Selling 102 for Business Blog Content Writers

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Exceptional Selling

“Your ability to constructively attract and engage a customer in relevant dialogue requires a conversational style as well as substantive content,” cautions Jeff Thrull in his book Exceptional Selling.

Thrull might have been offering advice to us blog content writers, I couldn’t help thinking.  What I like to call the “I/you conversational style” is precisely the approach most effective for business blogs.  At the same time, there is so much internet content proliferation that it’s definitely becoming a challenge to get noticed online. If the hard-sell technique ever worked, it certainly doesn’t work any longer!

Thrull describes the new reality of selling:

  • When customers are engaged, they learn.
  • When what they learn is compelling enough to make them want to change, they will buy.

In short, he’s advising – don’t push!

The good news in blog marketing is the same as the good news Thrull describes as operative in direct selling: Customers have negative stereotypes about salespeople.  That makes it easy to differentiate ourselves by acting against type. “When in doubt,” he says, “do the opposite of what a salesperson would do.”

Applying that very logic to blog copywriting, I advise using blog posts to demonstrate the business owner’s or professional practitioner’s expertise, and to offer valuable tips to readers.

The goal of each post  continues to be providing those who visit your site with a taste of what it would be like to have you working with them!

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Making the Cash Register Ring Through Business Blogging

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cash register“Ask most blog subscribers why they follow a particular blog and you’ll find out that in almost every case they get something out of the blog (whether it be entertainment, advice, research, ideas, etc.),” observes Damon Rouse of problogger.net. That’s why, Rouse says, the first advice he’d give to business bloggers looking to sell through their blog is to be careful not to be purely sales oriented.

It’s not that it’s not OK to sell stuff on your blog, adds blogger Bob Dunn. Selling your readers things they need and want will not send them away.  Not, that is, if you make your offers in the right place and the right time, Dunn adds. He offers tips for constructing “the perfect sales offer” on a blog:

  • Be authentic, clear and upfront.
  • Fold the offer into your post.
  • Make the offer easy to find.
  • Offer a free tip sheet for readers who click on the contact form.

Heidi Cohen offers more tips on using your blog to sell:

  • Include different forms of content, including photos and videos.
  • Write about different ways to use your product.
  • Make sure your blog site’s navigation makes it easy for readers to buy.

Stock your website with free information that has real value to prospective clients, advises Jim Connolly. What I have found after years of blog content writing is that, if you show how individual bits of information are related in ways readers hadn’t considered, that establishes your expertise and keeps readers’ attention long enough for you to do your “ask”.

The blogosphere, I remember marketing consultant Chris Garret remarking some seven years ago, is slowly coming around to the idea that commerce is not necessarily evil, that in fact businesses need to make money, which they do by selling things.

Is your business blog making the cash register ring?

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Don’t Fear ROI…Embrace It!

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Jane's Picture (2)I like receiving e-letters from my friend Jane Thompson, the trade show marketing consultant. Invariably I find Jane’s advice about trade shows applicable to blog marketing, and that’s certainly true of her latest piece about embracing ROI.

Impact on revenue
Jane cites an article out of Exhibitor Online advising marketers to estimate the impact of each trade show on company revenue. Companies need to count the number of sales leads garnered, the “close rate” out of those leads, and what the total revenue was from that show.

As a corporate blogging trainer and content writer, I find business owners’ overriding concern is, in fact, realizing a Return on Investment from their blog marketing efforts and expenditures. At the same time, though, it’s not always possible to associate a specific ROI measurement to the blog without regard to all the other initiatives the client is using to find and relate to customers.  All the parts have to mesh – social media, traditional advertising, events, word of mouth marketing, and sales.  Every effort that “makes the cash register ring” contributes to “marketing ROI”.

Cost avoidance
“Every dollar of cost avoidance is tantamount to a dollar of profit,” Thompson reminds readers. She advises figuring out what you might have spent on sales calls and meetings to achieve the same results you accomplished at your show.

Years ago, Compendium Blogware, Inc. co-founder Chris Baggott used to point out that blogging provides some of the same benefits as email in an easy-to-use and inexpensive way.”  You can’t email people without permission and you can’t ask for permission if you don’t know who they are, Baggott would explain, and that’s where blogging comes in to help in customer acquisition, avoiding mailing costs and expensive sales calls.

While total precision in isolating blogging ROI may not be possible, examining your blog’s general “bottom line”  should be something to embrace.

 

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Business Blogging Using the Iron Triangle

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Magic TriangleAs a blog content writer, I’ve always looked to the old saying that came out of the software industry: “Fast, good or cheap. Pick two.” Known as the Project Management Triangle, or Iron Triangle, the concept has to do with balancing speed, cost, and quality.

The idea, of course, is that if you develop something quickly and of high quality, it will be very costly to do, and if you develop something quickly and cheaply, it will not be of high quality. Anything of high quality and low cost will take a long time to complete.

The Lean method is a way of developing high quality at the lowest possible cost, based on Eric Reis’ book The Lean Startup. The method advises developing the simplest version of a product or service that can test your hypothesis. After you learn from the experiment, you take the product or service and either refine it into excellence, or determine failure and make a pivot.

Of all marketing tactics, I’m convinced, business blogging is the best suited for implementing that lean startup concept. By offering a “content tasting” on your blog, and doing that regularly and frequently, while monitoring and measuring reader responses every step of the way, you are in an ideal position to “pivot”.

Think about it. Business blogs are the perfect marketing tool for niche markets. As a business owner or professional practitioner, you are not going out to find customers through your blog content. Blogs work the other way around, through “pull marketing”. The people who find your blog are those who are already online looking for information, products, or services that relate to what you know, what you have, and what you do!

In fact, that’s exactly what I love most about blogging as a communications channel. Each post can have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business. With proper tracking, you quickly learn what’s working and what’s less effective; “pivoting” in the blog content does not involve any lengthy or costly new research.

When it comes to marketing decisions, business blogging can help achieve the “impossible” and turn that Iron Triangle in your favor.

 

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Blog Writing With the Oxford Comma

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punctuationWith the Say It For You focus this week on proper grammar and spelling for blog writers, I couldn’t resist mentioning the Oxford comma. The who? you ask.

Wherever there’s a list of things, you’ll find commas to separate the items.  Provided you’re a believer in the Oxford or serial comma, you’d include it right before the final item in the list.

Newspaper reporters (and I was a newspaper columnist for many years) typically don’t use that last comma. The AP Style guide we use in the two colleges where I work does not require the Oxford.  As for me, I do prefer to use that last comma, for the simple reason that it helps avoid confusion.  The absolute last thing blog content writers want is to create confusion.  To the contrary – our whole purpose in life is to clarify the situation so that online readers feel comfortable and see themselves using our clients’ products and services.

Ann Edwards, writing in grammarly.com, appears to agree with me. Edwards offers an example of how a reader might misinterpret matters in the absence of a clarifying Oxford comma:

“I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.”

(Without the comma, the sentence might be interpreted as meaning that you love your parents, who are Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty, rather than your loving four people – your parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty.)

Another example is offered by grammarbook.com:

 Her $10 million estate was split among her husband,   daughter, son, and  nephew.”

(Without the last comma, you might imagine that the son and nephew had to split one third of the estate, rather than understanding that each relative got one fourth of the whole estate.)

The Oxford isn’t always necessary to make the meaning clear, I explain to blog content writers. Here’s a sentence where you’d understand, even without the comma, that there are four pool care activities being mentioned:

“You’ll need to add chemicals, monitor chlorine levels, scoop out debris
and prepare the pool as the seasons change.”

Still, I was happy to learn, the Chicago Manual of Style, MLA and US Government Printing Office all advocate the use of the Oxford comma, even though the Associated Press advises against.

Anyway, my own thought about using the Oxford Comma is, “Above all, create no confusion!”

 

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