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Shakespeare Could Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two

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Spacehuntr, Brussels’ fastest growing platform for scouting and booking event spaces in European cities, is apparently in the process of recruiting a content creator. If you feel Shakespeare could learn something from you, the company teases, you’re the candidate we’re seeking. (Myself, I am much too busy copywriting at Say It For You to be looking for a job, thank you. Still, that line got me thinking about the Bard and what he might have to teach today’s generation about content marketing…)

Meanwhile, one of Spacehuntr’s own recent blog posts caught my interest: Know your target audience: 10 ways to understand your people. When building a persona (a semi-fictional representation of the people with whom you’re attempting to connect), don’t consider only basic stats such as age gender, and nationality. Think ‘psychographic’, advises author Gareth Platt. Techniques for gaining insight into this audience, (many of which we have been incorporating in our Say It For You blog marketing for years), include:

1. running focus groups
While even the largest of my Say It For You blog clients is probably tiny compared to the largest of European corporations, I think blogs can perform a focus group function. Blog readers would weigh in on their own time in the form of responding to surveys, offering ideas or ratings – all good techniques to stimulate interaction with target customers.

2. using social media (posting opinions, asking questions, using hashtags)
As a freelance blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I find there’s some confusion about what distinguishes blogs from other social networking tools. Blogs, I believe, are a little more focused. The blogger serves as a “keynote speaker” in control of the discussion, yet still allows for questions and comments from the audience. I would agree with Spacehuntr’s focus on gaining insight into your audience, which means finding out where they “hang out” online and showing up there.

3. studying the competition

Regular readers of this Say It For You blog will recall that I advise business bloggers to read ten articles or other blogs for every blog post they write, and I follow that advice myself. We cannot position ourselves within the marketplace without studying our surroundings. And, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements. Each “visit” should conclude with readers understanding exactly what your unique philosophy or mission is, and why your approach can be beneficial to them.

So… were I inclined to apply for that copywriting position at spacehuntr, I’d be sure to mention that my college major was English and that I studied Shakespeare’s plays in detail. I’m sure the Bard would be properly impressed with the speed of digital communication today. I’m not sure I could teach him anything about understanding people, because his plays are full of the same humor, romance, tragedy, and insight we look for in good writing today. In fact, I suspect Shakespeare could teach us blog content writers a thing or two!

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Blogging B2B in 2020 and Beyond

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There’s more than one way to reach out to B2B customers, explains Callum King of American Image. In fact, he suggests companies consider using no fewer than 24 different marketing strategies for 2020 and beyond. In that spectrum, blogs constitute one of the five types of content marketing, King points out, along with white papers, webinars, infographics, case studies, and white papers.

In addition to those different forms of content marketing, King reminds readers, there are other ways to reach B2B target customers, including social media, paid online advertising, conferences and trade shows, being interviewed for trade publications, and automated email campaigns. On a whole other level, brand awareness can even be enhanced through affiliate marketing and the use of influencers.

“The most important thing to do when implementing marketing strategies,” the author reminds B2B marketers, “is to do it with purpose,” meaning based on knowledge of your target audience — who they are, how and when they shop.

While at Say It For You, our primary focus is on web page content and content marketing through blogs, I found several of Callum King’s observations particularly relevant to our work with business owners and professional practitioners:

This new buyer likes to be informed. More than two-thirds of their buying process is completed before they approach a seller.

The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.  It’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to “flesh out” the intangibles, those things that make a company stand out from its peers. For every fact about the company or about one of its products or services, a blog post addresses unspoken questions such as “So, is that different?”, “So, is that good for us?” 

“Pick another company or business person to co-host or collaborate on the broadcast.” 

Linking to someone else’ remarks on a subject you’re covering in your blog can reinforce your point, adding value for your readers while showing you’re in touch with trends in your field. Curating others’ work – bloggers, authors, speakers – is a wonderful technique for adding variety and reinforcement to your own content. 

“79% of B2B buyers read case studies and find value in them.” 

Stories of all kinds – customer testimonials, famous incidents from the news, Hollywood doings, folklore – you name it – help personalize a business blog. Case studies are particularly effective in creating interest, because they are relatable and real, “putting faces” on problems and solutions.

* Share your thoughts on big events in the business world and “establish the company as thought leaders with your fingers on the pulse”.

B2B blog content writers can “enter conversations” that are trending at the time, tying blog content to current events.

Business owners should find Callum King’s overview of the many tools available for B2B marketing encouraging to say the least, offering an opportunity to craft a mix to taste. At Say It For You, we like to recall a piece by Corey Wainright of Hubspot: “Every time you write a blog post, it’s one more indexed page on your website, which means it’s one more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your website in organic search”.

Blogs may be just one of 24 or more possible approaches to B2B marketing in 2020 and beyond, but we believe blog content writing will be at least share center stage!

