To the Blog Writer, It’s One Thing; To the Reader, It Might Be Another

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blog marketing
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it dozens of times in this Say It For You blog – blogs are not ads.  Still, always on the prowl for good ideas, I happened upon a full page ad (for sleep chairs, of all things!) that could actually serve as a model for us blog content writers. 
The headline consisted of a quote from a customer:
“To you, it’s the perfect lift chair. To me, it’s the best sleep chair I’ve ever had.”

Then, beneath a picture of the lift chair, there was a three paragraph article.  “You can’t always lie down in bed and sleep. Heartburn, cardiac problems, hip or back aches, dozens of other ailments and worries. Those nights you’d give anything for a comfortable chair to sleep in.”
It’s a good idea to build the occasional blog post around a customer success story. Good testimonials give prospective customers peace of mind, providing proof that people have tried your products and services and approve of them.

The second paragraph went on to highlight some special features of the product – heat and massage settings, battery backup, and a lift mechanism that tilts the chair forward.
In one of my favorite books about selling, Mitch Meyerson’s Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, the author points out that features tell us two things about a product or service:  what it does and what goes into it. In this ad, of course, the benefits (what the product does for the customer) are emphasized first, with the features described second.

The third paragraph highlighted “white glove delivery”, with professionals unpacking the chair in the customer’s home, inspecting and positioning it, even carrying the packaging away.
Since at Say It For You, our content writers serve the needs of both product vendors and professional practitioners, I was very interested in this paragraph about extra services associated with the product. Blog content writers should make lists of ways their business individualizes and personalizes services to customers and clients.

The bottom of the page had the phone number (with a special code), along with a color and fabric chart.
While blogs are not advertisements, I often explain to content writers that a Call to Action does not at all invalidate the good information provided in the piece. As long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer. In fact, the Call to Action in the form of a phone number to call or a link to click makes it convenient for readers who are ready to buy.

To the blog writer, the product or service might represent one thing; to individual readers, it might represent another, all the more reason to vary the approach in different posts. 
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Help Blog Readers See Themselves in Your “Home”

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In “Stage a Home That Sells”, AARP’s Upfront/LIVE magazine is talking about appealing to young couples when selling real estate, but what I noticed is that three of the recommendations listed under “What Buyers Want” are made to order for blog content writers, no matter what the product or service we’re marketing:
“Buyers want a home they can see themselves in.”
Help online visitors to your business blog assimilate your message through visualizing, I advise at Say It For You. Painting word pictures is an important part of blog marketing. Sure, there is room for technical, precise language in discussing your product or service, but you want listeners to “put themselves in the picture” by becoming customers or clients.
“Buyers want a sense of wellness in the home.”
According to the Writing Center at The University of North Carolina, “In order to communicate effectively, we need to order our words and ideas on the page in ways that make sense to a reader”. Assume your readers are intelligent, the authors advise, but do not assume that they know the subject matter as well as you. Using familiar words and word combinations gives readers a sense of comfort and “wellness”.
“Buyers want a home with potential for connectivity.”
Does creating connection relate to blog marketing? In every way. “How would most people describe their relationship with your company?” asks Corey Wainwright of hubspot.com. Is the relationship purely transactional, making you just a place they go to get something they need, or do you elicit more personal feelings
Each claim a content writer puts into a blog post needs to be put in context for the reader so that the claim not only is true, but feels true to online visitors.
Home buyers typically look at under a dozen  homes before making a decision, but, in that same timeframe, online readers can scan dozens upon dozens of posts before making a decision about a product or service.
My way of describing the process of blog marketing is this: painting the picture (“staging the home”) is only Step #1; What comes next is putting the reader into the picture!
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Business Blogging to Help Maintain Control Yourself

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take control
In this time of Coronavirus anxiety, I suggested in my latest Say It For You blog post, our focus as blog content writers should be firmly on showing readers how our business owner and professional practitioner clients can help their readers maintain control. As the TIME piece by Hallie Levine emphasizes, anxiety in short bursts and in the right amounts can actually help people fulfill tasks and achieve results. The secret for hitting the anxiety “sweet spot” (not too much nor too little), Levine says, is maintaining control over as many aspects of the situation as possible.
Now, let’s examine how we can use that same advice for our own benefit.
Get real.
In The Art of Social Media book by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick, there’s a little section called Be a Mensch, with “mensch” being defined as a “kind and honorable person who does the right thing in the right way”.  One thing for sure is that a mensch is real. You can’t give a reader a sense of control without showing that you’re dealing with the very same issues facing them. Emotional intelligence, closely related to mensch quality, is the capacity to express and then manage emotions. So first of all, allow your content to “get real’.

