The Mary Poppins Blogging Principle

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Mary Poppins En Route

What’s more important – a good man or a good idea? That’s the question Michael Banks, the father in the Mary Poppins story, faces when deciding to whom his bank should offer a loan.

The same question might be asked when it comes to blog marketing.  What’s going to have the greater likelihood of converting searchers to buyers: writing about the product or service, or writing about the business owners and service providers?

Choosing the man over the idea marked the end of Michael Banks’ banking career and the beginning of a new, happier life for him and his family. Fortunately, creating compelling business blog content can – and should – incorporate both people storytelling and product storytelling.

The Mary Poppins Principle, of course, is that the boring can be magical when approached with the proper frame of mind.  Corbett Barr, writing in thinktraffic.net, appears to agree, encouraging blog writers to “embrace your encouraging side.” There’s plenty of cynicism and negativity in the world, Barr says, and sometimes readers just want to be encouraged.

I recommend including anecdotes about customers, employees, or friends who accomplished things against all odds. That shifts the focus to the people side of your business, highlights the relationship aspects of your practice, plant, or shop.

Share what you’ve learned as a set of rules, Barr advises. “Your readers would love to know the 10,000-foot view of things.” When your content includes not only HOW  your product or service benefits users, but gives insights into the WHY, talking about industry developments and how you feel about those, that’s a way to address both the “good man” and “good idea” elements of what you have to offer.

 

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Choosing Healthy Blogging Habits

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Nurse talking with elderly people showing test results during ro

Nurses and chiropractors should have some good ideas on healthy habits, I thought. Sure enough, I found four blogs that I think are examples of effective blog marketing.

“Modern Scrubs for Nurse Practitioners” is a blog post written by Melissa DeCapua. It was an interesting choice for me, because, while the post is informational, it’s a very “sales-y” piece, promoting the EON collection of scrub uniforms manufactured by the Maevn company. (Typically I advise blog content writers to go soft on the selling, sticking to advertorial style.)

Three things save the piece, I believe:

  1. DeCapua has sent out a survey and is now reporting that, based on the feedback, the company has designed a new line designed for comfort, style, and performance. The blogger has positioned herself firmly on the side of the customers, representing their interests.
  2. It’s useful and actionable – the blogger includes a size chart, after explaining that “when purchasing clothes online, I inevitably worry about picking the right size”. DeCapua ordered extra small top and small bottoms, and the clothes fit just right. (Sharing her personal experience serves as a testimonial for the readers.)
  3. It’s very personal. The blogger names her own favorite pick of the collection, the mesh panel jacket.

“Choosing Healthy Breads”, another blog post written by a nurse practitioner, is in stark contrast. This one’s long, too long, I think, for a single post, but it’s also filled with useful information for the readers, and each section is introduced with a directive: “Ensure 100% Whole Gran is the 1st ingredient on the label.” Points of explanation follow that statement. An explanation about why consuming white bread is not a healthy choice, particularly for diabetics, follows the directive “Avoid Refined Breads.” The entire blog post is instructional and informational, with no effort to sell anything to the reader.

“My Neck Hurts When I Wake Up”, a post by Active Family Chiropractic, is effective because it  answers questions about a specific problem. The chiropractor, Dr. Lori Goodsell, writes in first person: “I am frequently asked in my clinic, ‘My neck hurts….’.

The blogger then proceeds to give practical advice to readers on how to pick a pillow, depending on whether you’re a stomach sleeper, a side sleeper, or a back sleeper. Dr. Goodsell does invite readers to become patients of her practice: “As always, if you have neck pain when you wake up, you need to have yourself evaluated by a chiropractor.”

I encourage blog content writers to use exactly the kind of “I-you” conversational, personalized tone I found in this blog.

Nurse practitioners and chiropractors have some healthy habits to recommend to  us blog content writers!

 

 

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8 Ways to Find the Right Words for your Business Blog

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Open Dictionary And Reading Glasses“If you want to become a great writer, you need to understand how to choose words that will make your writing more vivid, precise, bold, original, and memorable,” says Stephen Wilbers in Writer’s Digest. People who write with authority,”Wilbers adds, “are people who pay attention to language.”

Wilbers offers 8 wordsmithing tips (every one of which we business blog content writers can put to good use):

  1. Be on the lookout for useful words.  That includes browsing the dictionary.  When you encounter a word you like, make it your own.  Consider its meaning and context and look for occasions to use it.
  2. Use a thesaurus to remind yourself of alternate ways to express an idea.
  3. Be as specific as possible.  Effective writing, Wilbers says, draws its energy from specificity, not from abstractions and generalities.
  4. Appeal to readers’ all five senses.
  5. Opt for action verbs rather than abstract nouns.
  6. Don’t trust modifiers.  Even when meant to intensify, they can diminish.  Try the sentence without the modifier.
  7. Avoid sexist language.  Instead of “his”, “her”, or “his/her”, use plural subjects.  “Good managers know their strengths and weaknesses.”
  8. Use natural language as opposed to formal or fancy language.

To keep blog posts both short and powerful, pay attention to word choice.  As Wilbers puts the matter, that can make the difference between “hooking your audience or pushing the reader away”!

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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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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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