Posts

Are-Both-Sides-Right Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in /by

“Are both sides right?” asks veterinarian Carrie Donahue, writing in Good Health magazine, alluding to the debate about whether dogs should be on a raw diet or a conventional one. The raw camp emphasizes raw or lightly cooked meat, including organ meat and bones. The conventionalists are concerned about bacteria in raw meat and the threat of choking on bones.

The author concludes by saying that regardless which method is chosen, supplementation is important, going on to offer tips on which supplements help a dog have a healthy coat and skin, and which are beneficial for a pet’s brain, eyes, and heart..

Whether the topic of your blog marketing efforts is plumbing, pets, or pharma, the content itself needs to use opinion. It’s opinion, after all, that clarifies what differentiates your business, your professional practice, or your organization from its peers.  This Good Health article, takes a slightly different approach – airing both sides of a debate.

At Say It for You, I train content writers to reveal their unique “slant” or philosophy within their field.  That way, I explain, potential customers and clients feel they know who you are, not merely what you do,  and they are more likely to want to be associated with you.

For that very reason, one important facet of my job as a content writer is to “interview” business owner and professional practitioner clients, eliciting each one’s very individualized thoughts. The Carrie Donahue article about pet food suggests an alternate approach – present both sides of the story to readers.  When you clarify and put into perspective both sides of a thorny issue within your industry or profession, you’re performing a valuable service for readers.

On the other hand, I have observed, whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, there needs to be a slant on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.

There’s value in Are-Both-Sides-Right blog posts, no doubt, as Carrie Donahue so effectively demonstrates in this article. In the big picture, however, I have to conclude that, to achieve the status of “thought leader” and inspire action, business blog posts will need to involve taking one side of an issue, not both.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Serving Up Incredible Information in Your Business Blog

/0 Comments/in /by

 

For years now, as a blog content writing trainer, I’ve been preaching the use of seemingly “useless” tidbits of information to spice up business blogs, engaging readers’ curiosity, and evoking an “I didn’t know that!” response.
Tidbits can be used to:

  • describe your way of doing business
  • clarify the way one of your products works
  • explain why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem.

While one goal of any marketing blog is to help your business “get found”, once that’s happened, the goal changes to helping the online readers get comfortable with the way you do business. Blog content writing is the perfect vehicle for conveying a corporate message starting with a piece of trivia.

Owners of a grocery store or a food delivery service company, for example, might include trivia about food spoilage in their blog, highlighting their own food safety procedures.

Myth: Food should be defrosted on the kitchen counter.
Truth: When a whole chicken, is left to defrost on the kitchen counter, the surface will defrost first, allowing bacteria to multiply while the inside is still frozen.

 Owners of a health food store might blog about a widespread misunderstanding about spinach, highlighting the body’s need for iron and other nutrients.

Myth: Spinach is a superior source of iron, with ten times the iron content of other green leafy veggies.
Truth: Despite Popeye’s claims, the oxalic acid in spinach prevents the body from absorbing more than 90 percent of the vegetable’s iron.

A realtor’s blog might discuss the perception that a 30-year mortgage is the least expensive option.

Myth: The longer the payment period, the cheaper the payments will be.
Truth: You could end up paying more during the life of the loan if you pick the 30-year option instead of the 15-year mortgage. 

Common myths surround every business and profession.  If you notice a “factoid” circulating about your industry, a common misunderstanding by the public about the way things really work in your field, you can use a little-known tidbit of information that reveals the truth behind the myth.

Serve up “incredibly” credible information in the form of mythbusting tidbits in your blog.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

The 11 Characteristics of Master Business Blog Post Writers

/0 Comments/in , /by


There are eleven characteristics often considered to be women’s strengths, Nancy D. O’Reilly writes in her book In This Together: How Successful Women Support Each Other in Work and Life.

Interesting… was my reaction to that statement. In a content writer of either gender, I couldn’t help thinking, those very eleven strengths would result in a great business blog marketing effort.

1.  Emotional intelligence – the capacity to notice, manage, and express emotions.
Exhibiting emotion in content marketing is a good thing, increasing connection and impact.

2.  Empathy – the ability to understand other people’s feelings.
Corporate blog writing needs to aim for copy that proves the writer understands the problems customers have.

3.  Compassion – sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress and a desire to alleviate it
A skillful blogger creates a connection of understanding and sympathy with the audience that allows readers to be receptive to the message.

4.  Good communication skill – delivering and exchanging information
Bloggers are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into people-to-people terms, trying to find exactly the right tone.

5.  An ability to build relationships – connecting with others
Consumers want social currency, visible symbols of “insider” status and special understanding that they can show off to others.

