Archive for category: the Say It For You blog

As a business blogging trainer, one concern I hear a lot from business owners is that they’ll run out of things to say in their blog posts.  Many can think of a fairly long list of things they want to share about their products, their professional services, their customer service standards, and their overall fix on their industry or profession.  But, looking at their business blog from the front end, most can’t even imagine what they’ll have to say two weeks from the start date of their blog, much less two or three years into the future!

Dr. Orison Swett Marden, father of the self-help movement in America, has some relevant advice: "Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther."

I found a very practical tip in an article by Steve Merchant in The Mind, in which Merchant explains the difference between two common abbreviated Latin terms, e.g. and i.e.. Both can be used to help keep blog post ideas flowing. E.g. stands for exempli gratia (for example), while i.e. stands for id est (that is), Merchant explains. 

Effective blog posts are centered around key themes. As we each continue to write about our industry, our products, and our services, we’ll naturally find ourselves repeating some key ideas – in fact, that’s exactly what we should be doing to keep our blogs focused and targeted. The variety will come from the e.g. and the i.e’s.

It’s the different examples we use – of ways our company’s products can be helpful or the ways problems are solved using our services – that lend variety to our blog posts, even though those posts may be centered around the same few central ideas. We can incorporate unusual comparisons and illustrations to help explain our subject or to debunk myths. Continuing to write on the same topic, using different e.g’s allows us bloggers for business to continually present interesting and engaging material to engage online readers.

The i.e.’s work in much the same way.  As bloggers for business, we say some of the same things over time, but we use other words to lend variety to our blog posts. And, since our blog is our teaching tool, we must remember that "students" learn differently. One online visitor might prefer a detailed listing of features and benefits of our products and services, while another might become more engaged by a testimonial or a tie-in with the news.

Our websites typically contain the main facts about our business –  who we are, what we do, and how we help solve problems. The blog posts are variations on those basic themes. 

In other words, what allows us bloggers to keep going as far as we can see, and then, when we get there, to go even further, IS the fact that blogs are "in other words"!

 

Attending a trade show for one of her clients, marketing professional Amy Lemen experienced an "Aha!" moment about the "who" and the "how".

Most of the vendors at the show, Lemen realized, demonstrated through their displays and messages that they knew who their target customers were.  In other words, most of the trade show companies were OK on the "who" part.

But only a handful of vendors, she noticed, were OK on the "how", meaning how to let their customers know their business "was specifically focused on meeting their target customers’ unique set of needs."

The Lemen article might have been discussing the key challenge for business bloggers.  Your website content and blog posts can demonstrate that you’re offering all the right products and services your online visitors need. Despite that, you might still be experiencing a very high "bounce rate", meaning that visitors to your blog are thinking to themselves "No, that’s not what I meant!"

Identifying target customers is only half the battle, Lemen points out.  "The other half is appropriately signaling to your target customers that you understand, serve, and are targeting them." One way to accomplish that, she says, is by offering cues that you understand the situations and challenges they face when they’re using your type of product or service.

The more your customers "see" how you understand them and are dedicated to them, the more differentiated and persuasive you become, according to Lemen. As a professional ghost blogger and blog trainer, I couldn’t agree more.  Because of their short, informal, and ongoing conversational style, blogs are actually the perfect vehicle for putting out such targeted "cues" saying "I see you. I really see you!"
 
You’ve used blogs to win search and you’ve been found.  They’ve seen you. Now it’s your turn to demonstrate to those potential clients that you really see them!