Be Sure Blog Posts Have a Bold Start and a Smooth Finish

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coffee machineRadio commercials have a lot to teach us about effective business blogging, I find.  All three of this week’s Say It For You posts are based around drive-time messages I heard recently on WIBC.

Today, let’s talk about the debut of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Rainforest Alliance certified™ dark roast coffee.

Of course, one very useful function of any business’ or practice’s blog is keeping readers up to date with new developments – new products, new services, new pricing, special offers, etc., exactly as Dunkin’ Donuts is breaking the news about its new offering. “The blogging format lives and dies on current information,” emphasizes Susannah Gardner in “Writing a Good Business Blog”.

Face it, though, I tell new business blog writers – You’re not always going to have a new product or service to promote, and there won’t always be a sale going on.  But if you take the time to follow developments in your field, you can write about those. “Take the time to follow and read other blogs that relate to your field,” Gardner advises. You can even share and comment on national or community news as those things relate to your business.

Whatever your blog topic of the day, the Dunkin’Donuts’ dark roast coffee description provides a good rule of thumb: Bold start, smooth finish.

Consultant Brian Walter suggests business owners use a formula to answer the question “What do you do?”  The idea, he says, is to play verbal ping pong, making statements that “make people want you to keep talking”. The bold start begins the process by creating surprise and interest. In blog writing, that start involves the title of the post and the opening line, in which you present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy, challenging statement, and in which you assure readers they’ve come to the right place.

In conversational tone,  you use the body of the post to provide information, demonstrate expertise, and provide a navigation path for readers to become consumers. The “smooth finish”, then, relates back to that opening statement, re-emphasizing to the reader the one main idea you were stressing in that post.

A bold start and a smooth finish – great formula for coffee or for business blog post writing!

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Blog to Broadcast Your Stance Along With Your Brand

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If you’re to enjoy any success in content marketing through business blogging, I’m convinced, three things need to happen:M

  • Readers perceive you as an expert in your field
  • Searchers see your blog as a go-to source for ongoing information
  • You clearly state a perspective

All too often, I find, that third factor isn’t paid the attention it deserves. As a corporate blogging trainer, I remind newbie writers that there’s no lack of information sources  – and no lack of experts (purported OR real). In our blogs, therefore, we need to go beyond presenting facts, statistics, features and benefits, and broadcast a firm stance. Doing that not only presents you as being that much more authentic, I explain to writers –  it helps readers put all that information into perspective.

Since this week’s Say It For You posts are based around radio commercials, I’ll use the Weather Tech ad as a great example of “stance” and authenticity.  “Does it really matter where a product is made?” the narrator asks.  Yes, it does, it matters a lot, he continues. “Providing American workers with good jobs allows people to buy things, and that’s good for our economy.” The WeatherTech tag line ends the commercial: “Complete protection, completely American made.”

I like that ad.  I like it a lot, as a matter of fact. No question there’s a real person in there with a real, strongly-held point of view. Yet, far from coming off as a “because-I-said-so” statement, the ad explains the reasoning behind the owner’s point of view.

Friend and fellow blogger Phil Steele laments that too many business blogs serve as extended advertisements, and suggests that business blog writing would be better aimed at taking a bird’s-eye view of one’s industry, and only then relating back to one’s own business. That rule is important for any business, I find, but it’s even more important for doctors, accountants, lawyers, life coaches, and others offering personal services, who need to use their blog to explain their unique approach in their area of practice.

Blog to broadcast your stance along with your brand!

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Getting “On the Air” with Business Blog Post Writing

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Radio carRadio commercials have a lot to tell us about blog content writing, I find. That’s why all three of this week’s Say It For You posts are based around drive-time commercials I heard recently.

The “Men’s Health Minute” on WIBC, for example, is itself a sort of blog. One spot is about colon health, another about prostate health, a third about sleep health. There are episodes about skin and about stress.  They’re all short (one minute), they’re all informative, and they all relate to the same recurring “leitmotif” of men’s health, and all are “brought to you” by Community Westview Hospital.

Leitmotif means “leading theme” in German.  In music, “the leitmotif is heard whenever the composer wants the idea of a certain character, place, or concept to come across,” explains Chloe Rhodes in A Certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi”.

Effective business blog posts are centered around key themes, too, just like the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony.  As you continue to write about your industry, your products, and your services, you’ll naturally find yourself repeating some key ideas, adding more detail, opinion, and story around each.

The second big positive about the Community Westview WIBC ads is that they’re not ads; they are informational rather than sales-ey, hitting precisely the note that business owners, practitioners should be aiming for.

Using business blogs to offer readers valuable information is the best way to attract and retain readers. Online searchers arrive at our business blogs needing to know how to find products and services, how to do something, how to solve very specific problems. Providing value before any “ask” takes place makes for smart radio commercials – and smart business blog content writing!

Get your business blog content writing “on the air” with online searchers!
 

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Truths and Trivia for Business Bloggers

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I love “reading around and learning around”, as I call it, and advise all blog content writers to do the same. Ideas are all overlaser pointer the place, all of the time, but we’ve got to see and hear those ideas, learning everywhere and from everyone, making connections between our own experience and knowledge and Other People’s Wisdom. 

“What if?” is the question posed by author Randall Munroe in the book “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions”. Now, this book is nothing if not off-beat, but that’s a good thing for freelance content creators, I think. After all, we face the challenge of churning out creative writing over extended periods of time, and we need fresh ways of looking at things.

Here’s one of Munroe’s serious scientific answer to an absurd question:
“If every person on earth aimed a laser pointer at the moon at the same time, would it change color?’  Answer: Not if you used regular laser pointers. Not everyone can see the moon at once, but 75% of the world’s population lives between 0 degrees E and 120 degrees E, we should try this while the Moon is somewhere over the Arabian Sea.
The typical red laser pointer is 5 milliwatts, and good one would have enough power to hit the Moon, but the light would have no effect compared to the much more powerful light of the sun.” 

So how might this gem be useful in business blogging? For one thing, like any piece of trivia, it can be used to spark curiosity. But, once having brought in the question and answer, you might continue by pointing out that the red laser is extremely useful for

  • Astronomers
  • Outdoor sporting
  • Teaching
  • Business presentations

Then, depending on what business or practice you’re marketing, the post might continue with a story about how a laser printer proved useful in a certain situation.

“What if a glass of water was, all of a sudden, literally half empty?” is another of those absurd hypothetical questions with a lot of wisdom to offer if you’re willing to search a bit.  Here’s part of the Munroe commentary:
When people say “glass half empty”, they usually mean a glass containing equal parts water and air.

What follows in the book is a serious discussion of what happens when there’s a vacuum, but I’d challenge writers of blog content for psychology practices, motivational speakers (you know, “glass half full thinking), and private schools stressing STEM courses (emphasis on understanding our physical environment) to make use of that material in their blog marketing strategy.

Nothing like an offbeat book filled with truths and trivia to spark ideas for business blogs!

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In Blogging for Business, Teaching is the New Selling

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Business guru speaking to people“In today’s world, your customers have access to tons of information, they are super busy, and they are overwhelmed,” says Jim Keenan of A SalesGuy.com.  “They want to know that you and your organization can teach them something.  If you can’t, they’re not interested.”

Whatever your business or profession, there’s no end to the technical information available to consumers on the Internet. Our job then, as business blog content writers, becomes to help readers absorb, buy into, and use that information.

“Briefly,” says Jim Connolly of Jim’s Marketing Blog, “here’s how content marketing works: You build and market a website and stock it with free information that has real value to your prospective clients.”

There’s skill involved in offering that free information. Chunking is one way business bloggers can offer technical information in “chewable tablet form” by breaking it down into bite-sized pieces, or, in reverse, showing how individual bits of information are related in ways readers perhaps hadn’t considered.

Everywhere it’s becoming evident that there’s a lot of competition for readers, as local author Madalyn Kinsey observes. And, to our point today about using business blogs to offer readers valuable information, Kinsey adds, “How-to subjects sell best – money, health, self-improvement, hobbies, sex, and psychological well being.”

“Tell and sell tradition marketing is dead,” according to Stan Phelps of Yahoo! Small Business Advisor. “Cause of death was the empowered consumer,” he adds. Conclusion? If marketing is about anything, it’s about differentiating what you do and how you do it.

As a business blog writing trainer, I’d go a step further. It’s about differentiating what you think about what you do and why you think that way. Taking a stance on issues relevant to your business or profession will give your blog post more “pow” every time.

It’s about authority. Sure, “authority” has become an important term in search engine-speak, but, more than that, presenting a definite perspective goes a long way towards having readers perceive you as authentic as well as expert.

In blogging for business, teaching – and opining – are the new selling!

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