Myths Have Pulling Power in Blogs

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Mythbusting is used in many fields to counteract what researchers suspect might be counterproductive thinking, and I’m a firm believer that myth debunking is a great use for corporate blogs.

I was reminded of this the other day by a USA Today article, listing – and then busting – some common myths about airline food:

  • Myth:  All airplane meals are frozen and reheated hours later.
  • Facts:  Salads and sandwiches are often included in airplane meals. even when food is cooked and then chilled, the “sous vide” method is used, with each ingredient sealed in airtight plastic bags and cooked slowly.

In the normal course of doing business, you’ve undoubtedly found, misunderstandings about your product or surface might surface in the form of customer questions and comments.  (It’s even worse when those myths and misunderstandings don’t surface, but still have the power to interrupt the selling process!)

That’s why the de-bunking function of business blog writing is so important. It’s owners’ way of taking up arms against a sea of customers’ unfounded fears and biases.  Blog content writing can “clear the air”, replacing factoids with facts, so that buyers can see their way to making decisions.

Myth-busting is also a tactic content writers can use to grab online visitors’ attention. The technique is not without risk, because customers don’t like to be proven wrong or feel stupid.  The trick is to engage interest, but not in “Gotcha!” fashion.

In other words, business owners and professional practitioners can use their blogs to showcase their own expertise without “showing up” their readers’ lack of it.

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Don’t Shorten – Tighten!

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Woman inside a Cradboard Box

“Long-form content is alive and well in an era of mobile content consumption,” says Neil Patel in “How to Write Content That Engages Mobile Readers”. Longer content is still appropriate, Patel explains, but, “instead of shortening your content, tighten your writing.”

As a blog content writer and trainer, I particularly appreciated Patel’s next statement: “Those focusing too much on mobile usability are giving short shrift to mobile copywriting. Content marketers must understand how to create content that mobile readers will love.”

And what sort of content is that? For starters, Patel explains, some of the old rules that apply to desktop reading just don’t work when it comes to mobile device readers.  Four pieces of outdated advice, he explains, include:

1.   The Golden Triangle (readers’ attention starts at the up left and goes down and to the right). This no longer applies in the era of mobile readers – there’s not enough screen real estate for horizontal sweeps and vertical movement, Patel points out. On mobile, viewers look primarily at the center of the screen.

2.   Users’ eyes are drawn to images over text. This rule is not valid for mobile. Don’t take up precious screen space with images that don’t advance your point.

3.   Users have shorter attention spans on mobile – write less. This counsel is wrong, Patel states. Longer content is still appropriate. Instead of shortening your content, tighten your writing. For mobile content, concise writing is essential, but the necessity has more to do with the screen size than the user’s attention span.

4.   Five sentences make for a good paragraph. Five sentences “turn into a wall of text on mobile, Patel explains.

Mobile readers still read articles. But the mobile revolution requires a reorientation to the art of writing.

The takeaway? Don’t write less. Write better!

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My Mother Was a Sneaker

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sneakersBlogs are not ads, as I am careful to emphasize in corporate blogging training sessions. That’s not to say, though, that we blog content writers can’t learn a lot from ad writers.

I love the Samuel Hubbard.com ad for men’s dress shoes, for example. “My mother was a sneaker. My father was a dress shoe. … I can’t help it. I was born this way.  Insanely comfortable and ready for a day in the office.”

You shouldn’t try to give searchers information about everything you have to offer, all in one blog post.  With each post, stress just one major aspect of your company or practice, I teach. On the other hand, you want your blog to stand out, to be unusually interesting, so that readers will want to stay awhile and maybe even move on to your business’ website.

And when you put two things together that don’t seem to match – that can be a good technique to capture people’s interest. Having the shoe “talk” to the reader, and suggesting that a comfortable shoe is the “offspring” of sneaker and a dress shoe is just different enough to startle and engage.

The “nucleus” around which business blog posts are formed is their topic, the expertise and products that business offers. The key words and phrases around that topic are what bring readers to the blog posts. But, even though the overall topic is the same, there is endless variety that can be used to make each blog post special. The technique used by Samuel Hubbard Shoes is metaphor – making an unusual comparison – in this case between parents and shoes.

If you place a ripe banana next to a green tomato, the tomato will ripen, too, explains Brian McMahon in Mental Floss Magazine. Interesting facts such as this can always be of business blogging help, but that advice comes with two provisos:

Your reason for including the fact in your post must be apparent early on in the blog post, and the new information should relate to something with which readers are already familiar.

What “different” metaphor or comparison can you include in your blog that catches readers’ attention but still stays true to your message?

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Price Point Blogging?

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???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????“Be specific when it counts,” advises Robin Ryan in the book 60 Seconds & You’re Hired!, referring to salary discussions during job interviews. “Try this,” she suggests: “According to all the salary survey data, someone with my ten years of experience would be in the upper 70s…I was thinking $78,000 is what I’d accept.”

Many business websites fail to address the subject of pricing, observes Marcus Sheridan of socialmediaexaminer.com. Instead of addressing the number-one consumer question up front, they decided to wait until the initial phone contact, or worse, the first sales appointment in the home. But, although this “hidden approach” may have worked in marketing five or ten years ago, today’s consumers don’t like their core questions to be left unanswered, Sheridan states firmly.

From my point of view as a corporate blogging trainer, the topic of “price point blogging” fits in nicely with the overall concept of putting information into perspective for clients. The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate, and the better ones give visitors at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.  It’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to “flesh out” the intangibles, those things that make a company stand out from its peers. For every fact about the company or about one of its products or services, a blog post addresses unspoken questions such as “So, is that different?”, “So, is that good for me?”

Pricing is one of those sets of facts. With the typical company or practice offering many different product feature and service benefits, pricing must be put into perspective. There might be dozens – or even hundreds – of factors that dictate the ultimate pricing any consumer would pay.  Because of this, says Sheridan, “it’s best to offer ranges, not definitive numbers, allowing potential clients to get a feel for the cost and know if they’re at least in the ballpark.”

Karen Greenstreet, writing about Self-Employed Success, offers nine reasons you should – and then ten reasons you shouldn’t – put pricing on your website or in your blog. On the negative side:

  • Your competition can find out what your pricing is
  • You’re worried about “price fixing”
  • You want the chance to establish rapport before talking pricing
  • You want to stay away from tire-kicking, price shopping customers and clients

Reasons Greenstreet found in favor of discussing pricing upfront include:

  • Honoring customers’ time constraints
  • Positioning your brand as, for example, a low-cost leader or the expert who people pay more for
  • Many customers will not do business with a company who is not forthcoming about pricing and fees

Whatever you decide, make sure your decision based on what’s helpful to your customer and right for your marketing plan, not based on your fears about what “might” happen, is Greenstreet’s parting advice.

Think about offering perspective through price point blogging!

 

 

 

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Tips on Business Writing for Bloggers – Part B

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All Or Nothing Keys Meaning Entire Or Zero

This week, I’m sharing Susan Adams’ “Ten Tips on Business Writing”, offered in Forbes Magazine, with my Say It For You readers (again, I’ve added my own thoughts in italics):

Start by asking yourself what you want the person to do as a result of reading this post.
Each business blog post should impart one new idea or call for a single action. Focused on one thing, your post has greater impact, since people are bombarded with many messages each day. Respecting readers’ time produces better results for your business.

Avoid using big $10 words because you want to sound intelligent.
Unfortunately, as a blog content writing trainer, I see a lot of the kind of overused buzzwords hiring expert Carina Chivulescu sees on resumes, such as “best of breed”, or “results-driven”. “Employers want to see words and phrases that clearly and succinctly define your skills, experience, and accomplishments,” Chivulescu explains. That’s precisely the type of words and phrases your business blog readers need to find when they visit your site.

(The last three of Susan Adam’s tips have to do with English grammar)

Choose pronouns wisely. “Send the memo to Bob and myself’” is incorrect.                                                                                                           Think how you would word the sentence if you removed mention of other people. In fact, as “Grammar Girl” Mignon Fogarty points out, the pronouns a writer chooses, she explains, set the point of view and the tone of a passage. 

Know when to use “that” and “which”.                                                                                                                                                                           “Which” introduces extra information and it isn’t essential to the first clause. In a sentence such as “Computers are the only products that we sell,” the clause “that we sell” is essential to the meaning of the sentence, so the correct word is “that”.

Affect is a verb meaning “to influence.” “Effect” is a noun that means “result.”
What’s the big deal? Grammar mistakes in content writing for business call attention away from the kind of impression we intend to make on behalf of our businesses or professional practices. 
Would your latest blog post pass the Ten-Tip test?

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