Blogging Lessons From the Courtroom

/0 Comments/in , , /by


‘The courtroom was his job, writes Trey Goudy in Doesn’t Hurt to Ask, but you, too, he tells readers, will need to successfully advocate about something or someone. You will be persuading others to either come closer to your way of thinking or at least see why it is you believe what you believe, he says.

Based on Goudy’s decades-long experience as a prosecutor, he has arrived at certain conclusions about what persuasion is not (debating or arguing) and what it is (incremental). Both conclusions relate directly to blog marketing, I couldn’t help thinking. Blogging is certainly incremental, delivering information on a topic over a series of different posts, all part of a longer, ongoing, messaging process.

You have your facts, Goudy says, as you’re preparing to persuade, with a sense of which are most compelling. You’ve prioritized them properly. You’ve thought through every point and have a plan for defending it. But only sometimes, he admits, is the objective knowable (such as a verdict or an election tally). In real life, persuasion is movement, and movement can be small at times. In fact, I mused, in blog content marketing, persuasion is meant to happen in small increments.

Think how they think, Goudy advises (he might well have been referring to blog readers as much as to a jury). What do you really know about what they think? he asks. You’ve spent time gathering all the relevant facts, but you need to have a clear sense of which group you are trying to move, persuade, or convince. .Then comes evaluating how heavy a “lift” you need. Remember, if you are resolute in your own mind, chances are good that the audience is resolute in theirs, he reminds us.

In a non-digital conversation, you can come across as agreeable and likeable by saying things such as “I understand where you are coming from.” In blog marketing, however, the printed words are your one tool to demonstrate that level of likability and openness. “Start with your consensual point,” the author advises, “not your most provocative one.”

In the arena of persuasion, traits to be desired include believability, likability, authenticity – and access to facts. In a courtroom, Goudy says, you want to “impeach” the statements made by the other side (the facts they rely on and the overarching principles or conclusion behind those facts, but not the people).

Since blog content writers’ tools are words, Goudy’s chapter on “Big Words, Soft Words” offers helpful concepts. Certain words, he says, are “simply too big to make for objective and precise communications”. One of those words is “always” (as in “You always interrupt me when I am speaking”). Virtual or no, discussions need to allow for respectful dialogue.

The final paragraph of the book might have been directed specifically towards blog content writers: “Go communicate what you believe and why you believe it in the most persuasive way possible.”

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

How to Hug Customers in Your Blog

/0 Comments/in , , /by

“It’s not location, location, location,’ Jack Mitchell writes in Hug Your Customers. “It’s service, service, service.” Sure, a decent location with reasonable traffic, convenient to get to, and more than adequate parking – will do just fine if you learn to ‘hug” your customers. Personalized attention to customers is the proven way to achieve sales results, is the thesis of Mitchell’s book, based on Mitchell’s Family of Stores’ clothing and jewelry business.

Since the first publication of his book, the author admits, much has changed, with the most significant of those changes being the growth of Internet sales for all industries. One thing that has not changed, Mitchell, claims, is the need to deliver personalized customer service. People still yearn for at least a smile and a thank-you from an actual human being, he says. Actually, people do more than merely yearn when it comes to personal service – research shows that customers are willing to pay more for a product if they receive better customer service during and after a purchase.

At our content marketing company, we absolutely agree. The challenge we blog content writers take on is translating those “smiles” and “thank-you’s” into digital messaging. As part of the business blogging assistance I offer through Say It For You, 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?)  It’s not enough to say it – you have to specifically illustrate ways in which your company’s customer service exceeds the norm.

There’s more. Personalized service includes teaching customers new skills, and some blog posts can take the form of actually tutorials and step-by-step instructions. Stories of all kinds –help personalize a business blog. Even if a professional writer is composing the content, true-story material increases engagement by readers with the business or practice. Case studies are particularly effective in creating interest, because they are relatable and “real”.

In Journalism 101 class, we were taught to “put a face on the issue” by beginning the article with a human example  A case study takes that personalization even further, chronicling a customer or client who had a problem or need, and taking readers through the various stages of using the product or service to solve that problem. What were some of the issues that arose along the way? What new insights were gained through that experience, on the part of both the business and the customer?

You might not think of simplifying your website navigation as another way to “hug” customers, but it absolutely is. Marketing blogs are all about getting found,, but now they’ve found you, both both the content of your blog posts and the navigation paths on the blog site had better be easy, calling for fewer keystrokes and less confusion.

When writing content for your own blog or when planning content with the individuals you’ve hired for business blogging assistance, keep in mind that online readers might decide at any point that they’re ready to learn more, that they have a question to ask, or that they’re ready to take advantage of your products and services.  Make the process feel like a smile and and a hug!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Blogs to Inform and Lead

/0 Comments/in , /by

This week’s Say It For You blog posts are based on Brant Pinvidic’s powerful little book The 3-Minute Rule….

The A part of a WHAC presentation (Are you sure?) has a very important job to do – answering the questions that are on readers’ minds about the validity of your claims, Brant Pinvidic teaches. In keeping with my own idea of spreading content over a series of blog posts, rather than presenting your entire “case” in one long piece, I appreciated the list of questions Pinvidic says he often uses to help ramp up the thinking process in planning a presentation.

Each one of these questions relating to the A can serve as the inspiration for an individual blog post:

  • What have you said that someone might not believe?
  • Has a third party verified your claim?
  • How do you know there’s a need for this?
  • How have people succeeded in this before?
  • When and how did you realize you were on to something?
  • Why is this not “too good to be true”?
  • Why can’t your competition do this better?

One particularly fascinating piece of selling advice offered in this book is this – “Don’t open with the hook”. Many sales books and coaches teach that the hook is precisely what you open with, Pindivic says. (In terms of blog content, many believe the hook should be in the title.) This is called, Pinvidic explains, the state-and-prove method – you get someone to desire the outcome, then convince them your statement is true. What you want to do instead, he suggests, is start with the facts, allowing the audience to reach the conclusion that this is a good deal and form the “hook” for themselves rather than trying to poke holes in your assertions. Rather than state-and-prove, the author teaches, use the inform-and-lead approach.

At Say It for You, when our Indiana freelance blog content writers are sitting down with business owners or professional practitioners who are preparing to launch a blog, one important step in that launch is to select 1-5 recurring themes that will appear and reappear over time in their blog posts. The themes may be reflected in the keyword phrases they use to help with search engine optimization. Individual posts can focus on just one aspect of a theme (which might center around one of those questions under the A category of their WHAC).

Looked at in isolation, each blog post is designed to have one central focus. Yet, as blog content writing continues over weeks, months, and years, there will be a cumulative inform-and lead effect. And, yes, you can be sure of that.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Shakespeare Could Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two

/0 Comments/in , /by

Spacehuntr, Brussels’ fastest growing platform for scouting and booking event spaces in European cities, is apparently in the process of recruiting a content creator. If you feel Shakespeare could learn something from you, the company teases, you’re the candidate we’re seeking. (Myself, I am much too busy copywriting at Say It For You to be looking for a job, thank you. Still, that line got me thinking about the Bard and what he might have to teach today’s generation about content marketing…)

Meanwhile, one of Spacehuntr’s own recent blog posts caught my interest: Know your target audience: 10 ways to understand your people. When building a persona (a semi-fictional representation of the people with whom you’re attempting to connect), don’t consider only basic stats such as age gender, and nationality. Think ‘psychographic’, advises author Gareth Platt. Techniques for gaining insight into this audience, (many of which we have been incorporating in our Say It For You blog marketing for years), include:

1. running focus groups
While even the largest of my Say It For You blog clients is probably tiny compared to the largest of European corporations, I think blogs can perform a focus group function. Blog readers would weigh in on their own time in the form of responding to surveys, offering ideas or ratings – all good techniques to stimulate interaction with target customers.

2. using social media (posting opinions, asking questions, using hashtags)
As a freelance blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I find there’s some confusion about what distinguishes blogs from other social networking tools. Blogs, I believe, are a little more focused. The blogger serves as a “keynote speaker” in control of the discussion, yet still allows for questions and comments from the audience. I would agree with Spacehuntr’s focus on gaining insight into your audience, which means finding out where they “hang out” online and showing up there.

3. studying the competition

Regular readers of this Say It For You blog will recall that I advise business bloggers to read ten articles or other blogs for every blog post they write, and I follow that advice myself. We cannot position ourselves within the marketplace without studying our surroundings. And, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements. Each “visit” should conclude with readers understanding exactly what your unique philosophy or mission is, and why your approach can be beneficial to them.

So… were I inclined to apply for that copywriting position at spacehuntr, I’d be sure to mention that my college major was English and that I studied Shakespeare’s plays in detail. I’m sure the Bard would be properly impressed with the speed of digital communication today. I’m not sure I could teach him anything about understanding people, because his plays are full of the same humor, romance, tragedy, and insight we look for in good writing today. In fact, I suspect Shakespeare could teach us blog content writers a thing or two!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Steve Jobs and Pixar Illustrate an Important Principle of Blogging

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

 

My realtor friend Steve Rupp sent me a piece with the following story about Steve Jobs….

After purchasing computer manufacturer Pixar, Jobs relocated the company to an abandoned factory, re-organizing the physical structure with offices and workspaces around a large, central atrium. Under this new (at the time) very unusual arrangement, the mailboxes, meeting room, cafeteria, coffee bar, and gift shop were all in the center of the space. The underlying principle? “When people run into each other and make eye contact, things happen.” Of course, electronic messages could have been sent throughout the Pixar building in a millisecond, Jobs realized, but the community context of the message is the part that would help people understand each other and work together.

Could Jobs have avoided restructuring the entire complex of buildings, relying on mandatory periodic meetings or even informal periodic staff get-togethers to accomplish his goal of employees “running into each other”? Perhaps, but that “eye contact”, “context-sharing” and cross-pollination of ideas, Jobs understood, needed to happen frequently in order to be meaningful.

At Say It For You, after years of being involved in all aspects of corporate blog writing and blogging training, one irony I’ve found is that business owners who “show up” with new content on their websites are rare. There’s a tremendous fall-off rate, with most blogs abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. That sense of community Steve Jobs was after in the redesign of the Pixar facility? You might say the first job of a blog content writer is to help a business or a professional practice “get its frequency on”. What the blog does is get the business owners and practitioners into the “atrium” to “run into” their readers!

Good things happen in the blog frequency “atrium” for business owners who make blogging part of their routine as part of an overall business marketing strategy, with blog posts providing a steady stream of “sound bites” – little bits of different, interesting, and helpful content.

Steve Jobs building design was meant to encourage employees to “hang out” with each other in the Pixar atrium area whenever their schedules allowed, with no regular times posted. Over the years, blogtyrant.com relates, various studies have analyzed data to find out the best time to publish a blog post. Most often, though, we find that the issue is less that of choosing the optimal posting time and more about finding the time to create content to post in the first place!

Our mission, then as blog content writers, is to create an “atrium” where business owners and practitioners can share ideas with readers.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail