Blog Writing Begins with Answering the Question

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In order to grab and keep readers’ attention, writers must answer the questions every reader asks as a story begins – questions that need to be answered if the reader is to relax and enjoy the ride,” the authors of The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings explain. After all, if readers don’t care what happens next, they won’t read on.”

The “big idea” of any story is the “hook” that sells that story to agents and editor, (and, in the case of blog content writing, to online searchers), has to be compelling enough to get your story off to a great start. “The most important thing your opening needs to do is this: Keep the reader reading,” author Paula Munier teaches. “In truth,” she admits, “it doesn’t matter how good your opening scene is if the idea on which your story is based is flawed, either in storytelling terms or marketing terms.”

Making messages deliver impact is, of course, “our thing” as business blog content writers. As both Munier’s book and one by Chip and Dan Heath, Made to Stick, teach, we  can’t succeed if our messages don’t break through the clutter to get people’s attention. Opening your blog post with a startling statistic can be one way to grab visitors’ attention, I often point out to content writers for Say It For You clients.

Just as consumers would not be searching for the right auto shop/ jewelry store/ plumber/ healthcare provider, etc. unless they already felt the need for that service or product type, searchers who land on your blog are already interested in and have a need for what you offer. Now, as Paula Munier cautions, the essential questions on searchers’ minds need to be answered as they decide whether to read on or click away.

Blogs, as I so often stress to business blog writers, are not advertisements or sales pieces (even if increasing sales is the ultimate goal of the business owner).  Whatever “selling” goes on in effective blogs is indirect and comes out of business owners sharing their passion, special expertise and insights in their field.  When blog posts “work”, readers are moved to think, “I want to do business with him!” or “She’s the kind of person I’ve been looking for!”

Before that ultimate “Ah, yes!” effect can take place, readers newly arrived after clicking on a blog title link need reassurance that the title and the actual blog post content are congruent. In other words, readers have arrived at the right place for finding the answers they were seeking.

In a very real way, blog writing begins – and ends – with answering that very question.

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Aiming for the “Me, Too!” Effect in Blog Marketing

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“All salespeople present themselves as problem solvers yet most never ask clients to vividly describe the problems they are experiencing,” Paul Cherry maintains in the book Questions That Sell. An outstanding salesperson, the author teaches, will offer clients the opportunity to open up and vent their frustrations. “You will have success building a relationship with your potential customers only when you can get into their world and identify the forces at work in their lives.”

In blog marketing (where prospects are meeting you before you’ve had the chance to meet them), as Jeremy Porter Communications teaches, the goal is to create a connection with your audience that makes them receptive to your message. He names seven emotions and their opposites that marketers can tap into to get an audience “from where they are to where you want them to be”:

  • anger/calmness
  • friendship/enmity
  • fear/confidence
  • shame/shamelessness
  • kindness/unkindness
  • pity or compassion/indignation
  • envy/emulation

At Say It For You, we understand that, in blogging for business, face-to-screen is the closest we blog content writers will come to our prospective buyers of our clients’ products and services. On the other hand, we’re conscious that behind every decision, there is always a person, a being with feelings. One of the most direct access paths to prospects’ feelings is through stories. “Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story,” observes Seth Godin in his book All Marketers Tell Stories.

The thing to remember is that people are online searching for answers to problems or solutions for dilemmas. If, in encountering a blog post about a customer who went through a sort of pain and suffering akin to theirs (and who has now come out the other side), readers’ natural and highly emotional reaction might well be “Me, too!”.

Far sooner and more directly than descriptions of features and benefits of your offer, an emotionally charged story of suffering solved might well result in a “me, too” sale!

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Blogging for Window Shoppers and Tire Kickers

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“Many of the folks who come to see me aren’t necessarily looking for a new plan or a new planner,” financial advisor Zach Fox, AAMS®, says. “They may just be looking for confidence in their existing plan.”

Diane Wingerter, certified grantwriter and owner of GrantWriting for Goodness™, agrees. “Yes”, “no”, “maybe”, or “not now” are all possible responses by people who are seeking funding – or, indeed, by funders themselves, she notes.

Blog marketers need to approach readers with a similar mindset. Will blog marketing “close deals” in the same manner as a face-to-face encounter between a prospect and a sales professional? Of course not. Hubspot blogger Corey Wainwright lists some of the indirect selling benefits of blogs and their place in the sales process:

  • If you’re consistently creating content that’s helpful for your target customer, it’ll help establish you as an authority in their eyes.
  • Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales process more educated about your place in the market, your industry, and what you have to offer.
  • Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts.

Blogging is what marketing firm pardot.com calls stage-based, meaning that prospects move through different stages of the sales cycle. In one study, Pardot found that B2B consumers started their research with Google, then returned two or three times for more specific information. For prospects at the top of the “funnel”, the most effective content will be light, educational and product-neutral. Later in the cycle, readers who are already sold on your industry, just deciding among vendors or providers, need more specific information.

The “maybes”, the “not nows”, and readers looking only to bolster their confidence in their existing plans or product choices will come away with a positive experience and valuable information. On the other hand, readers who have reached the final decision-making stage might just be ready to consider your unique value propositions and to follow one of your Calls to Action.

In blog marketing, don’t ignore the window shoppers and tire-kickers!

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Introduce Referral Partners in Your Blog

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“By establishing yourself as a source of assistance, you train others to come to you with referral opportunities,” Chuck Gifford and Minesh Baxi advise in the book Network Your way to $100,000 and Beyond. “Learning to promote to those in your sphere of influence is hundreds of times better than buying from a referral partner. You must learn to talk about your referral partners often, asking questions to uncover leads.”

At Say It For You, I’ve always taught that reading competitors’ blog posts is a great form of market research for business owners launching their own blogging strategy.  Even repeating what established bloggers have said (of course in each case properly attributing the material to its source) forces “newbies” to think about what they might add to the discussion.

But, rather than merely summarizing what others are thinking, or ways competitors have chosen to handle problems, why not invite “thought competitors” to express their ideas on your blog site? That can be a way to use blog content to present conflicting views about a particular subject (your guest blogger’s view and your own), leading readers to think more deeply about a topic.

A guest blog post, of course, needn’t be about a controversial topic, but might serve as enrichment content for the host’s readers. A realtor might invite an interior designer to comment on “staging” a home for sale. An estate planning attorney might invite a long term care insurance agent to contribute content. “Guesting” can take the form of interviews or of actual content by the referral partners themselves.

“The most powerful phrase in marketing,” Gifford and Baxi assert is “I have a friend in that business. Would it be okay if I have them give you a call?” It’s interesting to note that the book was published in 2007, a year before Say It For You was started. Fourteen years later, it could be that one of the most powerful forms of referral marketing is introducing your referral partners to your audience of blog readers!

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Blogging, Like Design, is About Creatively Solving Problems

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“Design is often misconstrued to be a luxury. Yet, at its core, design is about creatively solving the problems we all face at any scale,” Tom Gallagher writes in the Indianapolis Business Journal. “…practitioners often downplay the importance of beauty, but aesthetic must not be dismissed”. In urban design, Gallagher continues, fashion addresses who we are and how we respect others. The quality of materials speaks to our shared values.

“What we see has a profound effect on what we do, how we feel, and who we are,” Mike Parkinson of Billion Dollar Graphics asserts. Parkinson quotes famed psychologist Albert Mehrabian, who demonstrated that no less than 93% of communication is nonverbal. “

In fact, the aesthetic element must not be dismissed in blog content creation, either. Images are one of the three “legs” of the business blog “stool”, we teach at Say It For You, along with information and perspective or “slant”. Not only is it true that articles containing images get more total views and higher ratings, images help explain and emphasize concepts. The visual presentation of a blog post – the type font, the bolding, italics, spacing – all the details work to support the words and ideas and contribute to the general impression left with online readers.

So, if design is so important, does all that mean video blogs are going to supplant text content?

As a Say It For You blog content writer and trainer, I appreciated a 2017 fourdots.com blog post discussing that very question, and making a four-point case for textual content as a primary driver of online communication:

  1. Text gives you the option to stop exactly where you want to, wrapping your mind around a certain piece of information.
  2. Text can be easily updated and upgraded.
  3. B2B buyers consume informational pieces and case studies, looking for industry thought leadership.
  4. Text stimulates the mind and is more focused.

Just about ten years ago, I published a blog post titled “Shoes and Business Blogs – Some People Care if They’re Shined”. The post touched on aesthetics, advising marketers to “dress your blog in its best” by preventing “wardrobe malfunctions” such as grammar errors, run-on sentences, and spelling errors, avoiding redundancies, and tightening up those paragraphs.. Avoid redundancy; tighten up those paragraphs, I cautioned.

Yes, blogging, like design, is about creatively solving problems, but aesthetics must not be dismissed!

 

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