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Calls to Action Must make Clear Who’s Asking – and of Whom

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For blog content writers, there’s a moral to the following humorous anecdote I found in Readers Digest:

          Eating breakfast at a diner, a man who had a cup of coffee but no spoon called out to the waitress, “Excuse me, but this coffee is too hot to stir with my finger.” A minute later, the waitress returned with another cup of coffee saying “Here, this one isn’t so hot.”

Sometimes the same type of misunderstanding can elicit the wrong reaction from readers of our blog posts. “We live in a culture of information-saturation. Consumers today are highly-distracted, which is why you need to end your posts with a bang, by including enticing, well-written calls to action,” writtent.com suggests.

In the story, of course, the diner did not know the waitress. Perhaps he thought the humorous approach (talking about stirring the coffee with his finger) would stimulate a smile plus a quick response from the server. He obviously judged the situation incorrectly. As the Brussels event planning firm Spacehuntr cautions, in blogging you have to know your target audience before asking them to act.

When building a plan to connect with an audience, Francesca Pinder advises, consider not only age, gender, and nationality, but where your target readers “hang out”, what they read and watch, and what they’re saying on social media.. Interviews, focus groups, and a lot of very alert listening can help you understand what causes they support.

As content writers, we cannot position ourselves (or our clients) within the marketplace without studying the surroundings for our target audience. And, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements to let readers know who’s asking for the action.

Years ago, I heard a speaker say that if your marketing isn’t working, you might have the wrong story, the wrong stuff, or the wrong audience. In the Readers Digest story, the “audience” was the right one (the server was the correct person from whom to request a utensil); what was wrong was the way the request was worded.

In blogging for business, if you know your target audience, you’re more likely to find the right way to approach them in asking them to take action.

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Blogging Can Bring Dead Horses Back to Life

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This week my Mensa Bulletin is sparking some thoughts about content and content marketing. In “Politics Aside”, Editor Chip Taulbee explains that, while the Mensa organization itself strives to be apolitical, it’s perfectly OK for any Mensan to express his or her own political views. The important thing when writing about any topic, Taulbee stresses, is to come up with novel thoughts. “We’re not trying to be part of the echo chamber. We don’t serve dead horses.”

There’s no doubt about the fact that business bloggers face originality challenges. First of all, as Susannah Gardner and Shane Bailey, authors of Blogging for Dummies, point out, “Anything and everything you see on the Internet is protected by copyright.”  Blog content writers can avoid plagiarism by properly attributing statements to their authors in any of several different ways:

  1. direct quotes
  2. paraphrasing others’ remarks (and explaining where the idea came from)
  3. creating links in your blog posts to other websites

In order to move higher in search rankings, blogs must provide fresh, relevant content. Perhaps even more important, though, bloggers need to introduce fresh ideas simply in order to engage readers’ interest.  But, with the sheer volume of information on the Web on every topic under the sun, how do we keep providing new material in our blog posts week after week, month after month, even year after year?

Almost a decade ago now, in a totally unexpected way, I was fortunate to discover an answer to that very question. I had seen – and absolutely loved – an old TV movie about Marie Antoinette. On the surface, historical film making in general seems the very antithesis of fresh content-centered blog writing for business. As a viewer, I knew how the story would end before it began! Why, then, I asked myself, did I find “Marie Antoinette” so riveting?  Why did I hang on every word of dialogue, waiting for what I knew had long ago already taken place? It wasn’t about the material itself being “fresh”; it was about the “fresh“ point of view. Sure, in high school and college I had studied the events leading up to the French Revolution, but I’d never experienced those events through Marie Antoinette’s eyes.

Readers may know some or all of the information you’re presenting in your business blog, but they need your help putting that information in perspective.  In fact, that’s where blogging for business tends to be at its finest, helping searchers with more than just finding information, but helping them understand its meaning and significance.

“Fresh” doesn’t have to mean “new” facts.  If our content is “fresh” in that it offers a new perspective on familiar information, we have a chance at having our online readers find value in every word.

 

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In Blogging, Don’t Be “Leo the Lip” – Ask for Actiion, but Explain Why

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In my Mensa Bulletin, there was a interesting piece about kindness and meanness, recalling former Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher’s famous quip, “Nice guys finish last.”

The article’s author, Garrison Klueck, thinks the Durocher quote stuck because its meaning is consistent with the general belief that strength and authoritarianism is the most efficient way to run things. Authoritarian parenting involves a “because I said so” approach; authoritative parents, in contrast, explain to children the reasoning behind the rules, Klueck adds.

In blog marketing, calls to action (CTAs) often use imperative verbs designed to provoke immediate positive action: find out more, call now, provide contact information, etc. The concept, Tara Horner explained in “Writing a Better Call to Action”, is to show consumers how to take the next step and to create a sense of urgency around the offer.

At Say It For You, I must admit, we agree with Klueck, advocating a nice-guys-finish-first, authoritative parenting-type approach. Of course content writers must create a sense of  urgency, but, the way we figure it, searchers who’ve found themselves at your blog want to know why they ought to keep reading/foll

Durocher, nicknamed “Leo the Lip” did win games, But, as Garrison Klueck pointed out, so did Tony Dungy, the “universally-embraced- as-a nice-guy football coach” who led the Indianapolis Colts to their 2007 Super Bowl win.

“Whenever you tell someone they’re wrong, your mind goes through a series of specific mental steps to come to that conclusion. In doing so, you are actually harming yourself and your relationship with the others, and you’re killing any chance of anyone bettering themselves from the situation,” advises careerconservatory.com. “Stop telling people they’re wrong.”

As a professional blog copy writer, when I’m working with a new business client, our task is to find just the right “tone” and direction for the series of blogs. Today, the challenge is producing high authority content without sounding authoritarian. Nice blog content writers, we convinced at Say It For You, finish first!

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Reading and Writing – for Blog Content, You Can’t Have One Without the Other

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“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” That advice from none other but bestselling author Steven King is perfect for blog content writers. In fact, I’ve been teaching at Say It For You, in order to create a valuable ongoing blog for your business, it’s going to take equal parts reading and writing.

Reasons “reading around” is so important for bloggers:

  1. 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).
  2. You need a constant flow of ideas. Yes, ideas for blog content can come from everywhere, but those ideas aren’t going to jump right onto your page!
  3. You can improve your own writing skills by reading books about writing (duh!). One favorite of mine is Brandon Royal’s The Little Red Writing Book.

  4. “Tidbits” liven up content. These are nothing more than pieces of unusual or little-known facts that you can use to explain your own products, services, and culture. Again, I have a favorite – The Book of Totally Useless Information, by Don Voorhees.
  5. You’re in the business of blog marketing, so books about selling and marketing are important. Remember, there’s almost no end to information available to consumers, so our job is to help readers absorb and “buy into” that information. New fave? The Challenger Sale, by Neil Rackham.6. In reading around, you gain insight into your customer base and their motivations for reading your blog in the first place. A scholarly article on the motivations recent college grads’ have to read blogs reminded me, of example, to keep tailoring individual blog posts or series to different segments of the client’s customer base.

For all of these reasons, at Say It For You, we teach blog content writers the importance of “reading around” and then “curating” others’ material for the benefit of readers.

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Easy Martha Stewart-Inspired Updates for Blog Content

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“To invigorate the look of old china on your table,” Martha Stewart advises on the “Easy Updates” page of her latest Living magazine issue, “identify common shapes and details to weave through the new elements.” Stewart suggests three specific updating techniques:

  1. Add new patterns.
  2. Play up one color.
  3. Mix mod materials.

Along with antique tableware, blog content can benefit from updating, as we teach at Say It For You, and each of Martha’s tips can serve as a guide for giving a bygone blog post a freshening-up. After all, as Richard Harding Davis so aptly remarked, “The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way, or an old thing in an old way.”

Add New Patterns
“Stick to the colors of your old china to keep the table cohesive, but mix in a serving piece with another motif that compliments it.” In composing blog content, it’s a good idea to repeat themes already covered in former posts, but the trick is to change the pattern by a) adding new information and b) using a different format – listicle, Q&A, comparison, etc.

 

Play Up One Color
“Choose a shade from your pattern that you want to highlight, and let it fly in accent pieces like linens or glasses.” In a blog post or series, link new information to themes you’ve emphasized in former posts, “coloring” new concepts or information by referring to concepts you’ve introduced months or even years ago. As Martha Stewart suggests, the old and new are unified through “color”.

 

Mix Mod Materials
“Elevate older porcelain with glass, wood, metal, or ceramic items that add texture and dimension to your table,” Finding word combinations that resonate with blog readers is a big part of the challenge involved in blog content writing. Since there is a definite generational factor involved in language, knowing your target audience is key. In different posts, therefore, you can alternate a friendly, even humorous tone with a professional, authoritative one.

 

In table settings or in blog content writing, invigorate the look of the old “china” with new patterns and colors.

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