Corporate Blog Writing Sales Momentum Do’s and Don’ts

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Sit through a humdrum sales presentation?  Craig Davidson would rather be poked in the momentumeye with a sharp stick, he asserts in Employee Benefit Advisor magazine.

Of course readers who find their way to your business blog content don’t need to sit through anything.  It’s too easy to "click away" and seek information, products, or services somewhere else.

"Sales momentum", as Davidson defines it, is "the process of creating and maintaining excitement in a buyer with the goal of making a sale."  And, after all, isn’t that the goal of blog content writers in any SEO marketing blog strategy?

Davidson’s Do’s and Don’ts list is one I plan to use in corporate blogging training sessions:

  • Don’t …be boring and pointless.  Blog content writers should aim to engage and to focus attention, in other words to get to the point!
  • Don’t… talk too much. Extraneous material is as distracting and non-helpful in blog content writing as it is in sales presentations.
  • Don’t…practice consultative selling, at least not at the beginning of the encounter. Give the buyer a clear read on what makes you different. Business blog writing needs to focus on the What’s In It For Them!

The one Davidson DO that bloggers for business absolutely must heed is:

Do…stay on message.  "The best sale is a presentation on a singular topic." As an Indianapolis blog writer offering business blogging assistance, I think this particular "do" says it all.  The best writing for business creates individual blog posts that stay on a singular topic, with leitmotifs or ongoing themes tying together the different posts over time.

Writing for business, just like sales presentations, is all about maintaining sales momentum!


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Is Your Corporate Blog a Cheetah Or a Thompson’s Gazelle?

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gazelle"Marketers often forget that the main reason people use the Web is for content…Search engines organize content and direct people to it," explains Ted Demopoulis in What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting.

Often, the questions I field from business owners during corporate blogging training sessions have to do with "speed" and intensity. Basically these entrepreneurs and managers are asking how long and how hard they will need to work at blog content writing in order to "win the race", with winning measured by their blog’s appearance at or near the top of Page 1 on a Google search.

Although I hasten to disclaim any expertise in SEO technology (Say It For You provides business blog writing services and business blogging assistance, working with the company’s advisers on search engine optimization and with their web designer), I can put the question about how long and how hard in context:  In a recent issue of the children’s magazine TIME for Kids,  I found the most wonderful metaphor for business blogging.

Under "Top 5 Fastest Land Animals," the article lists the African Cheetah as the clear winner; the animal clocks 70 miles per hour! Also in the top five, and also from Africa, the Thompson’s gazelle clocks in at 10 miles per hour.  The author’s observation is very telling for anyone planning an SEO marketing blog or anyone needing business blogging help: "The Cheetah is faster, but the gazelle has more staying power."

In my four years as  professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I’ve observed the same phenomenon with corporate blogs.  Putting a lot of new, relevant content online within a condensed time frame can produce Cheetah-like indexing results.  That can be particularly true in local markets where the blogging company’s competitors are making few efforts to enhance their online presence.

On the other hand, the majority of corporate blog writing efforts have tended to taper off rather rapidly, and, with no staying power, companies find that those coveted spots on Page 1 can be easily lost. Thompson’s Gazelle-like blog copy writers, by contrast, maintain the discipline of creating new blog content over weeks, months, and years.

Does your corporate blog have staying power?


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Corporate Blog Writing Leans Towards a More Minimal Style

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Much has been said to – and by – blog content writers on the subject of keeping blog minimalist roomposts short.  Ted Demopoulos, author of What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting, chose Meryl K. Evans as his favorite content maven, and quotes Evans’ advice to "shoot for 500 words or less…Readers want to get to the heart of the matter and get out."

There’s more to the matter, though, than merely counting, then chopping words, as I tell business blog content writers in blogging training sessions.  In business blogging
I explain, we can take our cue from Canadian interior designer Tamar Wouters: "When rooms lean towards a more minimal style, the focal points become more obvious."

Minimalism in blogging, I think, includes making posts readable and easier to look at, with short paragraphs and visual focal points such as graphs, pictures, photos, bullet points and bolding. Word has it that Google likes bullet points as well. Unprofessional lapses, on the other hand, such as misspelling, typos, and grammar errors, draw attention away from the focus of the blog post.

When it comes to the business blog writing itself, I explain to business owners for whom I’m providing blog writing services, minimalism, as with interior design, brings focus.  Presenting, then illustrating, a single concept, leaving the rest for another day, is the very essence of effective blog post creation.

Despite the fact that any SEO marketing blog needs to incorporate keyword phrases in the text in order to help boost search rankings, minimalist good practices apply.  In all my reading of books and blogs on the matter, I’ve never found a specific number put to this idea.  So, by way of providing specificity in this Say It For You post offering business blogging assistance, I’ll suggest a ratio of 1:10 (words in keyword phrases compared to total words in the post).

Readers, as Evans aptly pointed out, do want to get to the heart of the matter, and those providing blog writing services can help readers do just that though focusing on one idea per post.  But as an Indianapolis blog writer, I know that what business owners do not want blog readers to do is "get out".  In fact, corporate blogging for business should be directed at encouraging readers to get in, through clicking through to the business’ website to seek more information, subscribe to the blog, sign up for email or newsletter, or make the digital cash register ring right now!


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I’m Sorry, What Is It You Just Said in Your Business Blog Writing?

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"What I see as the most pressing reason that websites don’t grab their visitor’s attention is What?that when someone arrives at your home page, it is not clear what problems you are solving and what it is that you offer," observes marketing blogger Phil Steele. The message needs to be obvious, Steele stresses, and the navigation also needs to be simple.

As a freelance blog writer offering corporate blogging training, the way I explain Steele’s point is that you must offer online searchers a treasure map. Remember, online readers have found their way to your blog precisely because there’s a match between the products, services, and information they need on the one hand, and what you have, what you do, and what you know on the other. Now that they’ve arrived, you cannot afford to tax their patience by making it difficult for them to

a) understand what you’re saying and
b) navigate their way around your blogsite and website.

You recall the adage "Brevity is the soul of wit"?  Well, clarity is the soul of business blog writing. Not only is clarity vital to maintaining reader engagement, keeping online searchers from quickly "clicking away" to another website to find what they want, but clarity avoids misinterpretation of the message in each post of a SEO marketing blog.

In offering business blogging help, of course, I stress brevity, because effective blog posts focus readers’ attention on one main idea, offering information that’s useful and which encourages action. The reason clarity is so vital to the success of business blog writing, though, is that consumers reading the blog are not trained in whatever the company’s specialty is and therefore do not always know how to judge either  the significance or the intent of the information provided! 

"Being clearly heard by our customers is what it is all about," Steel reminds us, "especially in a world where the information needs of our customer change so quickly."  In fact, the need to continually adapt is precisely why corporate blogging for business can be so effective a tool. Small and nimble, easier and much less expensive to create and change than traditional websites, blogs can provide new information with every post.

And, by achieving clarity in the blog post content, rather than "I’m-sorry-what-is-it-you-just-said?", blog content writers can achieve the "Aaah-that’s exactly-what-I-was looking-for" effect!


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In Writing For Business, Avoid Business Blogging Boomerangs

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Psychology Today Magazine cautions readers against love boomerangs, sweet moves boomerangthat too often, give you the "flipside of your best intentions".

One "sweet move" consists of promises you make to a significant other, promises of lifelong love and commitment.  The problem – "People who have the most positive relationship feelings make bigger promises…but are not any better at keeping them."  Recommendation: Make small, concrete, doable promises, and then keep those.

I think the same advice might be relevant in corporate blogging training, where sound advice to blog content writers would consist of a caution against using blog posts to make overblown claims about the company, the products, or the services. Instead, an SEO marketing blog might focus on offering useful, actionable information in each blog post. The old rule "Under- promise, over-deliver" is certainly applicable in corporate blogging for business.

A second "sweet move" is discreetly avoiding introducing your partner to your attractive, flirty, friends. Removing temptation from a lover’s life, researchers found, makes him or her more likely to cheat! As a content writer in Indianapolis, I’ve seen the blogger equivalent of "removing temptation" in failing to properly attribute phrases or concepts used in business blog writing to their proper source.  A blog content writer might, for example, avoid inserting links to websites he/she considers "temptations" that might lure a customer to a competitor. Needless to say, that "cagey" strategy will more than likely come back to "bite" the jealous blog writer’s company.

The third "sweet move" is offering to split child care duties down the middle with a partner. "When couples attempt to pitch in identically, their parenting styles often clash and actually damage the family dynamic."  Psychology Today quotes researcher Sarah Shoppe-Sullivan: "Co-parenting takes negotiation and communication."

Corporate blogging for business, whether the company is using a business blogging service or having employees do the writing for business, takes negotiation and communication as well.  Although having different styles of writing and highlighting different aspects of the business can each add variety and interest to the corporate blog writing, in corporate blogging training sessions, I recommend building the blog around central themes or "leitmotifs" that remain consistent over time.

But over my years as a freelance blog writer, I realize, I’ve seen many companies launch a blog marketing strategy with "sweet moves", starting out with great expectations, but poor implementation, only to reap the "flipside of their best intentions". In corporate blog writing, as in love, it’s important to avoid the boomerang effect!


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