Self-Help Titles Teach Variety

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Browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble, I came across an entire three-shelf section of self help books. The variety of titles was astounding, perfect examples of how a single topic can be approached in a plethora of ways:. Here are just a few of the titles:

  • Already Enough
  • Wild Calm
  • Yay All Day
  • Wander the Stars
  • Slow Down, Take a Nap
  • What’s Behind the Blue Door
  • You Meet You
  • Always Change a Losing Game
  • The Other Significant Others
  • Atomic Habits

When it comes to content marketing, all the titles show above could be classified as “Huhs?”, meaning that each needs a subtitle to make clear what the book is actually about. “Oh!” titles, we teach at Say It For You, are self-explanatory, and from an SEO (search engine optimization) standpoint, make a direct connection to the query readers type into their search bar.

For either straightforward or “Huh?-Oh!” titles of blog posts, one way to engage readers is using the sound of the words themselves, repeating vowel sounds (assonance) or consonant sounds (alliteration), so that searchers use their sense of hearing along with the visual.

Just as titles “grabbed” me as a bookstore browser, it’s important to have “ringing” in blog post titles, we teach. Titles matter in two ways:

  1. For search – keywords and phrases help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.
  2. For engagement – after you’ve been “found”, you’ve gotta “get read”! (Of course, no clever title can substitute for well-written, relevant content that provides valuable information to the readers.)

But when blog content writers try being too clever, too general, or too cliched, that’s not good, either, Authormedia points out in “Top 5 Blog Title Mistakes Authors Make” The overriding criterion is whether you can deliver on your headline promise in the body of the post.

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Writing About WIne and Other Difficult Content Tasks

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“Using words to describe wine is fraught with peril and leaves wine writers exposed to ridicule,” Gus Clemens writes in an article  I found reprinted in my Indianapolis Star the other day. “Writing about wine is like dancing about architecture,” he complains. Although many familiar terms about wine tastes and smells are delicious to imagine and easy to understand because we know them from the fruit we eat, other terms, such as “leather”, “granite” or “green bell pepper” sometimes make us ask, “Are they just making stuff up to appear superior?”

Interesting. Just a couple of months ago, I posted a piece on introducing “insider terminology” to blog readers. The point I was making is that, in content marketing, once you’ve established common ground, adding new vocabulary  or “in-words” actually adds value to readers’ visit, giving them a sense of being “in the know”.

Offering online readers more than a description, but an “experience” is, in fact, one of our biggest challenges as content writers. Our goal is, through what they see on the page, to give visitors a “taste” of the benefits and satisfactions they stand to enjoy when using your products or services. 

“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. While effective stories have authenticity and an implied promise of satisfaction, they must also, he stresses, appeal to the senses rather than to logic

With readability being a critical yet often-overlooked aspect of writing (as StraightNorth.com explains, content  must be matched to the education and sophistication level of your intended audience. In the case of a wine vendor, is the content targeted towards experienced wine consumers or is it intended to draw in “newbie” enthusiasts?

Humanizing your marketing content is a way of bringing readers “backstage”, keeping the company or professional practice relatable. Building a story around the “leather” or “granite” element in the services and products you have to offer can mean turning information-gathering into an experience!

 

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Allow Me to Introduce New Terminology

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Before browsing through a magazine handout at the grocery store called alive.com, I’d never heard the term “immunity debt”, and curiosity led me through an entire article by Dr. Gillian Flower. The thesis – our immune systems need exposure to viruses to protect us from infection, and lower exposure to others through the pandemic may have decreased our resistance, creating an “immunity debt”.

Apparently, not everyone agrees. “Immunity debt is a misguided and dangerous concept,” Anjana Ahuja writes in Financial Times. “There is no evidence that an individual is worse off for having avoided earlier infection.”

While I am certainly not qualified to weigh in on this medical discussion, as a content writer I was impressed by the fact that by simply introducing me to a new term, the author had the power to engage my curiosity about the subject.

In blog marketing, once you’ve established common ground, reinforcing to readers that they’ve come to the right place, it’s important to add lesser-known bits of information on your subject, which might take the form of arming readers with new terminology, serving several purposes:

  • positioning the business owner or professional practitioner as an expert in the field
  • adding value to the “visit” for the reader
  • increasing readers’ sense of being part of an “in-the-know” group

As content writers, part of our challenge is to educate both prospects and clients on the issues relating to their decisions to choose between one business’ products and services and those of its competitors.  Introducing a curiosity-stimulating new term is one possible way to do just that. At Say it For You, we believe in empowering readers by teaching them the correct use of the terms that apply in the blog sponsor’s field of interest and expertise. Any hint of controversy only adds to the mystique of the terminology.

Most important, buyers feel empowered to make a decision when they feel “in on” the “lingo”.

 

 

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“Did-You-Know?” Content Marketing

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This week, my Say It For You blog posts were inspired by the 2024 Farmer’s Almanac…

“Growing up a city girl, I thought many people were farmers because they were incapable of doing any other work. Then I moved to the country and made a bumbling discovery: To be a successful farmer, you need to have the smarts – and not just in one area.” A good farmer, the author belatedly realized, is a jack-of-all-trades – a) ace problem-solver b) soil scientist  c) marketer  d) mechanic, someone who knows how to fix a range of low-tech to extremely high-tech equipment such as drones and water sensor devices.

One of the most important “powers” of content marketing, we’ve found at Say It For You, is the ability to turn a false perceptions – of an individual, of a business, or even of an entire industry – on its head. Not only can the myth-busting power of blog content correct misinformation reflected in customer questions and comments highlight a business’ strengths, myth-debunking makes for engaging -reading!
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In just the way the information in Farmers’ Almanac about farmers using high-tech drones, did-you-know content “teasers” can spark interest when used in blog post titles. Little known details can be used to describe a unique business policy, to clarify the way in which a product works, or explain why one of the services provided by that business particularly effective in solving a problem.

“Harvesting” tidbits of information will always prove useful to content writers. While “tidbit” posts are just one of the dozens of different “genres” we can use to lend variety to out posts, unusual tidbits of information put writer and reader on the same side of the presentation, with both experiencing wonder about the unusual “byte” being shared.

Online visitors searching for a product or a service, I explain to business owners, typically have no idea what it takes to do what you do and how much effort you put into acquiring the expertise you’re going to use to their benefit. Did-you-know content has the power to close that gap, showing the level of preparation and effort on the part of both owner and employees which will be devoted to delivering the expert advice, service, and products they can expect.

As the Farmer’s Almanac shows, “did-you-know?” content marketing is a great way to “plant” trust in prospects!

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Sharing Secrets Makes for Good Blog Marketing

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“Knowing the meaning of the three-digit code printed on every egg carton can help you choose a fresher product,” TasteofHome explains. You might think the best way to pick a carton is by checking the grade, size, and expiration date, but Kelsay Mulvery shares a “secret” – look for the Julian date.

Meanwhile, Michele Debczak of Mental Floss magazine, has a “secret” to share with readers as well: The tags or twist ties on bread are color-coded by day of the week, so grocery stores know how long a product’s been sitting on the shelf.

“Some manufacturers claim unrealistically small serving sizes to reduce the amount of calories they have to list on the nutrition label,” coach.nine.com reveals.

These three selections illustrate an important point about blog content writing: Sharing secrets makes for good blog marketing, but those secrets need to be useful to readers. “Find out what they struggle with, and what would make the biggest difference to their bottom line,” wisely advises Rich Brooks on creative-copywriter.net. A powerful secret-sharing manual for magicians, Roberto Giobbi’s Sharing Secrets book teaches “52 powerful concepts that let you learn, practice, and perform them.”

In blog marketing, accentuate the practical, we teach content writers at Say It For You. Go ahead and teach readers “secrets” of how to do what they want to do better, faster, and more economically. Since people like helping one another, offer “secrets” most likely to be shared at the dinner table, across a tennis net, or on the green. Through blog content, business owners and owners and professional practitioners can package their expertise into “secrets”, allowing readers to learn about and value them along with the nuggets of wisdom they’re sharing.

“After all, people are not coming to your blog just to acquire knowledge. They’re dropping by to visit you,” Dean Rieck observes in copyblogger.com. That means revealing a little about yourself, he adds. Most people reveal secrets to those they like and trust, as Jack Schafer, PhD. explains in Psychology Today. In sharing “secrets” in your blog, you’re demonstrating that you like and trust your readers, making it all the more likely they will like and trust you.

Sharing secrets makes for good blog marketing

 

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