Business Marketing 202: Doing the Who’s Who Right

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In blog marketing, I’ve found, getting things right often follows noticing things that are already right, then applying those business man and his team isolated over a whitetechniques to our own business needs. Case in point: the “Who’s Who @the Federation” page in the magazine from Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis.

In corporate blogging training sessions, I like to stress how important it is to blog in first person.  First person shows the people behind the post, revealing the personality of the owners and team members.

Of course, just about every business or organization has a profile page on its website.  Mostly, those pages tend towards the boring, listing job titles and credentials, and sometimes hobbies such as tennis or golf.

The “Who’s Who @the Federation” page, by contrast was very personal. Boring? Anything but. Each profile included 7 items,  4 of which are rather standard, including name, home town, and position, and how long each has worked at the Federation.. The other 3 things were a bit of a switch:

  • Family (this includes what the employee’s spouse does for a living, plus the names and ages of the kids)
  • “People can come to me if they need…”
  • “Why I find working at the Federation meaningful…”

What an absolutely great model for content writers creating blog posts and Who’s Who profile pages for company websites! As consumers, we’d all like to think we’re dealing  with people who find dealing with us meaningful! And wouldn’t it be great knowing you’re invited to come to the specific person who can best fulfill your specific need?

“Talk to people. We can accomplish a lot, a lot more quickly, if we put down the devices to have good old-fashioned conversations,” cautions Indianapolis Reverend Jeffrey Johnson.

OK, blogging and web content are device-based. But, the closer the content can come to good old-fashioned conversation, the more marketing can be accomplished. We need a lot more people-can-come-to-me-if-they-need online content writing!

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Business Bloggers Take the SQ3R Initiative

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Study Skills StrategiesOn Mondays, I’ve been serving as a tutor in the Ivy Tech Learning Lab, and just the other day, I found a treasure there I knew I had to share with business blog content writers. That “find” was a little paper-back book called Study Skills Strategies, by Uelaine Lengfeld.

On page 2 of the book I found what we now refer to as an infographic. This chart depicts a study technique called SQ3R, consisting of five steps students can use to learn successfully from a written text.

When it comes to online blog readers, I couldn’t help reflecting ruefully, there’s no way every reader is going to go through all five steps.  In fact, today’s searcher is a scanner rather than a true reader. That means, I’ve concluded, that we, the business blog  writers, have to be the ones performing those steps and literally leading the readers by the hand through our content.

Survey – “Take a sneak preview of the reading you’ve been assigned,” The first part of the survey involves examining the title of each chapter.  in Say It For You  corporate blogging training sessions, I emphasize using keyword phrases in the first part of the title of each blog post. A third concept that’s important for blog content writers to remember is keeping the title and the actual blog post content congruent.

Question – “Always read with the intent to answer a question, using the words who, what, when, where, or how,” Lengfield advises students. Blog writers need to anticipate the questions and answer them before they’re asked. But remember, as friend and fellow blogger Karl Ahrichs says, “People want the answer in a few, short, well-thought-out words, with a long answer to follow if requested.”

Read & Underline and Recite & Write are the next two steps. But, since our target readers have hundreds of marketing and sales messages hitting them each day, it’s up to us as content writers to, as we post our content online, to use bolding, italics, and graphics to “steer” our readers through the learning process.

Review – in blogging for business, the tie-back technique serves as a forced review for the readers. Whatever you meant to convey in the post, in the closing line tie back to that theme, using the very words you used at the outset.

In business blogging, we content writers need to take the SQ3R initiative!

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Advice to the Front in Blogging for Business

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tires“If you buy new tires, put them on the rear side,” begins a truly great blog post by Allstate Insurance. Mind you, I‘ve been a customer of an Allstate competitor for 40+ years, but I know a good business blog post when I read one.

        I applaud six important things about Allstate’s “New Tires to the Rear” post, and, as a corporate blogging trainer, wanted to point those out:

  • It’s written in “I-you” format.  Personal. Direct. “I understand the pain….I’m here to tell you…” In first person, blogging for business can in reveal the personality of the business owner or of the team standing ready to serve customers.
  • It offers advice readers can use.  Right away.  They don’t even need to click.
  • It explains the writer’s point of view. “On a rainy day even a small puddle could cause your car to spin out.  Rear tires provide stability.  If they’re worn, even if the new fronts provide plenty of steering ability, if the rear tires are floating, you’ll spin out.”
  • It establishes the business owner as an expert. “I have ridden with thousands of drivers in demonstrations…almost all spin out when the car had newer tires on the front and half-worn rubber on the rear.”
  • It deals with readers’ objections and questions even before they are asked: What if I have electronic stability control features on my car? “Even electronic stability control – a system that can help to automatically bring you out of a spin – can’t help if the rear tires are completely hydroplaning.”
  • It’s opinionated, definitive.  “No more ‘even ifs’.  If you buy only two tires, place them on the rear axle.” Whether it’s business-to-business 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.

New tires may be best on the rear of the car, but advice takes front and center in blogging for business!

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Smaller Niches are the New Big in Blogging for Business

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target your customersYou have to contract to expand, is the message I’m hearing from quite a number of National Speakers Association star performers. Could these pieces of advice from three speaking leaders apply to us Indiana blog content writers? You bet.

From “social media diva Renee Quinn:
We can either know a little about a lot of things, or a whole lot about a few things, but never both. The more targeted your content is towards specific topics of interest in your field, the more you will be perceived as an expert. Be confident in your knowledge, and stay active to show those who follow you that you’re passionate and well-informed.

In  the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Success as a Professional Speaker,  Dr. Thomas Lisk
uses four questions to help speakers define their niche market:

  • Can you list all markets or industry types that could purchase your kinds of expertise?
  • Which of those markets needs your expertise most?
  • Which markets are most likely to purchase your services?
  • Which organizations in these markets have enough funding to afford your ongoing services?

Ruby Newell-Legner agrees, advising speakers to find their niche market. Learning about the needs of your potential clients, you can solve their problems and become their go-to person, she says.

Newell makes a suggestion that I think is especially suitable for business bloggers: “Mention your services and topics at least eight times,” she suggests.  That doesn’t mean you should keep “selling yourself,” she cautions; just insert yourself into the story line:  “The other day when I was facilitating a workshop…” (business owners can insert whatever activity they would be doing to serve their customers), I found that one of the biggest issues is….”  “In a consulting session the other day…..”

Niche marketing can be extremely cost-effective, observes Kim Gordon of entrepreneur.com, as long as the benefits you offer have special appeal to that market niche.

Blog writing for business is the perfect match for niche writing. In fact, small might be the new big in blogging for business!

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Philosophical Blogging for Business

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The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates

I’d never  heard blog posts referred to as “philosophical” before, but Julie Neidinger‘s description really resonated with me. Philosophical posts are “idea” posts, she says, with the main goal being to further the culture of the brand or team writing the blog.

These posts (and here’s what really hit the spot for me) “are as much for the writer as the reader, helping to clarify the thought process… as the writer is working through the initial idea.” Some philosophical posts, Neidlinger observes, are “as much for the writer as the reader”.

“Philosophical posts are good,” she says, “in that they reveal the writers as real people. They don’t generally come from a place of hierarchy (i.e. teacher-down-to-student), but are instead on the same level. The reader is walking beside the writer and working through the idea.”

I express something of the same sentiment on the Say It For You website. “When you put up a blog with excellent content that engages your potential and current customers, you will typically receive the following four types of benefits: An SEO benefit, a promotional benefit, a credibility benefit, and (this is the one that comes closest to expressing what Julie Neidlinger is saying) a training benefit.

The way I explain the training benefit is this: When you blog, you verbalize the positive aspects of your business in a way that people can understand. You put your recent accomplishments down in words. You review the benefits of your products and services and keep them fresh in your mind. In other words, you are constantly providing yourself with training about how to talk effectively about your business.

Going on to describe how philosophic blog posts are born, Neidlinger talks about content curation: “They often stem from books or other outside influences that have caused the author to think about new things and apply them to a current situation.”

The information in a blog post might have been “curated” from various sources. That’s a good thing, because you’re providing a valuable service to readers by collecting information and presenting it in one easy-to-access form.  On the other hand, “collections” are not nearly of sufficient benefit to readers.  Those facts and statistics need to be thought through and then put into perspective so that readers realize there’s something important here for them.

Ms. Neidlinger, I agree. Blogging for business means being a curator, but also a bit of a philosopher, thinking through the material before presenting it, along with the new thoughts you find going through your head because of others’ insights.

So, go ahead, I’d say to freelance blog content writers and to their business owner and professional practitioner clients – reveal the “real people” side of your blog writing!

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