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A Grid for Planning Blog Content

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This week’s Say It For You blog posts are based on guidance offered by Jeanette Maw McMurtry in her book Marketing for Dummies…..

As tools for planning how to best market any product or service, marketing maven Jeanne Maw McMurtry recommends using an ESP grid. Since most brands market to more than one segment, she explains, you’ll want to create and deliver content that’s specific and relevant to each type of customer. Segments might include:

  • different generations
  • different emotional needs
  • different professions or industries
  • different geographic areas
  • different levels of authority within a company

For each segment of your market, the author recommends, consider the following factors:

  1. Respect accorded to authorities – (does this audience form its own opinions, or tend to emulate authority figures?)
  2. Values – (what cultural values are most important and how driven is this audience by those values?)
  3. Messaging – (what promises must be made to this audience?)
  4. Creative – (what colors and fonts will work best for this audience? How important is mobile access to the content?)
  5. Trust – (what level of trust does this audience tend to have in content presented to them?)

In working with so many different business owners and professional practitioners over the years, we’ve come to realize that customers want to help “fill in the ESP grid for their providers.” In fact, we tell Say It For You clients, customers want and need to “feel heard”; and it’s often unnecessary to initiate formal market research procedures in order to gather valuable insights into what’s working and what is not.

Of course, the very fact that searchers found their way to your page indicates their interest in the subject of your blog, but now the content writing challenge is to create those “targeted and personalized experiences.” In fact, the process of creating ESPs is ongoing, with the blog content creation constantly adapting to new customer and reader feedback.

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Creating Hormonal Blog Content

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Hormones affect choice, Jeanette Maw McMurtry explains in Marketing for Dummies. Neurotransmitters affect the actions we take related to finding joy and avoiding fear and pain.

  • Dopamine makes us feel infallible and euphoric.
  • Oxytocin gives us a feeling of connection and validation.
  • Cortisol makes us feel threatened and fearful.
  • Serotonin makes us feel calm and upbeat.

Marketers of products and services, McMurtry stresses, must learn to develop ESPs (emotional selling propositions), rather than the much-touted USPs. How will what you’re offering help buyers feel glamorous, confident, secure, superior, or righteous?

Research by psychologist Daniel Kannemann found that when people are faced with risking something in order to gain a reward, they will most often choose to avoid the risk. As a blog marketer ,then, consider how your product or service helps users avoid loss/ embarrassment/ risk.  Identify the fear that drives your customer, McMurty says, then diminish it, presenting a visible solution to the problem.

Know your target audience, the author urges. Think about which aspect of their personality best predicts their behavior and which form of “hormone” or psychological fulfillment your brand helps support. Should you be focusing on:

  • “scarcity” (only a limited supply of a product is available, the introductory price for a service is about to end; supplies are dwindling)
  • “purpose and mission” (socially responsible, environmentally responsible, charitable purpose)
  • “prestige” (feelings of superiority associated with the ownership of luxury goods)
  • “health and fitness” (appealing to fear of illness and a desire for longevity)

“Ask yourself key questions about the psychological fulfillment your brand helps support,” McMurtry recommends.

Creating “hormonal blog content” means perceiving – and then presenting/seeing your product’s value in the light in which your customers’ subconscious minds will!

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Master Chefs and Master Content Writers Stay Up on Current Things

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After winning the “Beat Bobby Flay” cooking competition in 2017, Indianapolis restaurateur Steve Oakley explained that what keeps him inspired after twenty years in the restaurant business is – reading a lot. Looking at a book is inspirational to him, along with “just talking with customers about experiences they have”, Oakley explains. Dean Sample, a former employee of Oakley’s (now a head chef in his own right) had this to say of his former mentor: “To be doing it as long as he has and still have that interest and still trying and experimenting with different things all the time, it’s pretty impressive. He stays up on all kinds of current things in the world of chefs and restaurants.” The other part of being a chef, Oakley now tells IndyStar reporter Cheryl Jackson, is that “if you want to be recognized, you have to get out there in different ways. You can’t just limit yourself to cooking in your restaurants…you’ve got to get out, meet the people, and shake their hands”.

Blog content writers can do no better than follow the Oakley “playbook”. In fact, “reading around”, we often stress at Say It For You, is a crucial habit. You need to keep up with what others are saying on your topic. What’s in the news? What problems and questions have been surfacing that relate to your industry or profession (or that of your client?). Not only do you need a constant flow of ideas, but you can improve your own writing skills by reading books about writing. And, in the business of blog marketing, books about selling and marketing help keep your skills sharp.

Notice that Steve Oakley’s “content” is refreshed by more than reading. Getting out and meeting the people, talking with customers about experiences they have is crucial when it comes to keeping blog content relevant. In Journalism 101, I was taught to “put a face on the issue” by beginning articles with a human example . A case study takes that personalization even further, chronicling a customer or client who had a certain problem or need, taking readers through the various stages of how the product or service was used to solve that problem. What were some of the issues that arose along the way? What new insights were gained through that experience, on the part of both the business and the customer?

Master chefs and master content writers stay up on current things!

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Content Writers Can Never Cease to Learn

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This is the fourth in a series of Say It For You blog posts in which I’m sharing valuable content writing tips from current magazine issues…

In this month’s issue of Mystery Scene, Linda Castello writes, “I became obsessed with learning about the Amish.” Castello, author of 14 mystery books about the Amish, has no Amish family background, nor any background in law enforcement. In fact, her work history consists of managing franchise accounts for Domino’s Pizza! Obsessed with bringing reality to her suspense novels, she:

  • participated in 12-week Citizens Police Academy courses
  • went on ride-alongs with police, often during the graveyard shift
  • went through firearms training
  • spent time in the burglary, K-9, and coroner’s departments of the Texas policeThe article about a franchise account manager writing suspense novels about the Amish answers a question often asked of me and of my writers at Say It For You: How can we ghost bloggers write for business owners and professional clients without being trained in those fields ourselves?

    The answer is constant curiosity and learning. We may not be doctors lawyers, auto mechanics, travel guides, gourmet chefs, or  tax experts – but we can still “play one”! Of course, we are specialists – in writing, and in particular, writing for the Web, posting short, engaging pieces using keyword phrases with consistency over extended periods of time. As content writers, we offer our clients’ blog visitors a more personal and even a more analytical perspective on the information they might find on the company website.  Often, precisely because we’re industry “outsiders”, learners, we are actually better able to approach the subject in ways online searchers will understand.

    Just as Castello was able to sustain excitement and suspense in 14 different Amish novels, sustaining an engaging business blog (your own or as a content writer for clients) over the course of years is very do-able – so long as you stay engaged.  What I’ve found over the years is that, as long as I keep learning, I stay excited and readers can sense that in the content. Just as Costello goes on “drive-alongs” with police, my team and I do “reading around” – books, blogs, articles, magazines, almanacs – you name it, all to stay aware of developments, cultural changes, even controversies in our clients’ fields.

    Good content writers never cease to learn!

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How-I-Did_It Business Blogging

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Again, in this week’s Say It For You blog posts, I’m sharing valuable content writing tips from current magazine issues. Reading through the September 2022 Inc. Magazine, I was struck by the effectiveness of the “How I….” series of business leader stories:

  • how I persuaded my mom and dad to let me run our home-grown beverage brand (Boolyte)
  • how I re-imagined the farmers’ market to deliver local food everywhere (MarketWagon)
  • how I built a home care company during a healthcare labor crisis (BarbaraKares)
  • how I got sweaty and muddy and made non-alcoholic beer cool (Athletic Bravery)
  • how I took on the immigration system to help thousands get their green cards (Boundless Immigration)

    “History is something very important, and fundamental even in the way we communicate as humans. Tell a great story on your blog and you can capture the attention, distract, enlighten, and even persuade… and all this in just a few minutes,” explains Paul Kellin of BlogPasCher. Every great story needs a hero who is transformed as the story unfolds, Kellin says. Ultimately, he explains, it’s your customer who is the hero, who will be transformed by your products and services.

Authenticity is powerful in blog marketing. Through how-we-did-it stories, readers can be provided an intimate view of your journey and what went into developing your products and services. In fact, a survey quoted by Sprout Social showed that 72% of consumers want to learn more about the people behind their favorite brands. How-I-did-it marketing needs to also include how-I-failed stories, we teach blog content writers at Say It For You – writing about past failures is important. Remember that true stories about mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business. Ironically, I often find that business owner and professional practitioner clients of mine are so close to the subject matter of their own business battles, they don’t realize that these stories can actually be used as marketing tools.

How-I-did-it business blogging can prove to be a very effective way to “get it done”!

 

 

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