format or template, you can revisit topics related to your field over long periods of time without being repetitive.

The “nucleus” around which business blog posts are formed is their topic, showing the expertise and products that business offers. The key words and phrases around that topic are what brings readers to the blog posts. But, even though the overall topic is the same, there is endless variety that can be used to make each blog post special, and one way to differentiate blog posts is by using different templates.

Just the other day, for example, I ran across two new uses of a template, both in the February issue of Oprah Magazine:

  1. In “Finish Strong”, the author presents four rules for getting the most out of a workout.  Following each recommendation, there are two subsections: Do and Don’t Bother With. For example, under the rule “Heal Thyself”, the Do is to keep moving, which is “the only proven antidote” to delayed onset muscle soreness following a workout.  Under Don’t Bother With, the author lists products promising to flush out lactic acid, ice baths, and potions to reduce inflammation. Similarly, content writers, while advising blog readers on solutions, can add “what not to bother with”, in order to give the information a new twist.

2.  In “Fill Your Cup”, author Aleisha Fetters is giving advice about get-well teas, using the template “If    You Have…” If you have a tickle in your throat, use Echinacea tea.  Fetters than lists some of her recommended product choices. There are if-you-have recommendations for nausea, congestion, cough, and fever.

From a strategic standpoint, there are two different and compelling reasons for varying the template or format of your blog posts:

To create interest:
“You may find the information interesting, but unless you make it interesting to your readers, you won’t have any readers,” cautions Zhi Yuan in rankreview.com.

To use long tail keywords:
Long tail keywords tend to be more detailed, with a more narrow focus on one aspect of your product or service. Over long periods of time, your business blog content can become ever more focused and detailed, as you present the information using new and different “templates”.

Definitely DO bother with new templates in blogging for business!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Business Blogging – Don’t Forget What It Means

/0 Comments/in , , /by


“To me, when people talk about the fact that employees are not engaged, that means they’re missing what’s in it for them…how their lives are better because they are employed by the company,” observes Dana Polyak in a recent issue of Employee Benefit News. 

Back to Radio Station WIIFM, that old sales training rule that all employers – and all of us writers of marketing blogs had better remember: employees want to know What’s In It for Me; buyers care about benefits, not features.

A number of years ago, in a brochure marketing professional Al Trestrail shared with me, he taught that after each feature  of the products and services your business or practice offers, you need to add the words “which means that…” What I took out of that discussion with Trestrail was that there are millions of blog posts out there making claims of one sort or another.  But what do those claims mean to the customers and clients reading the blog???

When people switch jobs, Polyak comments, they are ultimately seeking something more. “More” might mean better compensation, better benefits, better hours, shorter commutes, or more praise and recognition. At Say it For You content writing training sessions, I remind attendees that there has to be a “reason why” readers would follow the Calls to Action in a blog: Does your company or practice do things faster? Operate at a lower cost? Make fewer errors? Offer greater comfort? Provide a more engaging experience? In other words, What’s In It For Them?

In the current job market, Dana Polyak concedes, “there are a lot more jobs available than there are people available to fill those jobs.” In marketing, with both our existing customers and clients and the new ones we’re seeking to win over, it’s the same way.  “If you want to start beating your competitors, you will need to have a very good strategy in place, Smarta.com advises. But being cheaper may not be enough. What might well be enough is demonstrating that your product is:

  • of better quality
  • rarer
  • easier to use
  • safer
  • more efficient
  • more compact
  • more retro
  • more water-resistant
  • more beautiful
  • greener
  • fresher

As blog content writers, we need to understand the features of the products and services we promote, but we must never forget to explain What’s In It For Them!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Naming Your Niche in Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in /by

What advice can you offer that they won’t find anywhere else? That’s the question we tossed around earlier this week.  Michael Kitces, known for giving advice to financial advisors, thinks it’s about “naming your niche.”

More than ever, niches and mini-specializations are effective differentiation tools, Kitces claims. The two are not the same.

1. A specialization is about some kind of subject matter expertise.
2. A niche is about serving a particular group of clients with a particular need and applying a service or solution to that need.

As specialists, blog content writers want to address a critical need and be perceived as subject matter experts or SMEs. A SME has valuable, usable – and specialized – information and insights to share. At the same time, the SME adds value by going beyond the conventional wisdom and identifying new opinions – and new approaches – to the subject.

As niche servers, blog content writers define a narrow target audience made up of people who are already looking for products, information, and services relating to a particular need they have. Rather than presenting yourself and your business or practice as knowing a little about a lot of things, be uniquely informed – and passionate – about just one or two.

In the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Success as a Professional Speaker, Dr. Thomas Lisk
uses four questions to help speakers define their niche market:

  •  Can you list all markets or industry types that could purchase your kinds of expertise?
  •  Which of those markets needs your expertise most?
  •  Which markets are most likely to purchase your services?
  • Which organizations in these markets have enough funding to afford your ongoing
    services?

    Even if someone hears about your specialization and is duly impressed, they are not going to hand over their life savings to you, Kitces cautions new advisors.  They’re going to check you out.  And in that critical moment, he says “Your website has to be ready for them.”

    In Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I stress, the first step is to define your business niche and then focus blog content writing on the needs of that niche target market.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Business Blog Content Writing – a Different Kind of Advice

/0 Comments/in , /by

“

 

You won’t find this holiday travel advice anywhere else,” asserts Christopher Elliott in the Indianapolis Star.  You’ve heard it hundred times: book early, prepare for bad weather, on and on. Elliott’s on a different wave length with his advice on how to behave and how to book, and how to travel.

First, he says, “Be kind to others.” In this time of road rage and in-flight altercations, that’s not common, but you should try to be that way, Elliott advises. “Look before you book”, doing your due diligence on tickets and accommodations “Be careful out there…understand where you are going, the population, the manners, the dress.”  “Stay a little longer” and “Treat your stress before it ruins your trip” are two other pieces of unconventional advice.

Good advice, Mr. Elliott. The whole concept of offering advice that’s out of the ordinary – that’s great advice for business blog content writers, to be sure. And the way he offers advice in this article – I like that, too.  It’s advice readers can use, right now. More than that, the author’s explaining the reasons behind each piece of advice and backing up the information with statistics.

A few years ago, in a Harvard Business Review article on advice-giving, the authors made the point that “those who give advice effectively wield soft influence—they shape important decisions while empowering others to act.” But the advice-givers, they must be engaged listeners, learning from the problems that people bring them.

I’ve often mused that, out of all the possible advertising and marketing tactics a business or professional practice might use, blogging’s way ahead of the pack – because it attracts customers who want to be sold. In fact, it’s the close match between the type of advice the searcher wants and what you know about that accounts for your meeting them in the first place!

I remember business coach and author Jim Ackerman saying that “Any business owner needs to be able to start a sentence with “I am the only ___________ in ___________ who _________”.  One of the principles of blog writing that we teach at Say It For You is differentiating yourself.  Does this company or practice do things faster? Operate at a lower cost? Make fewer errors? Offer greater comfort? Provide a more engaging experience?.

What advice can business blog content writing offer that “you won’t find anywhere else”?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail