Posts

How Committed and How Motivated Are Your Business Blog Readers?

/0 Comments/in /by


“To me, when people talk about the fact that employees are not engaged, that means they’re missing what’s in it for them,” Margarida Correia writes in Employee Benefit News. “Employers need to help their employees understand how their lives are better because they are employed at the company.”

“Employee engagement represents the levels of enthusiasm and connection employees have with their organization,” Alexis Croswell of Culture Amp adds. It’s a measure of:

  • how motivated people are to put in extra effort.
  • how committed they are to stay there.

Notice the order, if you please, in which I presented these comments from two benefits experts.
If employees don’t first understand how their own lives are better because they are working at the company and how their own interests are being served, they are unlikely to commit to stay with that company and to put in that extra measure of effort.

Exactly that same order of priority will be operative when it comes to readers engaging with the content in a company’s – or a professional practice’s blog. 

Blog content marketing based solely on the features of products and services is simply not likely to work. Certainly, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning statements and describe a value proposition. But blogs must do more, far more. Just why, exactly, should all those features and benefits you’ve spent paragraphs describing make any real difference to them?

At Say It For You, I’m fond of saying that in writing content for business blogs, the “what” needs to come before the “who”.  The opening sentences of each post must make a clear connection between “what” the searcher needs and the “what” your business or practice can offer to fulfill that need. The first order of business is writing about them and their needs. Only after that’s accomplished should you be writing about what you do, what you know, and about what you know how to do.

Just as those employee benefits experts talked about getting employees to commit to staying at the company, a blog has a “retention” function as well.  Engaged readers might decide at any point that they:

  • are ready to learn more
  • have a question to ask
  • are ready to sign up
  • are ready to buy

That would be a wonderful result, of course, so long as the navigation path on your website isn’t a nuisance.  Like unmotivated employees, unmotivated readers will not be willing to put in extra effort to satisfy their needs. Both the content itself and the navigation path on the website had better be easy to digest.

Don’t let your readers miss “ the What’s-in-it-for-them” in your business blog!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Boxing Day Mythbusting for Bloggers

/0 Comments/in , /by


Discovered a mild case – or an epidemic – of counterproductive thinking when it comes to your industry or profession? Blog posts are the perfect medium for “mythbusting” to dispel that counterproductive thinking.

Since our last Say It For You post (dealing with Santa’s red outfit and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer), Boxing Day was celebrated in the UK and Australia.  Many think Boxing Day is for boxing up and returning gifts you don’t want, but that’s not the case at all. It was on Boxing Day that, in the Middle Ages, churches would open their alms boxes and dole out the money to the poor.

One very simple format blog content writers can use when mythbusting is to simply list common myths surrounding a particular business, debunking each one. Oxygen Magazine does exactly that in the article “Sacking Sleep Myths” lists 5 myths. Each myth is followed by a paragraph full of debunking facts. It’s a myth, for example, your relationship will suffer if you don’t sleep with your partner. “Night divorce” can actually improve sleep patterns and in turn improve the relationship.

In a second mythbusting article in Oxygen. writer Jenna Aytyiru Dedic takes a different tack, using a claim/verdict format. Claim: Joint pain is exacerbated by cold weather. Verdict: False. There is no evidence that cold itself is at all culpable.

The debunking function of business blog writing is very important.  Blog content writing has the power to clear the air, replacing factoids with facts, allowing readers to see their way to clear to making decisions.

Offering little-known explanations that explode common myths is one way to engage readers’ interest, to be sure.  The next step, however, has to be leading into myths and little known details related to our own products, services, and company history, and providing a value-packed “verdict” for each false claim or misunderstanding.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Business Blogging – Don’t Forget What It Means

/0 Comments/in , , /by


“To me, when people talk about the fact that employees are not engaged, that means they’re missing what’s in it for them…how their lives are better because they are employed by the company,” observes Dana Polyak in a recent issue of Employee Benefit News. 

Back to Radio Station WIIFM, that old sales training rule that all employers – and all of us writers of marketing blogs had better remember: employees want to know What’s In It for Me; buyers care about benefits, not features.

A number of years ago, in a brochure marketing professional Al Trestrail shared with me, he taught that after each feature  of the products and services your business or practice offers, you need to add the words “which means that…” What I took out of that discussion with Trestrail was that there are millions of blog posts out there making claims of one sort or another.  But what do those claims mean to the customers and clients reading the blog???

When people switch jobs, Polyak comments, they are ultimately seeking something more. “More” might mean better compensation, better benefits, better hours, shorter commutes, or more praise and recognition. At Say it For You content writing training sessions, I remind attendees that there has to be a “reason why” readers would follow the Calls to Action in a blog: Does your company or practice do things faster? Operate at a lower cost? Make fewer errors? Offer greater comfort? Provide a more engaging experience? In other words, What’s In It For Them?

In the current job market, Dana Polyak concedes, “there are a lot more jobs available than there are people available to fill those jobs.” In marketing, with both our existing customers and clients and the new ones we’re seeking to win over, it’s the same way.  “If you want to start beating your competitors, you will need to have a very good strategy in place, Smarta.com advises. But being cheaper may not be enough. What might well be enough is demonstrating that your product is:

  • of better quality
  • rarer
  • easier to use
  • safer
  • more efficient
  • more compact
  • more retro
  • more water-resistant
  • more beautiful
  • greener
  • fresher

As blog content writers, we need to understand the features of the products and services we promote, but we must never forget to explain What’s In It For Them!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Who Did What? Clarifying pronoun References in Your Business Blog

/0 Comments/in , /by

pronoun references“Your readers will appreciate it, even if they aren’t conscious of why,” says Laura Yates, introducing the Grammar Cheatsheet for Bloggers with the comment that getting grammar right will make you a better writer. In fact, Yates asserts, “the purpose of grammar is not to be 100%, absolutely correct.  It’s to make your writing easier to understand.”

 

Even in the more informal style bloggers use, unclear pronoun references leave readers wondering who, exactly, did what. Whenever you use a pronoun, make sure it’s clear what the antecedent is for that pronoun The antecedent, the York University website explains, is the noun to which that pronoun refers. “Jane told Helen that no one would take her away.” (Who is “her”?  Who won’t be taken away – Jane or Helen?)

Towson Education observes that “Unfortunately, it is very easy to create a sentence that uses a pronoun WITHOUT a clear unmistakable noun antecedent”, and offers the following example: “After putting the disk in the cabinet, Mabel sold it.”  (What was sold – the disk? the cabinet?).“
“The supervisors told the workers they would receive a bonus.” (Who will be getting the bonus – the supervisors or the workers?) A pronoun should have only one, clear and unmistakable, antecedent, Towson teaches.

Try your hand at rewriting the following two sentences:  (The first two examples come from the Writing Commons website, the others from blogs I actually read today.) Remember you’re your purpose is to make clear to readers just who did what to whom:

  1. “President George Washington and his vice president, John Adams, had a difficult relationship, which he wrote about in letters to friends.”  (Who wrote the letters?)
  2. “American students differ from European students in that they expect more personalized attention.” (Who expects personalized attention?)
  3. “The answers were a bit comical to me, not to downplay their situations, but the fact they actually used the written form communication and ultimately it was enough evidence to have a restraining order against them.” (The answers? The people?)
  4. “Whereas Microsoft restricts access to files and locks users out, multiple people can collaborate and work on a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide at the same time. And it automatically saves your work! “  (What saves – Microsoft? Google Doc?)

Who did what to whom? Clarify the references in your business blog!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Blogger Resources for Grammar Guidance

/0 Comments/in , /by

“Content writers in Indianapolis – take courage!” I wrote back in 2012. “ If your marketing blog posts are filled with valuable, relevant, and engaging material, your use of ‘a lot’ when you should have said ‘many’,” substituting ‘your’ for ‘you’re’, or inserting an apostrophe in the pronoun ‘its’ aren’t going to constitute deal breakers.”

But could they? In corporate blogging training sessions, in which the business owner and professional practitioner attendees largely serve as their own editors, I urge no-error erring on the side of caution. 

Yes, I know the online crowd likes to be informal, and yes, blogs are supposed to be less formal and more personal in tone than traditional websites. But when a sample of corporate blog writing is posted in the name of your business (or in the case of Say It For You writers, in the name of a client’s business), the business brand is being “put out there” for all to see. True, most readers will merely scan your content and won’t pay very close attention to details like those. Some might, though, and you cannot afford to have potential customers noticing your lack of care.

“Every time you make a typo, Richard Lederer writes, “the errorists win.” Lederer’s the author of the audiobook Grammar for Success, and just one of the resources I use for help in the GD (grammar disfuction) department.  Here are some others:

  1. “If you’re running a blog, getting grammar right is really helpful. For one thing, it will protect you from roaming gangs of Grammar Nazis patrolling the internet. But more important, it’ll make you a better writer. Your readers will appreciate it, even if they aren’t conscious of why,” explains the Grammar Cheatsheet for Bloggers (offered by GrammarBook.com).   
  2. “English has borrowed from many other languages and as a result, it is very complex. There are numerous rules concerning English grammar, and many exceptions to those rules,” observes the Grammarist, which includes an especially useful list of easily confused words – do you know the difference between “pending” and “impending”?
  3.  “However, there is one type of verb that doesn’t mix well with adverbs. Linking verbs, such as feel, smell, sound, seem, and appear, typically need adjectives, not adverbs. A very common example of this type of mixup is “I feel badly about what happened,” cautions Grammarly, where you can “find answers to all your writing conundrums with our simple guide to English grammar rules”.

Professional blog content writers of the world, unite! Are you going to stand there and let those errorists win??

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail