Know the Value of Your Pieces

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PPCWinning in life involves improving your game. My favorite magazine, Mental Floss, devoted an entire issue earlier this year to advice on winning games. When it comes to the game of chess, Mental Floss presents two pieces of advice from Chessacademy:

  1. The most common beginner mistake is simply not being aware of what’s happening on the board. Being distracted leads to preventable mistakes.
  2. Know the value of your pieces. “Each piece has a respective value, and if you have fewer pieces than your opponent, you’re playing with less material.”

I think about that pieces thing often when discussing online marketing strategies with new Say it For You clients as we begin a blog marketing initiative. Often it’s a small business owner a retail or services field competing with giant national chains. With fewer dollars available, the little guy cannot hope to compete in purchasing adwords and needs to rely on organic search to attract eyeballs.  In other words, my clients are wondering, what are their chances for success when they find themselves playing with fewer game pieces than their larger, better funded, competitors?

NewMediaCampaigns.com asks the same question: “SEO (search engine optimization) vs.PPC (pay per click) – Which Provides You the Better Value?” NewMedia cites research from Jupiter Research showing that 81% of users find their desired destination through a search engine. However, New Media points out, “There’s still a big decision to make – whether to use SEO (naturally ranking high in the organic results) or PPC (purchased ads on a Google search) to get in front of your target.

Jupiter’s findings:

  • Paid search results are 1.5x more likely to convert.
  • Organic results are 8.5X  more likely to be clicked on than paid search results

“It can be concluded that the opportunity from organic search is 5.66x that of paid search,” NewMedia sums up. “You won’t rank #1 overnight, but SEO is more affordable and the longterm benefits have been proven.”

Without the means to use a combination of paid search and organic content marketing through blogging and SEO, my clients may have fewer pieces than their opponents, but with consistency and commitment, they have every chance of winning the customer acquisition game!

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Blogging With the Fear Factor and the “Like Switch” in Mind

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Scared Afraid Man Wrapped in Red Fear Tape

The fear of losing something motivates people more than the prospect of gaining something of equal value, observes Rolf Dobelli in The Art of Thinking Clearly. “We can’t fight it: Evil is more powerful and more plentiful than good, Dobelli concludes.

As an example, suppose your business is home insulation. Dobelli suggests that the most effective way to encourage customers to purchase your product is to tell them how much money they are losing (as opposed to how much money they would save if they had insulation, even though the amount is the same!)

People are drawn to articles with negative titles, my friend and fellow blogger Lorraine Ball pointed out a year ago. Posts with negative titles stand out in a blog roll, on a Twitter feed or LinkedIn page, and the negative posts are more likely to be shared, retweeted and read.

The two dominant buying motives are desire for gain and fear of loss, Salesforce teaches, and most salespeople use the wrong one when trying to motivate a prospect to buy.

1. (Positive): “This backup unit will store all your important data in case of a crash.”
2. (Negative): “A backup unit could keep you from losing tons of data and days of lost productivity.”

Shift the emphasis from the desire for gain to the fear of loss, Salesforce advises.

Coming out firmly on the other side of the fear spectrum is Jack Schafer, who writes in Psychology Today that “The Hope of Winning Trumps the Fear of Losing”. Hope, Schafer says, motivates and energizes, while the fear of losing becomes an obstacle to success. As an ex-FBI agent, Schafer specializes in behavior analysis and teaches how to influence people and turn on the “like switch”.

“The easiest way to build a brand is to sell fear,” says Seth Godin.  “The best way, though, may be to deliver on hope while aiming for love…”.

 

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Bloggership – the Art of Getting Them to Want To

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Products And Services Keys Show Selling And Buying Online

Dwight D. Eisenhower had a great definition for leadership: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Is it simply a matter of selling your product or service to prospective customers? After all, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Everyone lives by selling something.” Sort of, say  co-authors Steve Chandler and Scott Richardson in 100 Ways to Motivate Others.  “Leadership means asking for what you want, being very direct with your request, and having your communication centered on requests and promises.”

“Bloggership” might well be defined the same way as leadership, I think – getting readers to want to. “Briefly,” says Jim Connolly of Jim’s Marketing Blog, “here’s how content marketing works: You build and market a website and stock it with free information that has real value to your prospective clients.”

Damon Rouse of problogger.net advises business bloggers looking to sell stuff on their blog is to be careful not to be purely sales oriented. “While blogs can be used as a tool for selling, they are at their best when they are relational, conversational, and offer readers something useful that will enhance their lives in some way…Most people will not react overly positively to a blog that is just sales spin,” Rouse adds.

“If you show how individual bits of information are related in ways readers hadn’t considered, says Jim Connolly, that establishes your expertise and keeps readers’ attention long enough to you to your “ask”.

Even if “they want to”, readers may be fearful of making the wrong choice. Don’t underestimate those fears, cautions Whale Hunters’ sales trainer Barbara Weaver Smith.  You may be totally focused on the great advantages that you provide with your products and services, and forget that potential buyers are fearful of making the wrong decision. Searchers may lack experiences with the latest proce4sses or technology in your field of expertise, but they know what their own needs are.  Give them a “feel” for desired outcomes of a commitment to buy.

Bloggership – the art of getting online searchers to want to!

 

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Shakespeare Misused Words – Should Bloggers?

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William Shakespeare - 16th centuryHenneke Duistermaat, self-described as an irreverent copywriter and business writing coach, reminds blog content writers that Shakespeare misused words – on purpose.  He used nouns as verbs, and adjectives as verbs, she says. Why? To surprise and “wake up” the brain. Using an unexpected word instead of a familiar word in a common phrase, Duistermaat adds, has the same effect: (“Clothes don’t maketh the woman” is a play on the expression “Clothes make the man”.)

“Boring opening lines aren’t something an author can afford. And yet they’re harder to avoid than you might think,” writes K.M. Weiland, who “helps writers become authors”. We have to make setting, character, and stakes clear to readers, she admits. But the second paragraph will give you plenty of time for all that, she assures students. “Your first concern in writing an opening line is hooking readers. And the only way to hook them is to make them curious.”
“It was a bright and sunny day.” Is just a boring opening line, and Weiland suggests an alternative: “It was a bright and sunny day, just the kind of day I was supposed to die in.”

Readers expect us to supply them with enough info to help them imagine, but they never want us to over-explain, Weiland says. Complex prose can create distance between your readers and your words – or worse, just leave them confused. Ask yourself, she advises writers, whether what you’ve written is really the best way to get the thought across to readers?

“Readers will not care about the backstory until you’ve given them a reason to do so.” True, but humanizing your blog by bringing readers behind the scenes can help keep your company or professional practice relatable.  Even writing about past mistakes and struggles helps readers connect to someone who “has been where they are.” The important hint that Weiland has for us blog content writers is that readers won’t care about the background material until they feel reassured that they’ve come to the right place (your website) to get the products, services, and information they need.

Going back to the Shakespearean ploy of misusing words to add interest, we want our blog posts to stand out and be unusually interesting.  We want readers to want to stay awhile.   And when we put two things together that don’t seem to match, that can have the effect of startling and engaging readers.

Shakespeare knew boredom is a killer of engagement, and – on purpose – shook his text up by misusing words or using them in unusual contexts.  Shouldn’t we?

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Ad Mining for Blog Content Writers

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Advertising concept with smartphone

 

Blogs are not ads, to be sure, and yet blog content writers can learn a lot from browsing the advertisements, I’m convinced. To test that theory, I decided to browse a collection of 50 different print ads published in the November 2016 issue of TheHomeMag, a free home improvement magazine.

Hitting precisely the right “advertorial” note is one of the big challenges in corporate blog writing, I knew. In fact, one point I’ve consistently stressed in these Say It For You blog content writing “tutorials” is how important it is to provide valuable information to readers, while avoiding any hint of “hard sell”.

Quite a number of the HomeMag print ads, I found, stressed price and cost savings:

  • “We’ll beat any quote by 10% to 60%!”
  • “Remodel your kitchen at an affordable price!
  • “Save big on kitchen countertops & cabinets.”

A second category of ad focuses customers’ attention on “the hurt”, meaning the risks they’re facing and the problems they have.

  • “Protect your chimney from winter.”
  • “Cabinets looking outdated?”
  • “Common countertop problems resolved.”
  • “Never paint again!”
  • “Ugly tub? Reglaze it.”
  • “Inefficient windows can be scary!”
  • “Foundation or moisture problems?”

In blog content writing, once readers are hooked by your understanding of their “hurt”, you can offer the “rescue”, the solutions your expertise and experience can bring to the table.  (I take a moderate view, preferring content that emphasizes the solutions to the problems, rather than taking a “fear-mongering” approach.)

The HomeMag ads that I liked best got readers to visualize themselves using and enjoying the product or service.

  • “Experience the beauty of outdoor lighting.”
  • “Access everything you need, every time you need it.
  • “Turn your backyard dream into a reality!”
  • “Host Thanksgiving in your new kitchen.”
  • “Refinish your existing tub & tile in time for holiday guests.”

    When you’re composing business blog content, I tell writers, imagine readers asking themselves – “How will I use the product (or service)?” “How will it work?” “How will I feel?”

Blogs are not ads, to be sure, and yet blog content writers can learn a lot from browsing the advertisements.

 

 

 

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