Slogans and Blogs – Sisters Under the Skin?

/0 Comments/in , , /by

 

 

While logos are visual representations of a brand, slogans are audible representations, Lindsay Kolowich Cox explains in a Hubspot piece. The idea, in both cases, is grab consumers’ attention and leave a key message in consumers’ minds. Earlier this week in this Say It For You blog, I highlighted the 1-800-Got-Junk slogan as an example of emphasizing convenience and ease-of-use.

Several of the ingredients which Kolowich-Cox thinks make for great slogans can contribute to the success of blog posts:

A great slogan includes a key benefit. The emphasis needs to be on key benefits of the product or service, not its features. Proctor & Gamble’s Bounty paper towels are “the quicker picker upper.”
Focus a blog post on painting either a “more” (glamour, time saved, comfort, money, miles per gallon) or “less” (pain, cost, waste, hassle) picture.

A great slogan differentiates the brand. How can one piece of chocolate truly stand out from another? M&M’s “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” differentiates with an implied comparison with every other chocolate brand.
It’s almost axiomatic that, in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we are better than the competition. But, rather than saying negative things about other companies or practitioners, explain the reasons you have chosen to do things the way you do.

A great slogan imparts positive feelings, possibly through nostalgia. MasterCard’s “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.”
True stories about the mistakes and struggles that ultimately led to your success are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind a business or practice. 

A great slogan reflects the values held by the organization.
Whether business owners or professional practitioners are doing their own blog posting or hiring professional content writers to help, the blog is conveying the values and beliefs of the owners.  In fact, the content is an invitation to readers to become part of the process of bringing those values to life.

A great slogan conveys consistency. Kolowich-Cox cites Verizon’s “Can you hear me now? Good.” (Competitors may have better texting options or fancier phones, the implication is, but with Verizon you can always rely on service.
Consistency is the very backbone of business blogging success. high-quality stuff.  To satisfy a search engine, your blog material must be updated frequently. Most important, consistent posting of content shows readers that you are “present” and involved.

Blog posts, of course, are much longer than slogans. Still, the idea in both cases is to grab consumers’ attention and leave a key message in their minds, built around an unmet consumer need.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Terms to Drop in Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in , , /by

“Most important business decisions are made with incomplete information and under conditions of uncertainty,” Marketing professors Kim and Todd Saxton write in the Indianapolis Business Journal. Uncertainty permeates decisions about products/technology, market, people and funding. For that reason, the Saxtons believe, we need to change some of the terms commonly used in business planning.

Road Map
What would be more appropriate is a set of sailing instructions. There’s still a vision to motivate and inspire, but everyone aboard is also monitoring winds and currents that create challenges. The entire crew is involved in constant adjustment and adaptation to make sure the ship continues to make progress.

At Say it For You, where we specialize in creating blog content, I couldn’t have come up with a better metaphor for blogging than an ongoing set of sailing instruction adjustments. Unlike brochures, client newsletters, online magazines, and websites, blog posts are more casual and conversational, hence most adjustable to what’s going on in the present moment. 

Think Outside the Box
Most businesspeople are used to thinking within constraints. Give people a new problem to solve inside a box: What’s the biggest hassle using our product and why? What customers use our product in the most unusual ways? Give people structure for their brainstorming, the Saxtons advise.

Very important to successful business blogging is addressing current issues readers care about. A prospect may have a need and not be aware there is a solution. Content marketing raises awareness of solutions and educates consumers about products they may not have considered before. A single blog post can help readers think outside their “box”.

Low-Hanging Fruit
Rather than taking the easy way out by isolating yourself from challenge and competition, embrace the hardest product-development and customer service challenges. Remember, the Saxton’s say, the low-hanging fruit is available to all your competitors as well – dare to be different.

A really important point all blog writers and business owners need to keep in mind is that, whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers. 

When working with business owners to arrive at the right tone and the right emphasis for their business blogs, I begin by challenging the owner of the business or professional practice to make clear their own opinions about best practices for their own profession or industry. Providing information about products and services may be the popular “low-hanging fruit” way way to write marketing blog posts, but in terms of achieving Influencer status – that takes opinion!

“Road map”, “Thinking outside the box”, and “Low-hanging fruit” may all need to be dropped in blogging for business!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Think Like a Buyer in Your Blog

/0 Comments/in , /by

We’ve heard it before, but as blog content writers, we need to hear it again and again. It’s not about us or our clients – it’s about the buyers…

“When you’re selling a business, think like a buyer”, advised Keith Rand. At a recent meeting of our Circle Business Network group, Rand, who along with his son, specializes in making business transfers happen, quoted from two books: Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus and Think Like a Man. The common message, Rand explained, is this: achieving success in business means understanding – and focusing the conversation on – not what you have to offer, but what the other party is seeking. 

Financial advisor David Nienaber, CPA, CFP®  tells business owners to consider three things “as you plan for your next chapter”, including  identifying a professional team to effect the transfer, establishing tax consequences and  future cash flow, and judging the ramifications of a sale for family members.

 While Keith Rand would agree that sellers must carefully weigh all those factors prior to entering into a sale, his point is that during the negotiations themselves, the focus needs to be not on why the seller has decided to sell, but on what on what’s going on inside the buyer’s head as he or she pictures owning and running the business going forward. 

In fact, a “selling” mindset can actually hurt your marketing strategy, Liz O’Neill of Precision Marketing Group agrees. Many entrepreneurs and small business owners are stuck in the seling mindset, so caught up in their brand or industry, they forget that clients are indifferent to all that.

Your thinking is centered around who you are and what you do.  Meanwhile, the buyer starts with a problem that needs solving. In other words, O’Neill explains, when crafting  content for your web pages, “you need to divorce yourself from in-house terms, and begin to speak broadly,” not about precise offerings and skills you have.

In blogging for business, as business coach and Say It For You guest blogger Andrew Valley suggests, “Don’t tell them what you do.  Tell them what you do for them.” In fact, Valley says, “most people are interested in what you do only if it fits with what they need or want.”

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Bloggers and Advisors Seek Ways to Get Discovered

/0 Comments/in , /by

“Why did you choose me?” That’s a question one California financial adviser asks new clients. Bryce Sanders, in Financial Advisor. suggests nine ways financial advisors can “get on people’s radar”. Since, at Say It For You, that’s the very goal of the blog marketing work we do, I was interested in what Sanders had learned from his advisor friend…

Four of the ways prospects “found” the financial advisor, I realized, involved no outreach or specific effort on his part, evolving naturally out of his ongoing presence in business and social circles and his work with existing clients.

  • word of mouth
  • family connections
  • same faith or beliefs
  • referrals

In the same way, of course, prospective buyers might find their way to any service provider or vendor of a product line. In today’s world, though, a visit to the website will generally come next, as the prospect “checks out” the referral or the community connection. That’s precisely where e recently posted blog information has the power to move the prospect closer to taking the next step.

politely persistent – the advisor treated prospects as friends, “dripping” on them with postcards and informational notes. Staying regular in posting blog content helps both readers and search engines come to “rely” on regular bursts of information.

awards won – “People want to do business with the best,” Sanders says. Although at Say It For You, I remind owners and practitioners that blogging is not boasting, it’s good to offer “credentializing proof”, alluding in blog posts to your years of experiences, weaving into the text mention of your degrees, quoting articles you’ve written – and even citing awards you’ve won.

community involvement – People tend to be comfortable associating with professionals and business owners who give back to their community. Blog content can focus on personal anecdotes and on the personal values of the business owners and of the people delivering professional services. But, taking it further than that, the content should actually reflect and even allude to current community happenings and concerns.

advertising – When your face or firm name is on bus shelters and shopping cards, Sanders points out, when they need a specific product or service, you are the one who comes to mind.. When we bloggers enter conversations that are trending at the time and tie our blog content to current events, that serves the dual purpose of “playing off” already existing popular interest while possibly earning search engine “Brownie points” as well. Did we attend a performance or rally? How does what we heard and saw tie in with our own work in the community?

Like financial advisors, other professional practitioners and business owners seeking ways to get discovered can bring their message to attention through blog marketing.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Blog Marketing and Job-Seeking – Sisters Under the Skin

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

 

Today’s post was contributed by guest Ruth Sternberg, a coach who helps mid-career professionals more effectively convey their value to employers and entrepreneurs capture more market share with clearer branded materials. She can be reached at Ruth@confidentcareersearch.com .
You can also connect with her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/navcoach/.

 

 

Congratulations! You have started your own business. You have courage. You have a mission. But how do you know your product or service will sell?

This is the driving question for all entrepreneurs. The same question causes job seekers stress as they hit “send” and wait for a reaction to an application submission. Most of us, whether we are working for ourselves or looking for a job, go about answering the question backwards. We assume that our idea is great, and that our skills speak for themselves. Friends and family have said so. We are sure everyone else will agree, so we adopt the “build it and they will come” philosophy.

We might hit it out of the park, as in the movie Field of Dreams. But will the stadium be empty? Selling anything, whether it be your skills, a product, or your consulting services, requires an understanding of what your customer—or in the case of a job seeker, the employer— needs. It sounds obvious. But in the age of social media and instant gratification, it’s not so simple. Today’s consumers are sophisticated. They don’t take promises at face value. Companies do not hire candidates just because they have the required technical skills.

Today’s “buyer” wants validation. It can be customer reviews, your LinkedIn recommendations, the quantifiable proof you give on your resume, or your social media posts. Top marketing voice Mark Schaefer, author of Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins, points out that marketing a product requires a competitive advantage. To sell successfully, you must identify an unmet need and then build your message around that. Most companies confuse “what they sell” with “what the customer actually buys.” A tech company might have a great product. But the customers are really buying the great customer service. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee; it sells community.

A job candidate might have all the right training and degrees, but hiring managers are really buying the ability to identify and solve problems, get along with different kinds of team members, and grow profits. Think about it: When an ad pops up in your Facebook feed, or when you are perusing Amazon or looking for a roofing contractor, do you just click “buy” without proof that you won’t waste your money?

Today’s consumer faces hundreds of choices and needs some way of differentiating one service provider (or job candidate) from all the others on the market. Here’s what you must do if you want to differentiate yourself in a competitive market:

Identify your customer. Who will make the decision to buy? Is it a mom? A CEO? A hiring manager? What do they prefer? What are their characteristics? What does the hiring company specialize in? What problems does it solve? What decisions does it face?

Figure out where your customer (or hiring manager) is. Is it on Facebook? Reddit? An industry website? Twitter? Maybe your customer supports a certain cause and is part of a Meetup or Facebook group talking about that. Are industry leaders members of a professional organization? Is there a Zoom event that will attract people in your industry? Are you on LinkedIn? Show up where your customer is and contribute to the conversation to find out what you need to deliver.

Decipher what makes you relevant to the buyer. Great service? Commitment to supporting certain values? Have you solved significant problems for your previous employers? What are they? Research the targets. Read articles, websites, and ask insiders.

Determine how to deliver your message of relevance. Content can sell, whether it’s video, social media content, or other avenues. Job seekers know they need a great resume. They also need fully keyword-optimized LinkedIn profiles. Check your marketing materials. Are they addressing the customers’ chief concerns? Create ways to engage! Will you write a cover letter? Post a LinkedIn article? Get seen and noticed!

Measure and adjust. Collect sales data. Look at your social media metrics. Who’s following you? Are they engaging with you? Job seekers: Document your progress as you apply for roles, noting whom they’ve talked with and what responses they received.

Winning the sale or the job offer is not magic. It is not instant or simple. But if you are struggling with your strategy, these tips should get you started down the right path.

.

 

 

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail