What a Smart Blog!

/0 Comments/in /by

I keep reminding content writers that blogs are not ads, not even advertorials. Still, a lot of smart marketing goes into ads, and some of that same smart thinking can be used in writing content for business blogs.

You’d expect stuff associated with Harvard to be on the smart side, and sure enough, I found one full page ad in the Harvard Business Review for Smart Ass™ ceiling fans. The tag line read “Now the world’s quietest and most energy-efficient ceiling fan is also the smartest.”

So far, the copy is still squarely in the advertisement arena, you’d have to admit. Why? It’s all about the product and the company with no mention of the customer’s needs, hardly a model I’d recommend for any company’s, or any practice’s, blog.

What made this particular ad memorable, though, were the three “Forgets”.

  1. “Forget the switch.”
    The fan knows when you enter or leave a room, and turns itself on or off accordingly.
  2. “Forget the pull chain.”
    The fan monitors the room’s temperature and humidity and adjusts the speed accordingly.
  3. “Forget the discomfort.”
    The fan learns your comfort preferences and tailors the speed adjustments to your needs.

Not only must the content you include in your business blog (or, in the case of Say It For You clients, the content created by your freelance blog writer) offer valuable and up-to-date information, you must make clear to readers that the information has been assembled here specifically for them. It must be clear you understand those online searchers’ concerns and needs, and that you and your staff have the experience, the information, the products, and the services to solve their problems, even the ones they’ve forgotten they have!

What inconveniences and discomforts can you help your prospective clients and customers forget?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Don’t-You-Hate-It-When Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in /by

“Comedy relieves you.  A lot of times, we think we’re the only people bothered by certain things.  Then you hear a comic say “Don’t you hate it when…”  And it’s “Oh, my God! Of course!”, observes Fred Willard in Esquire.

Blogging, believe it or not, can offer that same relieving effect for readers. In creating content for blog posts, business owners and professionals can outline those problems that brought readers to the site to begin with, plus raise some issues readers may not have been thinking about just then.

As content writers, I’m fond of stressing in corporate blogging training sessions, 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 fully formulated their questions even in their own minds. So, to engage our blog readers and show them we understand the dilemmas they’re facing, we can make use of the “don’t-you-hate-it-when…” tactic.

I really believe that blog writing for business will succeed only if two things are apparent to readers, and in the order presented here:

  1. It’s clear you (the business owner or professional practitioner) understand online searchers’ concerns and needs
  2. You and your staff have the experience, the information, the products, and the services to solve exactly those problems and meet precisely those needs.

“Don’t you hate it when…” isn’t so much a question as an invitation to commiserate. But actual question-answer can also be a very good format for presenting information to online readers. No need to wait until readers actually write in their questions – every practitioner hears questions from clients; every business owner fields customer queries daily. Sharing some of those in blog posts reminds readers of challenges they face and issues they’ve had with their current providers of products and services.

What I especially love about the don’t-you-hate-it-when intro is that, as professional bloggers, we translate corporate messages into human, people-to-people terms. People tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

“Oh, my God! Of course!” is the kind of relieved blog reader response that can signal the beginning of a business relationship.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Business Blogs – Where Marketing Initiatives Converge

/0 Comments/in /by

“For an unlikely selfie, visit the Four Corners Monument, the only point in the United States where four states converge,” suggests Alison Caporino in “A Quirky Tour of the U.S.A.”. The monument itself is in Arizona, she explains, but Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet at that spot as well.

Since, at Say It For You, we eat and breathe blogging for business, I hope you’ll indulge my using the Four Corners Monument as a metaphor for content marketing through blogs. I’ve done a lot of thinking about how email, social media, websites, and blogging relate to each other when it comes to attracting and retaining customers and clients.

In fact, I like to describe blogging, social media, and email as the “Three Musketeers” of online marketing, with blogging being the hub (like the Arizona location of the monument). The blog is where you think through and then put together the words to add fresh content about your business. From there, you encourage “convergence” with different social media audiences.

What’s so amazing about blogging, remarks Brian Clark of Copyblogger,  is the fact that “anyone willing to put in the work can become a media producer/personality without speaking a word to anyone in the existing media power centers of Los Angeles, New York, et al”.

“Your own site (on your own domain),” he continues, “is simply the best way to publish new media content. And social media news and networking sites are the ways that your content gets exposure.”

And how, exactly, can blog content writers help that exposure happen? In small chunks, suggests Mark Scott of socialmediatoday.com. “Instead of writing huge descriptions or copy-pasting whole paragraphs on Facebook, use small attention-grabbing snippets from the post, backlinking to the full blog post.” Scott reminds business owners to use their personal brand to promote posts by commenting on related blogs.

Not to ignore the obvious – let your existing clients and customers and all your business friends know about the birth of your blog.  Add the blog’s URL to flyers, business cards, and to your website. Email an excerpt from a favorite post to a select group of clients and business contacts.

Blogging can easily become the Four Corners Monument for marketing your business or professional practice!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Fireworks for Business Blogs

/0 Comments/in /by

Hard to imagine Fourth of July celebrations without fireworks, but, until two weeks ago, I hadn’t known about the “biggest and best fireworks blog in the world,” Epic Fireworks.

The Epic Fireworks blog is big, all right, with literally hundreds of categories and thousands of blog posts.  Since today is July 4th, I spent some time analyzing the Epic post titled “4th July or Independence Day”.

As a corporate blogging trainer, I give kudos to Epic  blog author Paul Singh for incorporating:

Interesting facts:

  • “The oldest established July 4th celebrations which have continued without interruption have been held in Bristol, Rhoda Island since 1777.”
  • “Macy’s Fireworks have been held since 1976.  In 2009, in recognition of the route taken by Henry Hudson in 1609, the fireworks were moved from their usual site over the East River to the Hudson.”

Online readers have a natural curiosity, particularly when you offer information related to a query they’ve already typed into a search bar.  That’s why little-known facts and statistics make for good business blog fodder.  Important for bloggers to remember, though: use each tidbit as a jumping-off point to explain some unique aspect of your own products or services!

Illustrations and images:

Each fact was attached to an image.

The main message of a blog is delivered in words, of course.  Where visuals come in, whether they’re in the form of “clup art”, photos, graphs, charts, or even videos, is to add interest and evoke emotion.  People absorb information better when it is served up in more than one form.

Frequency:

I’d come upon the Epic blog just two weeks ago, June 23, to be exact. The latest post had been June 22; the ones before that were posted on June 20, June 17, and June 16. 

Momentum in the online rankings race comes from frequency of posting blogs and from building up longevity by consistently posting content on the Web over long periods of time.

Navigation ease:

At the bottom of each blog page were two arrows, one leading to “older entries”, the other to “newer entries”.  The page had a search bar and a Calls to Action section allowing readers to buy Epic fireworks online, subscribe to the blog via RSS feed, or follow Epic on Twitter.

The point I want to stress to content writers in Indianapolis is simply this: The easier it is for searchers to navigate your site, the easier it will be for them to engage and transact.

Hard to imagine Fourth of July celebrations without fireworks.  Hard to imagine a better modeal for newbie blog content writers to follow that Paul Singh’s fireworks blog!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Wait-Wait-Don’t-Tell-Me Business Blogs

/0 Comments/in /by

“Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”, NPR’s weekly hour-long quiz program, is a favorite of mine.  I’m not the only one – the show has been enormously successful for years.

Since at Say It For You, we’re all about creating content that can engage readers, I asked myself just why the “”Wait Wait” content is so very engaging.  I concluded there are two main reasons for the program’s success:

  • Listeners get to be involved (by guessing the answers)
  •  Listeners don’t need to actually make a commitment (sitting in my car, I don’t worry that anyone will kow I’ve selected the wrong response)

So, what’s the takeaway for us blog content writers?

A couple of years ago, I remember, I commented on an advertorial in the Indianapolis Star supplement called “Why To Buy a Piano”.  The piece provided tips on the basic decisions facing piano buyers (digital vx. acoustic, upright vs. grand, used vs. new).  But the big thing about that advertorial was in the final paragraph: “You don’t have to make the ultimate piano decision the first time.”

Think about how reassuring that statement might be for a buyer (“They’re trying to help me, not sell me the most expensive instrument in the store.”)

Searchers on the web may be shopping for the products or services you offer, but may not be ready to make a commitment.  If, in your business blog, you can convey the idea that there are different levels of involvement possible, and that “ultimate decisions” need not be made the moment a potential client or customer “steps into” your website, visitors can be comfortable engaging with you.

The NPR blogging secret for business owners and professional practitioners: Offer valuable information and encourage “just looking” blog visitors who may be thinking, “Wait, wait, dont sell me…yet…”

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail