NASA Isn’t Looking for Astronauts

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As a speaking agent, James Marshall Reilly explains in the book One Great Speech, his biggest challenge is locating and identifying “experts” in varying fields, based on the requests of buyers and event sponsors. Reilly is looking for people as yet unknown in the speaking world. But don’t be confused, he cautions – when Bank of America wants to pay for a speaker, they’re not looking for a banker or financial services expert. The State Department isn’t looking for a diplomat, and NASA isn’t seeking a speaker who’s an astronaut. These organizations have plenty of their own in-house experts.

So what are these mega-company meeting planners seeking?’ Reilly says it’s someone with:

  • a unique perspective
  • a new idea
  • new information
  • passion
  • a story that resonates

Reilly’s insights sure resonated with me. As blog content writers, those are the very qualities we’re aiming for in helping our clients’ stories resonate with their target audiences.

Unique perspective
The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.  It’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to “flesh out” the intangibles, those things that make a company stand out from its peers. In other words, it’s the blog that gives readers context within which to process the information.

But, from whose perspective? We can use blogging to offer searchers the relevant, up to date information they came to find, giving it to them in short paragraphs and in conversational style, then leading them to take action. But it’s crucial to present information from the customer’s perspective, not ours. Where we are is never the starting point!

Passion resonates
When online readers find a blog, one question they need answered is “Who lives here?” In terms of achieving Influencer status – it takes passion, and it takes opinion, we’ve learned at Say It For You. Sharing the obvious slant may be vociferous, but if it’s not passionate, it won’t resonate with readers.

Information
Very much like the folks most likely to be in attendance at a Bank of America or NASA conference, blog site visitors are already interested in the subject at hand and may already know quite a bit of information on that subject. While there’s very little likelihood that the “startling statistics” you offer to capture readers’ attention will be “new news”, facts and statistics need to be “unpackaged” and put into perspective.

No, Bank of America may not be looking for a speaker with a finance degree, and NASA may not hire an astronaut for the keynoter at their conference. But if you can turn information into stories that resonate in your blog posts, online readers may just “hire” -YOU!

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Disagree Agreeably in Your Blog

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You’ve no doubt been exposed to the streaming TV ad for Vroom, in which a guy is strapped to a chair in the back of a car dealership. The dealer finally uses a pair of jumper cables to zap his victim back to reality, where he’s sitting on his front lawn watching Vroom deliver his new sedan.

Tempting as it is to knock your competition, there are some very good reasons not to do so, Cedric Voigt of Ballou PR writes:

  • It makes the story all about them.
  • It makes you look like a follower, not a leader.
  • You are not objective, and your target audience isn’t stupid.

At Say It For You, we absolutely agree. Negatives against competitors are a basic no-no. Yes, , in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition.  But, to get the point across that readers should want to choose this business or this practice, or these products and services over those offered by the competition, it’s important to stay positive.

The People’s Pharmacy Q&A column in the Indianapolis Star the other day exemplifies taking a firm stance on a subject while acknowledging that there are other opinions. The reader had been diagnosed with “white coat syndrome”, because her blood pressure would dramatically increase in the presence of a doctor or nurse. Her question was this: “Do I really need to take drugs for high blood pressure when my pressure is high only in the doctor’s office?”

Pharmacists Joe and Teresa Graedon disagreed with the recommendation given the reader by her doctors. However, rather than “knocking” those doctors, the Graedons offered a three-part response:

  1. Acknowledging that there are alternative approaches — “Doctors disagree about the need to treat white coat syndrome. Some think it signals reactivity to stress.” Because people are frazzled in many different circumstances, these physicians believe drug treatment is appropriate.”
  2. Offering evidence backing up their own viewpoint — “An Italian study of early 1,200 elderly people with high blood pressure found that white coat hypertension raised the risk of a cardiovascular event slightly but not significantly.
  3. Firmly restating their own view — “You could ask your doctor about reducing your medication. To prepare for that conversation, you may want to read our eGuide to Blood Pressure Solutions.”

When it comes to comparing yourself to others, accentuate both the reasoning behind, and the positives about, your way of doing things! Differentiate, don’t disparage.

 

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Comparative Marketing for Blogs

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“As long as the value of one product or service is being communicated through its comparison to another product or service, it qualifies as comparative advertising,” Conor Bond writes in Wordstream. The goal, as with all advertising, is to communicate value, but in the case of comparative advertising, that value is conveyed not only from quality, but from the disparity in quality between one product or service and another. The other company or provider serves as an anchor, Bond explains, something concrete to use as a reference point.

Bond offers examples of comparative advertising, including:

  • Mac portraying its own users as immune to the viruses that commonly attack PCs
  • Verizon portraying its own customers enjoying online games and YouTube videos on their phones while ATT&T customers suffer lack of access
  • Wendy’s tweeting about MacDonald’s beef patties still being frozen
  • Popeye’s “dinging” chick-fil-A for being closed on Sundays

Two companies that choose to compare themselves against an amalgam of others rather than a specific rival, Bond notes, are Dove (treats your skin with care, unlike the others who treat it harshly), and Allstate using Mayhem to show that they outdo competitors in preparing customers to deal with unpredictable events.

