No-No Expressions in Content Marketing

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Earlier this week, our Say It For You blog highlighted some very good tips Bruce Sanders offers in Financial Advisor Magazine to financial advisors about staying in touch with their clients. As a content marketing, I particularly appreciated Sanders’ advice concerning specific expressions advisors would do well to avoid in their communications.  “You might say something you consider witty or simply plain speaking, but your client might take it the wrong way”, he warns…

1.   You’re meeting with a client and the phone rings. You say “I can ignore that call”. Your intention was to show that the person in front of you is most important and that this meeting should not be interrupted. The client, Sanders cautions, might wonder if their call might get the same “brush-off” treatment when they need to talk to you.

2.   A client has learned that they cannot do something they wanted to do, either because of technology or other changes in policy. If you say “It’s firm policy”, that’s a turn-off – your client feels you should be arguing their case. See this from the client’s perspective. Show that you understand their frustration. Then show how the change will benefit the client in the long run, Sanders advises.

3.   “I want all your money”. Don’t offer an “all or nothing” scenario in which prospects must sever relationships with other vendors or professionals as a condition of dealing with you, Sanders warns.

“Powerful customer service phrases can help you improve client interactions by instilling trust, touchpoint.com explains. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” shows that a service representative is eager to go above and beyond to ensure the customer’s satisfaction. If concerns arise, saying “Thanks for bringing this to our attention!”, or “I apologize for the inconvenience” can help maintain trust..

For content marketers, this advice applies to negative comments that readers sometimes make about a business, using social media. When those customer complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with “in front of other people” (i.e. in the content available to all readers), it gives the “apology” more weight.  “Letting the client tell his/her story,” gives the owner or practitioner the chance to offer useful information to other readers and to explain any changes in policy that resulted from the situation. But, even when there haven’t been negative comments or outright complaints, we must engage readers and show them we understand the dilemmas they’re facing, going right to the heart of any fears or concerns they might have.

Getting everything “out on the table”, thereby building trust? Why, that may be one of the most valuable functions of content marketing!

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Staying in Touch With Content

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“You need to take control of the narrative,” Bryce Sanders cautions financial advisors in Financial Advisor Magazine. When the stock market is going up, some advisors don’t see the need to call their clients. Others don’t think they need to call when the market is going down. But either way, Sanders cautions, it’s a big mistake not to stay in close touch with your advisees.

At Say It For You, we realize, every single one of the reasons Sanders cites for staying in touch with financial planning clients is true for business owners and professional practitioners in every field:

1. Your clients should be expecting you to be in touch with them on a predictable basis.
In content marketing, it’s a big mistake to take your foot off the gas. Yes, creating a steady stream of content takes time and patience. As online marketing guru Neil Patel stresses, websites that publish regular, high-quality content are providing real value to users.

2.    Give the client credit for the successes they have achieved using the information you’ve provided.
Your website can include customer testimonials to boost credibility in two ways. Success stories boost your credibility with new prospects, helping them decide to do business with you. At the same time, testimonials also foster commitment from those providing those testimonials.

3.  Clients need to know where they stand with you, knowing you are paying attention.
To maintain that “paying attention” stance, it’s crucial to avoid “yo-yo content posting”. Spacing marketing content pieces at regular intervals and maintaining consistency allows regular readers and newcomers to the site to expect – and benefit from – a regular flow of information.

4.  Clients have the potential to invest new dollars with you, and are looking for direction.
When it comes to content marketing, the word “news” can mean several different things, including “your own news”, introducing a new employee, a new partner, a new product, a new service. Community news relates to “what’s going on and how we fit in”.

Content marketing is nothing more than staying in touch with what’s happening in your community, in your industry, in your business or practice – and sharing those insights with your readers!

 

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Society-Happens-Here Content Marketing – Thanksgiving Food for Thought

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The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a new paradox at the heart of society. Rapid innovation offers the promise of a new era of prosperity, yet most institutions, including government and the media, are not trusted to introduce these new innovations to society, and so people are looking to business leaders for guidance. That means business owners are expected to comment, not only on their own products and services, but on societal changes that affect their industry or profession…

At Say It For You, our content writers know readers are trusting our business owner and professional practitioner clients to help them with more than good products and skilled services. In addition to information, searchers need help making sense of all the changes happening in their neighborhoods and in their world.

