Blogging – Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

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Identifying new uses for a product can increase usage frequency and even convert current nonusers into users.
Both are aspects of a market penetration strategy, David Stewart observes in the Branding Strategy Insider, offering as an example an advertising campaign for orange juice: .”It’s not just for breakfast anymore”, a slogan that represents an effort to expand usage. Innovation challenges people’s existing perceptions of the category and gives them pause for thought, Nigel Hollis adds.

Blogging has a 30-year history.
“Publishing a business blog is an important part of any marketing strategy, Marc Prosser of SCORE stresses. Blogging has been around for the last 30 years, but it has certainly changed and evolved over those years, Ryan Robinson reminds us. The very first online journals were made up of plain text, with no graphics or formatting, and the word “blog” itself wasn’t coined until 1997. It wasn’t until 2003 that WordPress (the platform I’m using for this Say It For You blog) entered the scene. The next year “Blog” became Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year.

Blogging in 2023
Today there are more than 31,000,000 bloggers in the U.S. alone. Blogging, broadbandsearch.net observes, is “democratized content publication, not regulated by gatekeepers such as publishing houses, news organizations, universities, or governments. 70% of individuals favor acquiring information about a company through a blog, and 55% of brands gain new clients through blogging.

“The creation of relevant content for visitors and existing customers is one of the most important benefits of blogging,” VEZA Digital asserts. “Posting blogs regularly helps you engage directly with a user’s questions and queries that they are typing in a Google search. These questions help you to understand whether your customers are getting the information that they need from your blogs and also help to know if your keywords are performing well.”

Just as identifying new uses for orange juice expanded sales of the product, blog content can build value for a brand, leading to increased sales.
“Consider what is important to your target market and to existing customers,” VEZA advises. What problem does your product or serve solve? How will it help readers overcome barriers or do their jobs better? “Creating a connection between your brand and the customer is crucial. Brand awareness and trust go hand in hand.”

What your blog is for, we explain at Say It For You, is to provide relevant, useful, and timely content to your prospects and customers to help them solve problems, understand industry trends, and make sense of the news and how it relates to them

The power of the new
People are always looking for new things, Neil Patel explains – new software, new techniques, new ways to make and save money. Using new phraseology in your blog posts is a way to command attention, and smart blog marketing expands readers’ perception that there are new ways for them to engage with your brand.

Remember – blogging isn’t just for breakfast anymore!

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5 Tips for Fledgling Entrepreneurs and Content Writers of Every Ilk

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Fascinated by the “Online Impact” section of Start Your Own Business Magazine, I found five recommendations that are perfect for blog content writers:

1. “People respond to a business with a human side, so don’t be afraid to express your own flair.”
One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional bloggers is that we translate clients’ corporate messages into human, people-to-people terms.  People tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

2. “Be conversational. Forget formalities.”
At Say It For You, I often explain to clients and to newbie blog writers that that blogs, unlike brochures, client newsletters, online magazines, and websites, are short and concise, less crafted and more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces.  It’s perfectly all right to take a thoughtful, serious approach to your topic.  Just write as if you were having an actual conversation, writes Paul Gillin, author of Secrets of Social Media Marketing.

3. “Do not take credit for content that does not belong to you.”
The most common way we cite our sources (whether it be an article or a website) within our blogs is by paraphrasing and hyperlinking back to the page where the information originated (precisely what I’ve already done several times in this very blog post). Vervante lists three instances where attributing content to a source is needed: a) You’re actually quoting someone else. b) You’re using statistics you did not collate yourself. c) You’re using ideas that aren’t your own.

4. “Storytelling is your secret weapon.”
Blog posts will be at their most effective when presenting stories, where the stories themselves become calls to action for readers. You can use stories to explain what you do and whom you’ve been able to help. Blog marketing through stories not only helps online visitors feel only understood by you, but lets them feel they understand where you’re coming from as well.

5. “If your text sounds strange or stilted because there are two many key words, visitors will be turned off.”
“Two of the most widespread mistakes made by bloggers are failing to integrate new keywords into their posts and not getting rid of keywords that are no longer valuable,” Catherine Smith of PhD Centre explains. Searchers use words and phrases to hook up with you, but keyword-overstuffed blog posts are uncomfortable to read and can make your content look like spam to readers.

