Blog Marketing to Increase Choice Confidence

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“Choice confidence is an important driver of buying behavior,” Associate Professor of Marketing Demetra Andrews writes in the Indianapolis Business Journal. Together with colleagues, Andrews examined the influence different forms and quantities of information on consumers’ willingness to buy, naming certain types that tend to be most effective in building buyer confidence:

  1. Information that is diagnostic makes it easier for prospects to distinguish the differences among available options.
  2. Increasing the number of “cues” (individual pieces of information) increases customers’ perception of their own knowledge.
  3. Information presented in verbal format (vs. numbers) is most effective in building purchase intentions.
  4. Product ratings increase choice confidence.
  5. Testimonials from “influencers”, including consumers who provide insights into their own experience with the product or service encourage confidence.

Each of these valuable insights can be translated into blog content creation:

Diagnostic information
In order to facilitate informed decisions by readers, data needs to be presented and “analyzed” and broken down in terms of results. Remember, searchers are asking themselves “What’s in it for me?” Along with features, effective blog posts describe benefits.

Increasing the number of “cues”
Chunking refers to the strategy of breaking down information into bite-sized pieces so the brain can more easily digest new information. Blog posts are ideal for serving up “bites” of information, creating impact over weeks and months.

Ratings and comparisons
One core function of blogs for business is explaining yourself, your business philosophy, your products, and your processes.  An effective blog clarifies what sales trainers like to call your “unique value proposition” in terms readers can understand.

Testimonials
Customer success stories and client testimonials boost your credibility with new prospects, helping them decide to do business with you. But, as webcopyplus.com explains, website testimonials “also foster commitment from those providing the testimonials.”

“By tailoring information form, format, quantity and source, businesses can help customers make better, more confident choices that will meet their needs,” Andrews concludes. By tailoring the presentation of information as presented in blog posts, content writers can enhance blog readers’ confidence and encourage them to become customers.

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High vs. Low Level Blog Marketing

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“The problem with the hard and soft sell definitions is that they are subjective,” Gemma Wright comments in ProCopyTips. “Hard sell can also be viewed as aggressive and could potentially turn off prospective customers, whereas soft sell can be thought of as ineffective as it’s considered too gentle and doesn’t necessarily convert into sales.” “The trick, Wright concludes, “is finding that elusive middle ground that works for your business.”

When it comes to dog obedience training, as Sit Means Sit explains, “high vs. low level training is kind of like a steak. A ‘medium’ steak is over cooked if you prefer rare, and under cooked if you prefer well done”. And when it comes to dog obedience training, Sit Means Sit goes on to say, “one trainer will feel the level needs to be higher or lower, which might vastly disagree with what another trainer thinks”.

That dilemma constitutes a large part of what blog posts are for, we realize at Say It For You. In any field of business and in every profession, there will be different opinions about the most effective way to approach problem solution. Because it may not be feasible to explore all possible solutions on the welcome page of a website, blog posts are ideal for delving further into the many aspects of a topic.

Most people will not react overly positively to a blog that is just sales spin,” cautions Problogger.net. “While blogs can be used as a tool for selling they are at their best when they are relational, conversational and offer their readers something useful that will enhance their lives.”) The good news for business owners and practitioners who use blogs as a marketing tool, is that blog posts are an ideal vehicle for demonstrating support and concern while being persuasive in a low-key manner.

So what are some different ways to “cook a blog steak”?

  • building good will
  • staying in touch with existing customers and clients
  • defining terminology
  • offering how-to hints
  • announcing changes in products and services
  • controlling damage when it comes to negative PR or complaints
  • recruiting employees
  • ”humanizing” the owners and employees by presenting them as real, likeable peopleAt Say It For You, we teach that blog posts are, like advertorials, a “softly softly” form of advertising, in which you use a news or human-interest story to sell a product or service. The story ties together the answers to readers’ questions, and the solution you’re proposing.

You might say that well-written blogs combine the best of both high and low level marketing!

 

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Aiming for the “Me, Too!” Effect in Blog Marketing

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“All salespeople present themselves as problem solvers yet most never ask clients to vividly describe the problems they are experiencing,” Paul Cherry maintains in the book Questions That Sell. An outstanding salesperson, the author teaches, will offer clients the opportunity to open up and vent their frustrations. “You will have success building a relationship with your potential customers only when you can get into their world and identify the forces at work in their lives.”

In blog marketing (where prospects are meeting you before you’ve had the chance to meet them), as Jeremy Porter Communications teaches, the goal is to create a connection with your audience that makes them receptive to your message. He names seven emotions and their opposites that marketers can tap into to get an audience “from where they are to where you want them to be”:

  • anger/calmness
  • friendship/enmity
  • fear/confidence
  • shame/shamelessness
  • kindness/unkindness
  • pity or compassion/indignation
  • envy/emulation

At Say It For You, we understand that, in blogging for business, face-to-screen is the closest we blog content writers will come to our prospective buyers of our clients’ products and services. On the other hand, we’re conscious that behind every decision, there is always a person, a being with feelings. One of the most direct access paths to prospects’ feelings is through stories. “Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story,” observes Seth Godin in his book All Marketers Tell Stories.

The thing to remember is that people are online searching for answers to problems or solutions for dilemmas. If, in encountering a blog post about a customer who went through a sort of pain and suffering akin to theirs (and who has now come out the other side), readers’ natural and highly emotional reaction might well be “Me, too!”.

Far sooner and more directly than descriptions of features and benefits of your offer, an emotionally charged story of suffering solved might well result in a “me, too” sale!

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Blogging for Window Shoppers and Tire Kickers

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“Many of the folks who come to see me aren’t necessarily looking for a new plan or a new planner,” financial advisor Zach Fox, AAMS®, says. “They may just be looking for confidence in their existing plan.”

Diane Wingerter, certified grantwriter and owner of GrantWriting for Goodness™, agrees. “Yes”, “no”, “maybe”, or “not now” are all possible responses by people who are seeking funding – or, indeed, by funders themselves, she notes.

Blog marketers need to approach readers with a similar mindset. Will blog marketing “close deals” in the same manner as a face-to-face encounter between a prospect and a sales professional? Of course not. Hubspot blogger Corey Wainwright lists some of the indirect selling benefits of blogs and their place in the sales process:

  • If you’re consistently creating content that’s helpful for your target customer, it’ll help establish you as an authority in their eyes.
  • Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales process more educated about your place in the market, your industry, and what you have to offer.
  • Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts.

Blogging is what marketing firm pardot.com calls stage-based, meaning that prospects move through different stages of the sales cycle. In one study, Pardot found that B2B consumers started their research with Google, then returned two or three times for more specific information. For prospects at the top of the “funnel”, the most effective content will be light, educational and product-neutral. Later in the cycle, readers who are already sold on your industry, just deciding among vendors or providers, need more specific information.

The “maybes”, the “not nows”, and readers looking only to bolster their confidence in their existing plans or product choices will come away with a positive experience and valuable information. On the other hand, readers who have reached the final decision-making stage might just be ready to consider your unique value propositions and to follow one of your Calls to Action.

In blog marketing, don’t ignore the window shoppers and tire-kickers!

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All You Have to Do is Blog

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According to the 1-800-GOT-JUNK commercial, when you want something removed from your home or yard, “All you have to do is point” As a blog content writer, I love that commercial.

“Persuasive ads are advertisements designed to elicit a desired action,” Mary Lister writes in Wordstream. Ad campaigns for products or services are designed to communicate two main ideas:

  1. Problems your product or service solves
  2. Ways your product or service does that better/quicker/cheaper than that of your competitors.

Confession – for me as a consumer, there’s always been a third piece. I’m not handy. And, since I don’t know how to assemble, much less fix, mechanical devices or pieces of furniture, I’m always looking for what’s going to be required of me in the process of achieving a solution to my problem or fulfilling my need.

The 1-800-GOT-JUNK motto must have been made for people like me. Right up front, they’re assuring me that they will handle the issue, do the dirty work, figure it out. All I have to do is identify the problem.

All business owners and practitioners have products and services to sell. But sometimes, the marketing and advertising skips over the convenience factor.

A little over ten years ago, an editorial cartoon in the Indianapolis Business Journal showed a harried lady returning a gadget to a merchant’s Returns window. “It’s not that I don’t like the product,” she said – “I just can’t get it out of the package!”

  • Yes, you understand your target audience and the specific problems they’re facing.
  • Yes, your product or service provides a way to solve those problems.
  • Yes, your product/service compares favorably to others on the market.
  • Yes, but…but…but, just how much effort am I going to need to expend to “get it out of the package”?

Put yourself in the shoes of your online visitors:

How easy is it for them to navigate your website? Follow your Calls to Action? Set up an appointment with you? Pick up the phone and call if they choose to? (Is your phone number clearly displayed on the page?)

How easy is it going to be for a prospect to: get started on that program you’re touting? Start on the diet plan? Install the app or get the device to function?

Let them know – “all you have to do is…….._!

Borrowing the line from 1-800-GOT-JUNK, blog marketers’ new mantra might well be this:

All you have to do is blog!

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