Did-You-Know Content Teasers

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Tidbits of information can turn into content marketing treasure, we’ve learned over the years at Say It For You. Did-you-know content “teasers” not only spark interest when used in blog post titles, but can be used to describe your way of doing business, clarify the way one of your products works, or explain why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem. A recent edition of the Farmer’s Almanac Gardener’s Guide proves my point…

  • Heirloom varieties of kidney, navy, and pinto beans, once considered a subsistence food (what you ate when the cupboards were bare) are now considered “gourmet”. Do not add nitrogen to the soil, because legumes “fix” nitrogen from the air around their roots.

Business owners and professionals stay abreast of trends in their fields by subscribing to trade journals and consumer magazines, scouring websites and newspapers, and by talking to colleagues and customers about the “latest and greatest”. Content readers, on the other hand, largely expect their service and product providers to have done all that work for them, keeping them up-to-date on trends and putting the information into perspective.

  • White asparagus is simply green asparagus that has been grown in the dark (sometimes under black plastic), because plants turn green only when their chlorophyll is exposed to sunlight.

(There are actually three different varieties of asparagus – green, white, and purple, each with a unique flavor.) Offering little known facts and explanations related to your own topic can engage readers’ interest, enticing blog visitors to keep coming back.

  • “Stand-ins” include Mexican mint marigold (stand-in for tarragon), lovage stand-in for celery), Vietnamese coriander (stand-in for cilantro) and salad burnet (substitute for cucumber).

Offering helpful hints is a way of engaging visitors through your blog articles. Find complementary businesses or practices, I advise content writers, asking those business owners or practitioners for tips they can offer for you to pass along to your readers. The best tips and hints, I added, are related to some a topic currently trending in the news, especially one affecting your industry.

 

  • Hummingbirds need an enormous amount of food relative to their size, so it may not be so much a matter of variety of plants but the quantity that attracts them.

In content marketing, quantity counts. It is difficult to get “traction” with an inconsistent or slow content publication schedule,; the “frequency illusion” refers to the fact that the more times time readers are exposed to your message, the more of a presence you will have in their minds.

  • All plants have specific needs pertaining to the amount of sun and water, type of soil, and growing space. Poor placement causes problems.

Find the right niche for your blog. When you demonstrate your own passion for a topic, readers will be more invested in what you have to say, Semrush.com advises new blog content creators.

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How Will They Experience Your Blog Post?

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Ellen Dunnigan

 

At a recent Drive Indy event, executive coach Ellen Dunnigan emphasized the mantra “Intentionality is the hallmark of influence”. Keeping in mind the formula P+A=MA (purpose + Audience = My Actions), before entering a room or beginning an encounter, you must predict, Dunnigan advises,  how they are likely to react to your presence. Your presence includes the way you look, the way you carry yourself,  the words you choose. How do you intend for the person or people you will face to experience their encounter with you?

Always ask yourself, Dunnigan urges, what the single most important point (of the meeting, the encounter, the speech) will be. Translated into content creation, that very concept is expressed as “The Power of One”. Each blog post should have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, we teach at Say It For You. Focused on one thing, your post has greater impact, since people are bombarded with many messages each day. The Power of One also means targeting one audience per blog post. The more focused a blog is on connecting with a narrowly defined target audience, the more successful it will be in converting prospects to clients and customers.

In dealing with an employee whose dress or manner of speaking with customers needs changing, a member of the Drive Indy audience asked Dunnigan, how can I best approach that encounter? Again, intentionality is the saving force, was the speaker’s answer. In preparing for the meeting, focus on the “single most important point”, predicting how the employee is likely to experience the encounter.

“Executive presence” means showing up – at the head of a room or on a web page, as confident and competent, respecting your audience while “predicting” their response to the information or advice you’re providing. “It’s your rant, but it’s all about them,” as I stressed in my last Say It For You post. People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even if they respect your expertise and have a need for your products and your guidance.

How will your readers experience the blog post you’re preparing to publish?

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It’s Your Rant, But It’s All About Them

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A “rant”, (venting a complaint in an angry, loud voice), is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “a high-flown, extravagant, or bombastic speech or utterance, a piece of turgid declamation, a tirade.” While oral tirades are still with us, Daniel Seidel writes in Slate, the last decade or so has seen more and more written rants, “a form that has blossomed on the Web.” A good rant, Seidel thinks, expresses a real passion, often one enflamed by a feeling of powerlessness. Still, many rants are humorous, with a tongue-in-cheek tone. Whatever the tone of aa particular rant, he adds, there is neither the expectation nor the desire for a response. “It would be simplistic to think of blogging as a kind of sublimated ranting,” Seidel remarks, “but blogs do form a part of our cacophonous culture.”

Not all blog posts are rants, of course. There are, however, three “rant”- like content piece types that our writers at Say It For You have found useful:

  1. An “if only” best business practice that you wish everyone with whom you do business would adopt. The content makes the point that doing things in a certain way would make the lives of both the provider and of the customer so-o-o much easier and business dealings so much more efficient!
  2. A device, program, or source of information that the owner wants t make sure everyone knows about, something that would make doing business s much smoother and more efficient
  3. A mistake that you see others making over and over that you believe is a big barrier to their success.

(To be most effective, even if a rant post is focused on a single idea, the content should be broken down or “chunked” into bullet points or numbered steps to make the concept easy to remember, as demonstrated above.)

Needless to say, rant blog posts can elicit strong reactions on the part of readers (either because you’ve touched a nerve (what you’re complaining about may be their pet peeve, as well), or because they totally disagree and want to prove you wrong. Worse, your rant risks rubbing readers the wrong way, making them feel as if they are incompetent or uninformed.  People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they come to your blog seeking information on what you sell, what you do, and what you know about!

If you’re moved to include a rant or two in your content marketing, the cardinal rule to remember is that it’s all about the readers, not about you. How will they experience your rant?

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Take a Few of the 100+ Writer Prompts and Call Me in the Morning

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Writer’s block is like being stuck at a truck stop parking lot, unable to start your car, the editors of The Writer magazine understand. For online content marketers, writer’s block may put its victimes in een greater pain, given that frequency is so crucia to the success of online marketing through blogs. At Say It For You, .after years of being involved in all aspects of blog writing and training, one irony I”ve found is that business owners who “show up” with recently published content on their websites are rare.  there’s a tremendous fall-off rate, with most blogs abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. Pity, because in all advertising and marketing, as Mark Zimmer of Zimmer Marketing explains,  the more often a customer is exposed to a message, the more of a sense of “omnipresence” there is.

The fear of “saying old things” is one many business owners and professional practitioners have when it comes to their blog. Even if they understand the overall marketing value of having a blog, their concern is that, sooner or later, they (or their blog content writer) will run out of things to say. In blogging training sessions, I need to explain that it’s more than OK – in fact it’s a good idea – to repeat themes already covered in former posts. The trick is to adding a layer of new information or a new insight each time.

For the benefit of my Say It For You readers, I’m using this post to highlight just four of the Writer prompts that seem most applicable to blog content writing:

“Take something you have recently learned – a fact, a skill – and give it one of your characters in a significant way.”
One point I’ve consistently stressed in these blog content writing tutorials is how important it is to provide valuable information to readers, while avoiding any hint of “hard sell”.  It’s helpful to collate helpful hints from a variety of experts, offering those as a “gift” from the business owner to blog visitors. Even more impactful, though, is sharing valuable lessons learned by the professional practitioner or business owners based on their own hard-won experience and expertise.

“Use a line from poetry to inspire new work”
When it comes to blogging for business, reading poetry teaches content writers clarity and precision. T. S. Eliot’s “April is the cruellest month” can inspire a piece about preparing one’s hoe for spring, about college application essays submission, or about tax planning..

“Create an unconventional graveyard scene with a surprising outcome.”
While a funeral company’s “green burial” practices might be the subject for its content marketing, an estate planning attorney might use an anecdote to stimulate thoughts about estate planning,

Write the sequel to your favorite fairy tale. Does money really buy happiness for Jack and his beanstalk? Do Snow White and the prince end up getting a divorce?
Online readers likely to find your blog through organic search will be those who already have a need for what you have to sell and for what you do. On the other hand, at Say It For You, we’re convinced blogging for business is the perfect tool for introducing those readers to newer applications and uses for your products and services One important function of a blog is to “point picture’ of the consequences of inaction.

With a main key to business blogging success being simply staying on task, you may find writer prompts may be just the ticket!

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Are You Targeting Cat Owners or Dog Owners?

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Reading through the Harvard Business Review the other day, I discovered a startling piece of scientific information that content marketers need yo know: Cat owners are more cautious consumers than dog owners! Professor Xiaojing Yang of the University of Southern California explains that consumer behaviors are driven by two opposing mindsets:

  • a promotion focus (eagerness, risk seeking, desire to maximize gains) – Dogs’ openness and adaptability are associated with a promotion focus.
  • a prevention focus (caution, risk aversion, priority on minimizing losses – Cats’ wariness and aloofness are association with a prevention focus.

Given the prevalence of pets in our society, Yang concluded, “:they’re an important part of our socialization”. How can this understanding be put to use in marketing products and services? When the features and benefits are mostly promotion-related, Prof Yang suggests, companies might feature dogs in their marketing materials. When they have more to do with prevention, cats would be a better choice.

Calls to Action in persuasive blog posts, as we know at Say It For You, can succeed only if our content has tapped into an underlying need or “desire” on the part of the reader. In the book Well Spoken, Kevin Mayer lists possible “wants”, or persuasive appeals to help prospects be willing to move forward and take the desired action, including approval by others, cleanliness, convenience, safety, health, or safety, each goal may be understood from either a promotion focus or a prevention focus.

No blog – and certainly no blog post – can be all things to all people. Each post must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who are most likely to want to do business with you.  That way, the appeals, as well as the way they are presented, can be chosen specifically for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, even the title of each blog entry.

In your content, are you targeting cat owners or dog owners?

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