 

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Content Writers Find and Process Facts

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“Without solid information, your article doesn’t come across as credible,” makealivingwriting.com cautions. But, with all the information bouncing around on the internet, the editor admits, the key is to use sources you can trust. Four major sources for data include:

  • the federal government (Centers for Disease control, National Institutes of Health, USA.gov)
  • national organizations (nonprofit groups, industry associations, special interest organizations)
  • trade publications
  • name brand studies and surveys (find the original poll, study, or survey rather than citing a secondary source)

Use well-known news sites, Elna Cain advises, such as:

  • Harvard Business review
  • Psychology Today
  • The New York Times

At Say It For You, freelance content writers are encouraged to curate, meaning to gather OPW (Other People’s Wisdom) and share that with readers, commenting on that material and relating it to their own topic. In fact, in order to sustain our blog 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, as we find sources of knowledge and then add our own original thinking about what we’re sharing.

But, as we find and share content in order to bring value to readers, it’s important to remember that collating and curating are two different things. When we collate, we are putting together collections of content on a topic. That content might comes from our own former blog posts, newsletters, or emails, or selected from books or articles by other authors. We organize those materials into new categories, summarizing the main ideas we think will be most useful to readers. Curating goes a step further, offering our own perspective on each item, and using our understanding of our target audience to show readers why there’s something important here for them.

In content writing, we take care in finding reliable, trustworthy, primary sources of information. Our job as curators then becomes interpreting and synthesizing information, putting into terms our readers can understand and to which they are most likely to relate.

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Will Your Post Persuade – or Convince?

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This week, my Say It For You blog posts were inspired by speaker and humorist Todd Hunt…

When your message changes someone’s actions,  Hunt’s video explains, what you’ve done is PERSUADE, Todd Hunt explains. On a deeper level, when you’ve CONVINCED the recipients of your message, you’ve actually changed their beliefs.

Unfortunately, it seems that a great deal of marketing content is devoted to persuading prospects by describing “what we do”,  what the services and products the company or organization offers. Too often, little effort appears focused on “what we believe”- type “convincing” visitors, giving them a sense that “kindred spirits” are to be found at this web address.

The idea of changing beliefs through content is hardly new. The LASSI (Learning and Study Strategies Inventory developed at the University of Texas) is an 80-item assessment based on the theory that success in learning relies on thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.  Researchers at the University of Bath, meanwhile, created a measurement for ads called the Emotive Power Score to gauge if the ad is going to change feelings about the brand.

The best posts, we emphasize at Say It For You, give online readers a feel for the company culture and for the core beliefs owners wish to share. While content marketing uses Calls to Action, aiming to persuade lookers to become buyers, content that convinces through “we believe” statements can result in long term customer loyalty. Although the marketing content might relate to a for-profit business, a core-beliefs-over-core-products-and-services emphasis can prove surprising effective in making the cash register ring.

Will your next blog post be designed to persuade readers to take action – or will it convince, changing or reinforcing their beliefs?

 

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In Your Post, It Pays to Explain Why

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This week, my Say It For You blog posts were inspired by speaker and humorist Todd Hunt…

 

Both signs outside a store convey essentially the same message – but do they?

  • Sign #1″ No dogs allowed!
  • Sign #2: Unfortunately, the Chicago Health Department will not allow us to have dogs in our shop.”

In content marketing, calls to action (CTAs) often use imperative verbs. Why? To provoke readers to take immediate positive action, from requesting further information to actually signing up for a newsletter, to actually making a purchase. The CTA aims to create a sense of urgency around the offer.

But, just as Todd Hunt demonstrated, the “No dogs allowed” sign is a big turn-off. Online visitors who’ve found themselves at your blog want to know why they ought to keep reading and why they should follow your advice. Because the second sign answers the “why”, it overcomes resentment and skepticism, Todd Hunt explains.

Some of the answers web visitors are going to need include:

  1. Why me?  Why did you target this particular market?
  2. Why you (the author)? What is your expertise and experience?  Why do you care?
  3. Why this (the offer)? What are the specific solutions you provide?
  4. Why now (the urgency)?
  5. Why this price (the value)?

Even more important, we teach at Say It For You, can be explaining the reasons behind your policies, your way of “running your shop” as compared with others in your field. There’s one caveat – while you want to compare your products and services to others’, it must be done in a positive way, explaining why: We offer…..We believe…. We value…….  Rather than devaluing other companies’ products and services, stress the positives about you and yours.

In store window signs and in blog posts, explaining the “why” can make the difference between a turn-off and a turn on!

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