Blog Like a Fundraising Round

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One of the all-time best pieces of advice for blog content writers that I’ve heard comes from an unlikely source – corporate startup fundraising consultant Kristen Copper, CEO of Startup Ladies. “A round is a cycle of fundraising that clearly defines the amount of money being raised and how it will be used within a defined time,” Cooper explains

It’s important for business owners and freelance blog content writers to remember that the title and the actual blog post content must be congruent, so that readers find the kind of information they’ve been led to expect. It’s all well and good to use keyword phrases in blog titles in order to win online search, but the blog post must deliver on that implied promise, by providing content that is on topic and on target for the search terms.

Blog content writers face a challenge when it comes to clearly defining readers’ expectations. Analytics can offer after-the-fact clues (how long readers remain on the page, who many of them click through to website landing pages, email us, or sign up for an RSS, but it is our job to communicate clearly the extent to which our product or service can be expected to deliver results within a clearly defined time period.

On another note, Cooper mentions the importance of a “lead investor”, a person or group working directly with the founder of a company. The “lead” not only makes a substantial initial investment in the company, but makes introductions and connections, putting their own name behind the fundraising effort. The parallel in blog marketing is testimonials.

Client testimonials can boost credibility in two ways: Customer success stories help prospects decide to do business with you. At the same time, the process of writing or posting the recommendation or even being interviewed for a testimonial reinforces the commitment of the “lead customers” themselves..

In blogging for business, content writers can use the model of a fundraising round, clearly defining expectations and using “lead customers”.

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Blog About Your Roots, Favorite Materials, and Clever Hacks

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While I spend very little time crafting candles or crocheting cushions, I absolutely loved Taryn Mohrman’s article “Let’s Get Crafty” in the March issue of Woman’s Day, presented in honor of National Crafting Month (who knew?).

Taryn’s introductory piece had three parts:

My crafting roots – When she was little, her dad encouraged her to re-imagine and re-create., encouraging her love of design.
Favorite material – spray paint.
Clever hack – She uses shellac primer and sealer before spray painting, so that her projects last much longer.

As head of a team of blog content writers at Say It For You, I realized that Taryn Mohrman had used several of the blogging “hacks” we teach content writers:

First person business blog writing – it shows the people behind the posts, revealing the personality of the business owner, practitioner, or the team standing ready to serve customers.

Sharing personal background – People tend to buy when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

Stating an opinion (favorite material) – Whether you’re blogging to promote a business, a professional practice, or a nonprofit organization, you should share your opinion or slant.

Offering a specific practical tip or trick to help readers do what they want to do, but faster, better, and more easily. Mohrman includes a simple recipe for a scrub – sugar coconut oil, and gel food coloring..

Other articles included in this Woman’s Day issue illustrate other blog post approaches and “clever hacks”:

Toni Lipse answers the question “What’s the difference?” (between crocheting and. Knitting). In creating content for marketing blogs, we need to keep in mind that people are online searching for answers to questions they have and for solutions for dilemmas they’re facing. But searchers haven’t always formulated their questions, and so what I suggest is that we do that for them in our content. .

A testimonial by Nancy Landrum explains how crafting helped her battle depression after being widowed twice and losing her eldest son. Customer testimonials in blogs are a powerful form of social proof; readers are more likely to follow the actions others have already taken.

Whether you’re getting crafty with spray paint or with words, make sure to share some clever hacks – and, even more important – a glimpse into your own roots, favorites, and opinions!

While I spend very little time crafting candles or crocheting cushions, I absolutely loved Taryn Mohrman’s article “Let’s Get Crafty” in the March issue of Woman’s Day, presented in honor of National Crafting Month (who knew?).

Taryn’s introductory piece had three parts:

  1. My crafting roots – When she was little, her dad encouraged her to re-imagine and re-create., encouraging her love of design.
  2. Favorite material – spray paint.
  3. Clever hack – She uses shellac primer and sealer before spray painting, so that her projects last much longer.

As head of a team of blog content writers at Say It For You, I realized that Taryn Mohrman had used several of the blogging “hacks” we teach content writers:

  1. First person business blog writing – it shows the people behind the posts, revealing the personality of the business owner, practitioner, or the team standing ready to serve customers.
  2. Sharing personal background – People tend to buy when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.
  3. Stating an opinion (your favorite “material”) – Whether you’re blogging to promote a business, a professional practice, or a nonprofit organization, you should share your opinion or slant.
  4. Offering a specific practical tip or trick to help readers do what they want to do, but faster, better, and more easily. Mohrman includes a simple recipe for a scrub – sugar coconut oil, and gel food coloring..

Other articles included in this Woman’s Day issue illustrate other blog post approaches and “clever hacks”:

  • Toni Lipse answers the question “What’s the difference?” (between crocheting and. Knitting). In creating content for marketing blogs, we need to keep in mind that people are online searching for answers to questions they have and for solutions for dilemmas they’re facing. But searchers haven’t always formulated their questions, and so what I suggest is that we do that for them in our content.
  • A testimonial by Nancy Landrum explains how crafting helped her battle depression after being widowed twice and losing her eldest son. Customer testimonials in blogs are a powerful form of social proof; readers are more likely to follow the actions others have already taken.

Whether you’re getting crafty with spray paint or with words, make sure to share some clever hacks – and, even more important – a glimpse into your own roots, favorites, and opinions!

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Blog Using Presentational Coloration

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In How Magicians Think, author Joshua Jay explains that, when he borrows a coin from you and makes it disappear, the words he uses during the disappearance “can radically change the experience in your mind”. .Jay might say, for example, “Watch as your coin fades away slowly, dissolving into the air.” Alternately, he might say “And just like that…pow! The coin is gone.” In fact, Jay adds, neuroscientists have shown that most of our experiences are shaped as much by an impression rather than by the event itself.

In blog marketing, we realize at Say It For You, an online searcher’s impressions will have a large role in shaping the outcome of the visit. Since we, as ghostwriters, have been hired by clients to tell their story online to their target audiences, we need to do intensive research, taking guidance from the client’s experience and expertise The goal – conveying the relationship between the visitor and the business owner and their shared experience. But no matter who is responsible for creating the blog content, remember this: Readers who visit your blog are judging their experience in learning about the business owner or practitioner behind the blog.

As part of offering business blogging assistance, I’m always talking to business owners about their customer service.  The challenge is – every business says it offers superior customer service! (Has any of us ever read an ad or a blog that does not tout its superior customer service? But the words you use in saying it are part of the presentational coloration that can make the difference in demonstrating that your customer service exceeds the norm.

Actual color is very important in presentation, as the Zoho blog brings out, because colors affect us at a subconscious level, and “can make the difference between someone liking an idea or rejecting it.” Interestingly, the advice Zoho gives about choosing only one primary color for each slide is in keeping with my own blog content writing advice about the Power of One.

Precisely because an online searcher’s impressions will have a large role in shaping the outcome of the visit, it’s important to blog using presentational coloration.

 

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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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