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Put the Main Blog Idea on the End Cap

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“Supermarkets have gone to great lengths to make you think that ‘impulse buy’ was really an impulse,” observe the authors of The Big Book of Big Secrets, explaining that the ‘end caps”, shelves at the outer end of each aisle, are “the equivalent of beachfront property.”. Although supermarkets use other tactics to promote their wares, including mood lighting and even aromas, studies have shown that placing items on end caps can boost sales by as much as a third, not because those items re on sale, but because end cap placement conveys the impression that those items are special. A second grocery store tactic is based on studies showing that the average grocery shopper is “lazy”, tending to choose things placed at eye level. (Some marketers put the most expensive items there – on purpose, the authors note.) When it comes to blogging for business, I teach at Say It For You, the “end caps” of blog marketing are titles and closing lines.

Let’s talk first about titles. There are two basic reasons titles matter so much in blogs:

  1. search – key words and phrases, especially when used in blog post titles, help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.
  2. reader engagement – after you’ve been “found”, you’ve still gotta “get read”, I remind our business owner and professional practitioner clients.

While “pow opening lines” can come in different flavors, in helping high school and college students write effective essays, I often suggest they introduce their readers to both their topic and their thesis, doing both those things on the “end cap” where they’ll get the most attention. That way, I teach each the student writer, your readers will understand not only what issue will be under discussion, but “which side” you’re going to take.

In business blog writing, for the opening “end cap”, you may choose to present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy, challenging statement. Later, on the “back end” of your blog “aisle”, your “pow” closing statement ties back to the opener, bringing your post full circle.

Main blog marketing ideas belong on the end caps!

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Blogging to Show How the Land is Really Shaped

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“Spook hills”, such as the one in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada have become tourist spots, because in those locations, objects appear to move uphill on a slightly downward road. Paranormal believers have their own theories about this, and scientists once assumed a magnetic anomaly was at play. However, advanced physics now shows that “magnetic hills” are nothing more than optical illusions due to “visual anchoring of the sloping surface.” What actually occurs, we know understand, is that if the horizon is either not seen or not level, people’s eyes are fooled by objects they expect to be vertical but aren’t.

Debunking myths requires an understanding of how misinformation works, according to theconversation.com. “First and foremost, you need to emphasize the key facts you wish to communicate rather than the myth. Otherwise, you risk making people more familiar with the myth than with the correct facts.” Next, you need to replace the myth with an alternative narrative, “fighting sticky ideas with stickier ideas.”

Interesting. As far back as 2009, in Say It For You’s second year of creating marketing blogs for businesses and professional practices, I understood that while one of the functions of a marketing blog is debunking myths in that abound in every profession or industry, we needed to “give the camel a coat”. I’d read in Zoo Vet, of all places, that camels build up resentment towards their human handlers, who can calm the animals by handing over their own coat to the beast to jump on and tear to pieces.

From that article on camel behavior, I learned a valuable metaphoric lesson about blog content writing – readers don’t like to be “made wrong”. As content writers, then, we need to “throw them a coat” in the form of intriguing, little-known information about the company’s products and services, about the company founders, or about the industry or profession. While addressing misinformation shines light on the practice or business owner’’ special expertise, the technique must be used with caution, so that readers feel smarter, not “shown up”.

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Content Creators – Craftsmen, Not Artists

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“If you build something for a specific purpose, you measure success by how well your creation serves that function. If you make pure art, your accomplishment is exclusively determined by how the creation makes you feel,” posit the authors of The Big Book of Big Secrets. “A craftsperson also follows a creative spirit, but his or her desire for artistic fulfillment is secondary to the obligation to make something that is functional.”

By that definition, I realized, all of us business blog content writers can definitely call ourselves craftspersons in that we follow a creative spirit in making our content functional for both our clients and their customers. In fact, Marc Prosser of SCORE names some very practical, functional reasons for business and practice owners to keep their business blogs active, including:

  • to drive traffic to your website
  • to inform customers about the good work you do
  • to promote a positive employer brand
  • to share testimonials to earn the trust of new clients
  • to establish your authority in your field

A functional professional blog, content strategist Laura Lynch of buildcreate.com adds, does all these things most effectively when it is presented in an attractive design. Images are what calls attention to high value content, Lynch asserts.

In fact, we’ve found at Say It For You, creating business blog content involves a mix of craftsmanship and artistry. Researchers at the University of Bath actually devised a score for ads that involves two measures: information power and emotive power. While I continually preach that blog posts are not ads, establishing connections is our function as content marketers.

As craftspersons, then, we content writers do what Jonah Berger, in his book Contagious, describes, which is offer useful, practical, functional advice and information. That kind of information and advice has utility, meaning it is useful, saving time, saving money, or improving health. Another form of “utility” is social currency, Berger explains, meaning the content offers ways for people to achieve visible symbols of “insider” status, helping them keep up with prevalent trends.

What is this “craft” called content marketing? We use creativity, not to satisfy our own creative urge, but to keep on telling the business’ or the practice’s story in its infinite variations over long periods of time. We know that readers who end up as clients and customers have self-selected rather than being persuaded.

 

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