Selling Dreams Through Blog Marketing

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“Apple’s strategy involves selling their consumers a global package of dreams, personal experiences, and status,” explains Camila Villafañe of Postcron.com. “Apple is different from all other brands because for Steve Jobs, consumers weren’t just consumers, they were people. People with dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and he got Apple to create products to help them achieve their dreams and goals,” she says.

There’s been a lot of buzz around the “Starbucks experience” – the crackle, the aroma, the barristas – all of it. I think there’s a lesson here for blog content writers: online visitors to your blog need to find an experience along with information.  “Analyze how it feels to use and buy your products, and think what you need to improve, and what you need to focus on”, Steve Jobs taught.
Each blog post needs to get readers to visualize themselves benefiting from an experience: “You won’t know how good you’ll feel until you do”, one bankruptcy attorney’s commercial says. After using your product or service, will new users feel relief? Pride? Belonging? Strength? Security? 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?”

Villafane pointed out another Steve Jobs marketing lesson:  Find an enemy. “Make it clear who the enemy is, and try to get people to take a side. The idea is that people are drawn to belong to the ideology of a brand that matches their own thoughts and values,” she says. “If you don’t stand up for what you believe in, you’ll go unnoticed. And what better way to state what you believe in, than stating clearly what you DON’T believe in,” she asks?

In training new blog content writers, I always remind them of the importance of including opinion in marketing blogs. Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing 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.
Before you publish, subject each blog post to two tests:

  • Is it designed to get readers to visualize themselves benefiting from an experience?
  • Does it reveal what you do and don’t believe in?

 

 

 

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What-Good-Does-That-Do-Me Blog marketing

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multi coloured gems

I think I could write an entire chapter in a content marketing textbook based on the ShaneCo radio commercial about diamond jewelry. I’d name it “What-Good-Does-That-Do-Me Blog Marketing”.

You see, in his “You’ve got a friend in the diamond business” commercials, Tom Shane often mentions the fact that he goes directly to Bangkok to seek out the most beautiful colored diamonds. (So far, nothing new or revolutionary about that – most companies’ commercials mention special value propositions, things that set the sponsoring company apart from its competitors.) Only problem is, potential customers are left wondering “So what?”, mentally tuning in to Radio WIIFM –  you know, What’s In It For Me?

Shane’s right on top of that one, answering the question even before it’s asked: Bangkok, Thailand is the world center for colored gemstones he explains.  And so he, as an authority on sapphires and other colored gemstones, personally travels there throughout the year to personally hand-select every stone. As if that weren’t enough, Shane goes on to explain, he then has many of the stones recut to maximize their value and beauty. That’s what’s in it for the customer about Shane’s trips to Bangkok, he makes clear.

For blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning statements. The visit has to conclude with readers understanding not only what your value proposition is, but exactly why that should make any difference to them. Blog content writers need to remember this reality: Prospects are always mentally posing the “What’s In It For Me?” question. What’s the benefit in this for ME? How will MY interests be protected and served if I choose to do business with you or become your client or patient? What will you do to keep ME “safe” from risk?

But, even in a face-to-face selling situation, buyers rarely completely and accurately articulate all their concerns. True, our blog readers went online searching for answers to questions and solutions for dilemmas they’re facing. Still, I believe, blog writing for business will succeed only if two things are apparent to readers, and in the order presented here:

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

The third ingredient, though –whether we’re dealing with a radio commercial or a blog post, has to be answering –  EVEN BEFORE IT’S ASKED –  this question:

If YOU go to Bangkok, what good does that do ME?

 

 

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The Power of “When” in Blog Marketing – Part B

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the-power-of-when

After reading some of the insights about time and timing in Michael Breus’ book The Power of When, I couldn’t help thinking of the tremendously influential role timing plays when we’re marketing a business or professional practice by publishing blog posts.

The most obvious time-based question, of course, is how often we should be posting blogs. “It’s easy to be immediately overwhelmed by the thought that you have to post multiple times daily,” says Kissmetrics.  Look at other small businesses in your industry, is Kissmetric’s advice. “You might find that, in your industry, one post a week will do, whereas other industries may need a couple of posts per week.”

A successful business blog doesn’t have to have a huge amount of traffic, Kissmetrics assures readers.  “It just needs to attract traffic that is likely to convert.” Hints to improve conversion:

  • Write posts on topics your target audience will find interesting.
  • Keyword optimize the posts.
  • Add a call to action at the end of each post.

“People pay you, not pageviews,” Kissmetrics reminds business owners obsessing about their blog stats.

Last, but not least, Kissmetrics adds, you will need to consider when you can successfully repurpose blog content.  The sooner you repurpose it, the better your audience’s response will be, because they are already interested in the topic.  The only thing to watch out for, Kissmetrics cautions, is digging too far back and repurposing out-of-date content without first updating it.

But it’s not only timing that matters, but consistency, Gerry Moran of Marketingthink.com reminds blog content writers. Whether it’s the evening news, the morning newspaper, or the Sunday football games, we all expect content we know and love to be delivered consistently. Whether it’s your e-newsletter or your blog, be consistent about scheduling.

Moran calls attention to the fact that the time component of blogging involves readers’ time, too. There is no right length for a blog post, he says, but take your readers’ time into consideration (Since a 500-word post takes about 2 minutes to read, that matches the attention span of many readers).

Just think about the tremendously influential role timing plays when we’re marketing a business or professional practice by blogging!.

 

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The Power of “When” in Blog Marketing

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It’s not only what you do, but when, Michael Breus explains in his new book The Power of When. There’s a best time for each of us to eat lunch, ask for a raise, write a novel, and take our meds, depending on our individual “chronotype”, Breus teaches.

Circadian biology in humans is a rather new field of study, but the concept of good timing can be traced back to the Bible. Surely you remember this passage from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to be born and a time to die…”.

Does timing matter when it comes to marketing your business or practice using blog writing? It certainly does, maintains Melissa Albano-Davis of Grapevine Marketing. In positioning your business to take advantage of timely marketing opportunities, Albano-Davis says, “the key is to be ready and able to move on a dime”.

“If you’re not paying attention to the trends as they occur, you’re going to miss the boat…tune into major events and the types of programming that is most popular with your audience.” You can take advantage of:

  • obvious events, such as the presidential debates and Superbowl
  • events happening within your own community
  • things that affect everyone in your area, such as the weather
    topics trending on Twitter

Consumers are more inclined to do certain things on certain days of the week, and if you can understand those habits relevant to your business, you can make sure your marketing campaign hits when the consumer is in the right frame of mind to act, suggests Chloe He in business2community.

Ms. He offers a couple of valuable timing hints having to do with weekends:

  • Social media is quieter on the weekend.  Even though fewer people check their accounts, those who do are more active than they might be during the week, more likely to read articles.
  • Weekends are about DIY

When it comes to the science of blog timing, the main thing people think about is when to publish a post, but that’s not the only timing consideration, Kissmetrics points out. You must also consider the timing of:

  • How often you publish
  • When to promote the posts
  • When to repurpose the content

As blog content writers, we would do well to heed the reminder which authors from Ecclesiastes to Michael Breus so aptly offer –  it’s not only what we do, but when!

 

 

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What Does it Take to be a Sophisticated Blog Marketer?

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arrogant blond sexy girl. red dressThe original meaning of the word “sophisticated” was quite different from the way we think of it today, author Bill Brohough teaches in The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use .  To “sophisticate” something was to adulterate it by mixing it with something inferior, so being sophisticated meant the opposite of genuine.

When it comes to online marketing – even using the description “sophisticated” as we understand that word today (meaning cultured and refined) –  what qualities set that level of marketing apart? “What is a ‘sophisticated marketer’, anyway?” asks Alex Rynne of LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions blog, gathering responses from various marketers.

Some different “takes” on the question include:

  • one who focuses on results over marketing tactics and activities
  • one whose marketing is not elitist and complicated
  • someone who takes both old and new marketing techniques and executes them in a calculated hybrid of strategies
  • one who delivers the right kind of information to buyers across the entire customer lifecycle.
  • one who questions each premise and considers alternatives

To sell a product or service, you must market it differently depending on what stage of sophistication your market is in at the time, Todd Brown shares in his blog post “The Greatest Marketing Lesson I Ever Learned.”

Often, sophistication means simplification, I teach newbie Indianapolis blog content writers. Matching our writing to our intended audience is part of the challenge we business blog content writers face. After all, we’re not in this to entertain ourselves – we’re out to retain the clients and customers we serve and bring in new ones, so we try to use words and sentences to which our target readers can relate.

 

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