“When customers provide more data, they expect better experiences,” salesforce.com cautions, so marketers need to create experiences that are:

  1. connected
  2. personalized
  3. immersive

What I’ve learned over the years of creating blog content for dozens and dozens of clients in different industries and professions is that, in order to “turn readers on”, we must incorporate one important ingredient – opinion. Taking a stance, I’ve found, is what gives content its “zip”. We must be influencers, I advise clients and blog content writers alike. Whether it’s business-to-business or business-to-consumer writing, the content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers.
We need to be coming from a place of “who we are” as much as from a place of “what we offer”.

A content marketing alert: This Thanksgiving, an important part of our “food for thought” menu needs to be Society-happens-here content marketing.

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How Do You Want Your Content to Make Them Feel?

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Hobbies present an escape, helping you get out of your head and calm down, associate professor of health psychology Matthew Zawadzki explains, but it’s important, in choosing an activity, so ask yourself how you want it to make you feel. Should the hobby result in your feeling:

  • mentally engaged?
  • distracted?
  • socially connected?

“Marketers aim to understand the needs, wants, and behaviors of their target audience in order to effectively promote and sell their products or services, Official Insights remarks on Reddit.com.  “This often involves researching and analyzing data on consumer demographics, psychographics, and buying habits.”

One study conducted by professors at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania found that content inspiring awe, surprise, or humor is much more likely to be shared. But audiences differ, and, as content marketers, we need to know our target audience’s pain points, desires, and frustrations, in order to understand what emotional context we should include in our content, contentwriters.com cautions. Going even further, emotional context actually includes phrase and word choices, even terms, and acronyms with which your readers are familiar.” BrainyGirl Kim Garnett points out.

The best way to “make it personal,” Maxwell advises in  his book, The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, is “to pair what they do know with what they don’t know.”  Learn the organizational culture of the group, their personal experiences, even their national origin, then communicate the insights about you have about that already acquired knowledge.

Our Say It For You content writers have come to understanding that our purpose is not to  admonish, warn, frighten, or even inspire online readers, who have arrived at our site on a fact-finding mission, looking specifically for information The tone of the content should assume that with information presented in a way that mentally engages them and forges a connection, they will move forward with action.

As we plan our content, while we aren’t aiming at presenting an readers with an escape, we do want to make them feel both mentally engaged and socially connected – with our business owner and professional practitioner clients, that is!

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The Reader’s Digest Approach to Content Marketing

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Although reading is a way to keep you mind sharp, finding time to read can be a challenge,” Jason Buhrmester, Chief Content Officer for Reader’s Digest concedes. We can help,” he assures readers, alluding to the service Fiction Favorites, groups of four novels, hand-picked and shortened, delivered to readers’ homes.

As content marketers, I teach at Say It For You, we can take the same approach in offering content to our clients’ target audiences. I encourage freelance content writers and business owners alike to curate, meaning to gather OPW (Other People’s Wisdom) and share that with their readers, commenting on that material and relating it to their own topic.

Truth is, to sustain our blog and newsletter content writing over long periods of time without losing reader excitement and engagement, we need to constantly add to our own body of knowledge – about our industry or professional field, and about what’s going on around us in our culture. Business blogging can serve as a form of market research in itself, and through curating material we find and then adding our own original thinking about what we’re sharing – that brings our readers the best of both worlds.

Three cautions concerning content curation:

1. Communicate armed with facts from reliable, trusted sources. 
Linking to a news source or journal article, for instance, adds credibility to the ideas you’re presenting in your post. Having guest bloggers explain their point of view and share their specialized knowledge. Make sure to include material only from trusted sources.

2. Communicate seeking to inform, comfort, and connect. 
The tone needs to be relationship-building and interpersonal communication. as your content helps visitors judge whether you have their best interests at heart.  Even if you’ve come across as the most competent of product or service providers, you still need to pass the “warmth” test.

3. Always attribute.
While quoting someone else’s remarks on a topic your covering can be a very good thing, reinforcing your point, showing you’re in touch with trends in your field, and adding variety, it’s crucial to give “credit where credit is due” by attributing the quote or comment to its author. Even if you’re not quoting an author directly, but using another person’s thoughts or ideas that are not your own or mentioning statistics you didn’t collate yourself, it’s crucial to acknowledge the source.
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Add value to your content by using the Reader’s Digest approach!

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