We’ve All Heard the Naysayers

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Outdated technology concept.
“We’ve all heard the naysayers – they argue that speechwriting is losing relevance in a world of unscripted comments and 140-character attention spans”, reads the invitation to the 2017 Speechwriters Conference. The reality, Ragan explains is that organizations need thoughtful communicators more than ever.

Importantly, all three skill areas on which the speechwriter’s conference promises to focus are highly relevant for us as blog content writers.  (We’ve all heard the naysayers, haven’t we, arguing that blogging is losing relevance?)

1. Ensure strategic messages get through
There are two kinds of goodwill that can be conveyed through messaging, as business valuator Lindon Kotzin puts it: ”Personal or professional goodwill attaches to a particular individual, while enterprise goodwill is derived from the characteristics of the business itself, regardless of who owns or operates it.” Both those types of strategic messages can be conveyed through our blog content, which is frequently updated and thus relevant to the current climate in our industry.

2.  Use humor appropriately to capture your audience’s attention
Hope Hatfield of LocalDirective.com points out that humor is a hook, having the same impact as a strong headline to grab the audience’s attention. Humor’s an icebreaker, she adds, but only so long as you carefully consider your target market, focusing the humor around a problem your company can solve. No matter how funny your marketing messages are, don’t forget that the goal is to educate your prospects about your products and services. “You want to make sure that you don’t lose the message in the humor, Hatfield cautions.

3. Develop an authentic and trustworthy voice
Successful content creation consists of capturing the unique style of the business owners, practitioners, and employees who will be delivering the service and products. Business coach Donna Gunter calls it the WYSIWYG approach (what you see is what you get), referring to authenticity in advertising and promotional materials.

Yes, we’ve all heard the blogging naysayers, arguing that blogs are losing relevance.  The reality, though, is that professional practitioners and business owners need thoughtful communications more than ever!

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Basically, We Bought Their Car For Them

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Buying a new car

 

At a recent study session for financial planners, Waypoint Residential’s Todd Patterson made it really easy for us in the audience to understand exactly how excellent a return Waypoint had managed to generate for its investors over the last two years. After comparing dollars invested and dollars realized, Patterson summed up the situation in these simple terms:  “Basically, we bought their car for them.”

Let’s face it – most business blog posts make claims, either outright or implied.  The claims may be understated, exaggerated, or exactly on the money, but still – a claim is a claim is a claim. And when you make a claim, the problem is, blog visitors probably don’t know how to “digest” those claims you’ve “served up”.  They simply don’t have any basis for comparison, not being as expert as you are in your field. What I’m getting at is that every claim needs to be put into context, so that it not only is true, but so that it feels true to your online visitors. That’s precisely what Todd Patterson did so well in talking to us financial planners.

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. And one excellent way to do just that is by making comparisons with things with which readers are already comfortable and familiar! Even those financial planner “numbers people” assiduously taking notes on their laptops, intending to share those stats with investors, needed something more.  That “more” was the “sound bite” about investors making enough money in two years to fund a car.

There are tens of millions of blog posts out there making claims of one sort or another, even as you’re reading this Say It For You post. Based on my own experience as an online reader, I’d venture to say fewer than 10% of them attempt to put their claims in context; and only the very top few manage to convey to their blog visitors what those claims can mean for them!

Basically, blog content writers, ask yourself what benefit your product or service “buys” for your customers and clients!

 

 

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Did-You-Know Blogging for Business

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Book of the Bizarre
The Egyptians wore eye shadow to prevent blindness, and lipstick to keep the soul from leaving the body through the breath, Varla Ventura informs readers in The Book of the Bizarre.

What a great lead-in that sentence might make for a blog on the website of a beauty salon, cosmetologist, cosmetic surgeon, or even an ophthalmologist, I couldn’t help thinking. And Ventura’s book offers 300 pages’ worth of just such fascinating tidbit fodder!

I think the reason I’ve always liked “tidbit blogs”, just one of the dozens of blog “genres” we writers can use to lend variety to our posts, is that they put the blogger and the reader on the same side of the presentation. In other words, in a typical marketing blog the business owner or practitioner is presenting something to the reader, trying to forge a connection and engage interest (and, over time, convert lookers to buyers, of course).

In contrast, when I’m sharing that tidbit about Egyptians believing lipstick kept the soul from leaving the body, it’s as if I’m “on the same side of the table” with the reader, with both of us experiencing wonder at how religions have evolved over thousands of years and how customs change. (Well, it feels that way to me, anyhow…)

The function of tidbits in business blogs is to serve as “triggers” or jumping-off-points for blog posts about any subject.  In corporate marketing blogs, tidbits help:

  • educate blog readers
  • debunk myths
  • showcase the business owners’ expertise
  • demonstrate business owners’ perspective

    We blog writers, I’m convinced, need never run out of ideas if we just keep a file (or, as I do, collect books the likes of The Book of the Bizarre) of “did-you-know” tidbits!

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Cover the Blog Genre Gamut

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VARIETY -Realistic Neon Sign on Brick Wall background

“Don’t be afraid to write in tried-and-true blog genres,” Gary DeAsi and Evan Stone advised their fellow financial planners as part of the FPA Practice Management Solutions Magazine almost three years ago, listing eight kinds of blogs they called “proven attention getters’”:

  1. Advice
  2. Collections and top lists
  3. Reviews
  4. Predictions
  5. Motivation
  6. Trouble-shooting
  7. Interviews
  8. Editorial/ Personal reflection
  9. Now, five years later, I’m inviting each of you Say It For You blog readers to come up with titles you’ve written or found that fit into each of these categories. If you submit your favorite titles, I’ll publish them here, along with some tips on flesh out those ideas to suit your own business. More important, ask yourself whether you’re lending variety to your blog by including all these genres.

    Meanwhile, over those same five years I’ve come up with at least four blog genres I believe ought to be added to the list to round out the “blogger’s dozen”…:

    9.  The tidbit blog uses a piece of trivia to spark interest and help readers understand a concept or product.
    10.  The comparison blog uses a metaphor to explain a complex idea in terms of a tangible object.
    11.  The “confession” blog tears away the “stage curtain” between the business owner and the reader, humanizing business or practitioner and hopefully generating feelings of empathy and admiration.
    12.   The “brag blog” shares accomplishments of which the business owner or practitioner had every right to be proud – a product breakthrough, an award, a milestone reached, an unexpected success.

DeAsi and Stone were telling financial planners not to be afraid to write in tried-and-true genres. As a business blogging trainer, I’d go a few steps further, advising content writers to keep it fresh, saying “Don’t be afraid to keep creating new blog genres!”

 

 

 

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Finding Before Solving in Blogging for Business

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Find the Answer - Magnifying Glass
“Unfortunately,” reflects my friend and admired sales training expert Tim Roberts, “traditional salespeople are tethered to ‘what we know’”.  Roberts is well aware that it takes many years of trials and tribulations for a salesperson to develop good problem-solving skills, yet he’s here, he says, to challenge and encourage finding before solving. In fact, finding a problem that your customer hasn’t considered, is what makes a salesperson valuable, he stresses.

There are two required skills needed for an effective inquiry conversation with a prospect, Roberts explains:

  • vulnerability
  • transparency

Are there lessons here for business owners and professional practitioners “conversing” via their blog with readers? As a Say It For You blog writer and blogging coach, I think so. Last summer I made mention of what Stav Ziv of the Moth storytelling organization had to say about the two elements of successful storytelling:

  1. there’s no “wall of artistry” or stage curtain between storyteller and audience (transparency)
  2. storytellers share their own human failures and frailty (vulnerability).

The lesson I drew from Ziv’s description is that true stories about mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business or practice.

What I think is important for blog writers about Tim Roberts’ “finding-before-solving” concept is that it opens up a whole new content direction both for us as writers and as a conversation starter with readers.

Wait a minute – isn’t answering readers’ questions what blog posts are designed to do?  Searchers turn to the Internet because they’re looking for something – a product, a service, or information.  When the query relates to what you sell, what you do, and what you know about, those readers find your blog. But, what if your blog post was raising questions and inviting input from readers, rather than offering answers?

Blogs, as I so often stress to business blog writers, are not advertisements or sales pieces (even if increasing sales is the ultimate goal of the business owner).  Whatever “selling” goes on in effective blogs is indirect and comes out of business owners sharing their passion, their special expertise and their insights in their field.  When blog posts “work”, readers are moved to think, “I want to do business with him!” or “She’s the kind of person I’ve been looking for!”

Finding may well belong before solving, not only in selling, but in blogging for business!

 

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