Be organized.
Even while letting readers see your own “humanity”, keep your blog content well-organized and well-written to convey a feeling of being in control. Maintaining a consistent schedule of posting sends a reassuring message to readers.

Share, don’t “give” advice.
As content marketers, we want to present the business or practice in a very personal, rather than a transactional way. Still, since the business owner or practitioner is, after all, the SME (subject matter expert), practical advice on how to best use the product or service is very much in order.  The tone, however, should be one of “sharing” a useful insight or tip, rather than “handing down” advice.

It’s interesting that Kristin van Ogtrop in that same TIME issue on anxiety, realized that “there is a fine line between setting boundaries and controlling, between guiding choices and telling your kids what to do.”  The message for marketing content writers, I believe, is to acknowledge that the reader is the one in control.  We’re the ones sharing some valuable mechanisms to arrive at a state of “anxiety contol”. 
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Staying Specific in Blog Marketing

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“Including one, or a combination of certain aspects can generate higher opt-in,” Ryan Duss and Russ Hennesberg explain in the book Digital Marketing for Dummies. Those important aspects include:
  • a promise
  • an example
  • a shortcut
  • a solution
There’s a big caveat – these will work only if they are specific, the authors caution.  Generic or clever titles, for example, generally decrease conversions, so it’s important to craft a clear promise. An example must also be specific, perhaps in the form of a case study, and the more specific you are in describing the shortcuts and solutions, the more engaging that content will be.

One way to keep it “real”, we agree at Say it For You, is to be specific. One concern business owners and practitioners express to me is that they don’t want to come across as boastful in their blog.  At the same time, they need to convey the reasons prospects ought to choose them over their competition. This is where being specific comes in – let the facts do the boasting, I explain.

When Inc. Magazine interviewed the purchasing agents of several mega-corporations, asking how each preferred to sold to by suppliers and vendors, the responses supported the concept of specificity.  Northrup Grumman executives actually said, “”Be as specific as possible when describing what you can do for us.  Don’t be shy.  If you have a capability, highlight that capability.”

Benefits consultant Mel Schlesinger tells salespeople the same thing.  Instead of a generic opening (“I have an idea I want to roll by you”), he suggests agents switch to idea-specific ones (I have an idea that can help you reduce employees’ pressure on you to increase wages.”)

Rush’s Magnetic Marketing Checklist is based on the same concept:  Choose a specific audience, she advises, then choose a specific program you can solve for them.

Web searchers are on a fact-finding mission, looking for information about what you do, what you sell, and what you know about.  The more specific the key words and phrases in the title and in the body of the blog post, the greater the chance search engines will direct those searchers to your blog.

To succeed in blog marketing, it’s important to stay specific!
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Do “Huh-Oh” Titles Work for Marketing Blogs?

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One important purpose of marketing blog titles is attracting online shoppers. So, catchy and engaging as a title might be, it won’t serve the purpose if the words in it don’t match up with those searchers used.

After all my “reading around” – magazines, books, blogs, textbooks – you name it, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two basic title categories: the “Huh?s” and the “Ohs”. The “Huh?s” need subtitles to make clear what the article is about; “Oh!’s” titles are self-explanatory.

“Huh?-Oh!” combo titles seem to be increasingly popular, I concluded after a recent visit to my local Barnes & Noble the other day. Here are just a few of the dozens of Huh?-Oh! titles I found on the shelves in the sections on business, psychology, and self-help:

  • Seeing Around Corners (Huh?): How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Oh!)
  • The Communication Clinic (Huh?) 99 Proven Cures for the Most Common Business Mistakes (Oh!)
  • Getting to Yes (Huh?) Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Oh!)
  • When (Huh?) The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing (Oh!)
  • The Storyteller’s Secret (Huh?) Why Some Ideas Catch On and Others Don’t (Oh!)

We blog content writers, of course, don’t have the luxury of using such long subtitles, as the search engines will use only a limited number of characters for ranking. Still, the beauty of the “Huh?” is that it’s a grabber, so the compromise might be to include category-based keyword phrases early in the subtitle.

The other way to “sneak” in the “Oh!” material is the meta-tag, the 160 character snippet of text that describes a page’s content. The meta tags don’t appear on the page itself, but readers can see them on the search engine page and they are scanned by search engines.

Huh? In writing engaging business blog content, it can pay to try two-tiered titles.

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