Can comparative marketing work for blogs? At Say It For You, we teach, negatives against competitors are a basic no-no. It’s almost axiomatic that, in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition.  In getting the point across that readers should want to choose this business or this practice, or these products and services over those offered by the competition, staying positive is still important. In fact, sometimes knowing what not to include in your business blog writing makes you a better blog content writer.

The “Golden Rule” advice Advisor Today gives to financial planning practitioners applies here: “say only those kinds of things about specific competitors that we’d want them saying about us!” The high road in blog marketing strategy and tactics development is what Bing Crosby used to croon, “Accentuate the positive…latch on to the affirmative.”

One format I’ve found useful is the “Some……but we….”

  • “Some stylists are in the practice of ……, but at Shirley’s Salon, we believe …….. is best.”
  • Some housecleaning companies require you to provide your own products, but at ABC, we supply our cleaning staff with green products.”

    In other words, accentuate the positive. Comparative blog marketing means explaining why you do things the way you do, letting readers draw their own conclusions.

 

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Blog the Half Empty Along With the Half Full

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Is the glass half empty or half full?”

That’s a common expression, a proverbial phrase, generally used to indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for pessimism or optimism. Dr Lillian Zarzar, MA. CSP, international speaker, author, and coach, views the “glass” a different way – it’s always both, she says – full and empty. Science doesn’t lie, Zarzar tells her executive coaching clients. In every situation, there is some ratio of negative and positive. We each have the power to make choices, finding our own compromise between the positives and negatives that co-exist in every situation.

In blogging for business, it pays to embrace the “empty” part of the glass along with the full as well. True stories about mistakes and struggles (those of the business owners as well as those of their customers and clients) are actually quite humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the information and advice being offered. What tends to happen, I explain to content writers, is that stories of failure create feelings of empathy and admiration for the entrepreneurs or professional practitioners who overcame the effects of those “negatives”.

“Is your brand real enough for the next wave of consumers?” Jamie Gutfreund asks in Forbes, describing today’s consumers, who prefer reality to perfection, and who consider taking risks an important part of life. In blog marketing, therefore, real life issues and challenges are riches to be mined. Often a new Say It For You client has been so swept up in their own attempt to keep their glass “full”, they can’t see how valuable finding – and sharing – the “empty” part of the glass can prove to be. That’s precisely where the “outside eye” of a professional blog writer can help shape a message that is compelling because it is “real”. I call it “telling how you tripped at the Academy Awards.”

In business in general, a cost-benefit analysis is a glass-half-empty-half-full process. An individual or a company evaluates a decision about a product or a project, comparing the enjoyment and benefit to the “give-ups” required – the dollars that will need to be spent, the time and effort it will take, etc. When it comes to blog marketing, while it’s undoubtedly true that blogging drives web traffic and helps promote an entrepreneur or profession practitioner’s products and services, a significant commitment of time and effort is certain to be needed. So, what happens? Socialtriggers.com notes that most people who start blogs quit within the first three months, leaving their blog marketing “glass” totally empty!

Another interesting application to blog marketing of the glass analogy is that marketing content typically represents the point of view of the seller, with the blog readers representing potential buyers. In creating content for 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, anticipating blog readers’ negative assumption questions. If we can go right to the heart of any possible customer fears or concerns by addressing negative assumption questions before they’ve been asked, we have the potential to breed understanding and trust.

Blog the half-empty along with the half-full!

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Send Yourself a Rejection Blog

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“Nobody likes receiving rejection letters. But one way to reduce their sting, and perhaps even avoid one altogether, is to pre-empt the rejector by writing the letter yourself,” Daniel Pink suggests in the book To Sell is Human. In the letter, list the reasons your prospect is turning you down. “When you read your letter, you’ll probably laugh,” the author says, but more important, “the letter might reveal soft spots in what you’re presenting, which you can then work to strengthen”.

Because our team at Say It For You is involved in blog marketing, I was especially interested in what Daniel Pink had to say about “non-sales selling”. That consists of convincing others to exchange their resources (their expertise, time, effort, and attention) for something they want. Today, he explains, instead of product pushing, we must move people into action“. That’s because, whereas in the “old days”, sellers had more information than buyers; today’s buyers have almost equal access to information. Effective selling today, therefore, is no longer about being persistent and aggressive, but about being transparent and empathetic, helping buyers make sense of available facts and options.

So, in your rejection blog post to yourself, what reasons will you give for not sticking around to enjoy your content?

  • Your blog was very slow to load and then, to make matters worse, you annoyed me with pop up ads.
  • Your blog posts have “a wall of text” with long paragraphs – they appear to be a pain to get through.
  • Despite the fact that your title was a match for my search, I quickly realized you were not addressing me – just providing the same information I’d heard many times before. In short, you quickly managed to bore me with same-old, same-old.
  • You didn’t show me who you are – your reason for being in your business and your strong beliefs about how what’s going on could be make better.

After closing your self-rejection blog with the classic line – “After careful consideration, I did not select you for further consideration,” stop selling. Instead, get to work on helping buyers make sense of their available options.

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