6.  Multitasking skills – increasing productivity and getting ahead of the competition
Blog content writers spend time “reading around”, writing, illustrating posts with images, and formatting – the combination of skills is what makes for a great end product.

7.  A tendency to collaborate – working with others to produce a result
Business blog writing is a product of interaction – among the owner or practitioner and the writer, the webmaster, and even the employees.

8.  A desire to mentor – assisting someone less skilled
Reinforcing the familiar, then progressing to new information is an effective tactic for business blogging. Introducing your own specialized knowledge and “how-to” tips, positions you as a mentor to readers.

9.  Passion – feeling enthusiasm and excitement
Real enthusiasm  means believing in your industry, your company, your product, and your ability to serve your customers, and conveying that in the blog posts.

10.  Vulnerability – revealing one’s own weaknesses
True stories about mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business or practice.

11.  Endurance – persisting in the face of challenges
Sustaining the writing effort over months and years takes persistence.  By adding a few new items, rearranging some old ones, and staying alert to changing vocabulary and trends, writers can keep the blogs fresh. and new, never running out of things we just can’t wait to say!

O’Reilly’s eleven characteristics, I believe, describe not only women, but blog content writer “greats” of every ilk! 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Can Your Blog Pass the Emotive & Information Power Response Tests?

/0 Comments/in /by


(There’s a test for those, didn’t you know?)

Since emotional response towards advertising plays an important part in building a strong brand, researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, came up with two ways to score ads.

  1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
  2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

So why am I interested in this research? Well, at Say It For You, our business is blog marketing, which means connecting professional practitioners and business owners with prospective clients and customers. And, while I continually preach and teach that blog posts are not ads, but more like advertorials, establishing connections is the name of the game for both advertisers and content marketers

Broadly speaking, the Bath studies showed, there are two types of emotive responses: those based on empathy and those that respond to creativity. In an empathetic response, people feel emotionally closer to the brand; in a creative response, the people feel the brand is imaginative and ahead of the game. “It’s always best if can get both empathy and creative,” Dr. David Brandt writes.

The way that information is communicated has an important influence on how likely people are to believe that information. And for certain advertiser categories, Brandt points out, empathy is more important (food and toiletries, for example), while for other categories (electrical goods or computers, for example), creativity is more important.

Readers of business blog posts fall into two categories, according to Morgan Steward of Media Post Publications:

  1. Deal seekers go online in search of bargains and discounts on products and services they already know and use. The effectiveness of the blog content writing, therefore, would be measured through the “information score”; the content would focus on the cost-effectiveness of your product or service and on any special deals or offers.
  2. Enthusiasts seek information to support their hobbies, interests, and beliefs.
    Blogs aimed at this audience might focus on the “emotive score”. On the other hand, creative packaging, color and shape appeal to these customers, so the “creativity score” can be important as well.

    Can your blog pass the emotive and information power response tests?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

They-Know-Why, You-Know-How Blog Marketing

/0 Comments/in , /by


Even if you’ve never smoked, there’s a lot to learn about blog marketing from the “Josh and Kayla know quitting is hard” TV commercial for NicoDerm CQ®, I was thinking just the other day.

Story power:
You may or may not ever have been addicted to nicotine, but as humans, we’ve always been addicted to stories, Alex Limberg writes in SmartBlogger.com. Stories, he explains, engage a deeper part of our brains than any logical explanation ever could. In the NicoDerm CQ® video, Kayla, leaving her dad’s hospital bedside to grab a smoke with Josh, realizes she needs to quit – she’s found her “why”.

People:
People-based marketing is driving change across the U.S. advertising industry, reports viantic.com. Even if your blog is devoted to marketing product, focus the content on how people will experience using it. The NicoDerm CQ® commercial shows “real” smokers experiencing the “real” challenge of quitting in a “real” human hospital setting. In blogging for business, where face-to-screen is the closest blog content writers come to their prospects,  introducing people (both people working for the company and users of the product or service) can ignite the kind of personal connection that gets readers emotionally involved.

Empathetic:
The “You know why, we know how” slogan is catchy, to be sure. More importantly, the tag line creates an emotional response. While advertising communicates a message about what a brand does, the way the message is conveyed has a greater influence on how likely consumers are to buy, David Brandt of Nielsen explains.  Ads that make people feel closer to a brand have a positive empathetic score.

Targeted:
Obviously, the Nicoderm CQ® ad is focused on a target market – viewers who are smokers, and smokers who know they need to quit.   In the same manner, business blogs must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who will want to do business with you.  Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it.

Advertising is “push marketing, while blogging is “pull marketing”, designed to attract searchers who have already identified their own need for a particular product or service. Those searchers already know why.What your blog content needs to demonstrate is this: you’ve done your homework and understand their “why”.  Your function is to furnish the “how”!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail