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What Does it Take to be a Sophisticated Blog Marketer?

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arrogant blond sexy girl. red dressThe original meaning of the word “sophisticated” was quite different from the way we think of it today, author Bill Brohough teaches in The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use .  To “sophisticate” something was to adulterate it by mixing it with something inferior, so being sophisticated meant the opposite of genuine.

When it comes to online marketing – even using the description “sophisticated” as we understand that word today (meaning cultured and refined) –  what qualities set that level of marketing apart? “What is a ‘sophisticated marketer’, anyway?” asks Alex Rynne of LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions blog, gathering responses from various marketers.

Some different “takes” on the question include:

  • one who focuses on results over marketing tactics and activities
  • one whose marketing is not elitist and complicated
  • someone who takes both old and new marketing techniques and executes them in a calculated hybrid of strategies
  • one who delivers the right kind of information to buyers across the entire customer lifecycle.
  • one who questions each premise and considers alternatives

To sell a product or service, you must market it differently depending on what stage of sophistication your market is in at the time, Todd Brown shares in his blog post “The Greatest Marketing Lesson I Ever Learned.”

Often, sophistication means simplification, I teach newbie Indianapolis blog content writers. Matching our writing to our intended audience is part of the challenge we business blog content writers face. After all, we’re not in this to entertain ourselves – we’re out to retain the clients and customers we serve and bring in new ones, so we try to use words and sentences to which our target readers can relate.

 

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People Who Don’t Even Like You Are Reading

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Microphone on standLearning that someone had posted a negative remark about him on social media, WIBC radio talk show host Tony Katz quipped, “People who don’t even like me are listening!”

Now, there’s an observation we blog content writers would do well to keep in mind.  Granted, Katz is “out there” in terms of his content, and you may think your content, by comparison, is tasteful and non-offensive.  Truth is, anybody who’s posting content on social media is putting themselves and their business “out there” – (isn’t that the point?).

Online entrepreneur Mike Filsaime coined the moniker “cowboys”, referring to people in online forums who don’t like something you’ve posted and make it a personal mission of theirs to attack you in public forms, negative comments, or blogs.

“As your blog becomes more popular,” writes Yaro Starak in Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, you’ll receive more comments. Some people are going to be negative, argumentative, or not agree with what you’ve written in your blog, Starak warns. There are four possible ways to respond, he says. You could:

  • delete the comment
  • censor it by deleting parts
  • respond in anger

The best course of action, Starak advises, is to use negative comments to demonstrate your own credibility, using a calm, “your-side-of-the-story”, response.

Editor Esther Schindler, writing in Forbes, agrees. Treat the commenter with respect, she advises. Acknowledge the point he makes, then point to the data that led to your differing conclusion. “Always keep the discussion about the subject of the article, not the people.”

In fact, I remind newbie business bloggers, one of the special things about blogs is that they’re available not only for reading, but for acting and interacting.  Good blogs invite readers to post comments and encourage them to subscribe to your blog.

Marketing online begins with attracting eyeballs to our content. It’s a good sign, as Tony Katz reminded us through his on-air quip, when people who don’t even like us are reading our blogs!

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Think Differently About Your Blog

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Powerful Writing Skills

 

“Organize and present your ideas with a targeted reader in mind,” advises Richard Anderson in Powerful Writing Skills. “Don’t be satisfied with putting down data and results or observations and opinions.  Find a way to make this information meaningful to your reader.”

That doesn’t mean you should talk down to your readers, Anderson cautions. Think of your readers as being just as intelligent and sincere about their jobs as you are about yours. (Even if they aren’t, he points out with tongue in cheek, they’ll appreciate you assuming they are.) Respecting readers helps them see you as intelligent and well-informed, so try to imagine, Anderson adds:

  • what they might ask you
  • what they might object to
  • what they might already know
  • what they might find interesting

In blogging for business, of course, there’s a fifth thing to try to imagine: what you want the reader to DO as a result of reading your post. Each business blog post should impart one new idea or call for a single action. Focused on one thing, your post has greater impact, since people are bombarded with many messages each day. Respecting readers’ time produces better results for your business.

Not only must you as a writer think differently about your reader, you must think differently about your subject, Richard Anderson stresses. Imagine you’re writing a memo or a letter. Studies show that readers respond positively to memos and letters that contain a sense of the writer’s enthusiasm, Anderson points out. That doesn’t mean announcing your excitement, he adds – let the subject speak for itself.

When you blog, you verbalize the positive aspects of your business, reviewing the benefits of your products and services, constantly providing yourself with training about how to talk effectively about your business. In communicating the information to others, you can end up thinking differently about yourself!

 

 

 

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Bring Just Enough, Not Too Much, to the Beginning of Your Blog Post

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Female speaker at the board. Business conference
“Occasionally, speakers try to bring too much to their opening paragraph.  They essentially give away the punchline of their talk, writes Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks. Instead of giving it all away up front, he advises, imagine what kind of language will seduce the audience into wanting to come along for the ride.

  • Ineffective opening:  “Today I’m going to explain to you that the key to success as an entrepreneur is determination.”
  • Effective opening: “Over the next few minutes I plan to reveal what I believe is the key to success as an entrepreneur, and anyone here can cultivate it.  You’ll find clues in the story I’m about to tell.”

As a blogging trainer, I use the analogy of the “downbeat”, the opening bars of  music, which set the mood for the concerto to come.  The equivalent in blog writing is the opening sentence of each blog post.

From a “scientific” standpoint, of course, you want to use keyword phrases in the title and first sentences of each blog post to help search engines match your content with the search terms online readers used.  But SEO aside, the press release aspect of writing for business dictates that the first ten words of any post be effective in engaging interest. 

So how can blog writing for business make the most effective use of Anderson’s advice about not bringing too much to the opening paragraph?  The Happy Freelancer says opening sentences can:

  • Raise questions in readers’ minds
  • Illustrate a provocative scene
  • Connect with readers

I would add a fourth item to the list: Startle readers.

Bring just enough, not too much, to the beginning of your blog posts!

 

 

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Your Blog Isn’t a Container or Bin

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Child holding father's hand, closeup shot on grey background

“A talk isn’t a container or a bin that you put content in, it’s a process, a trajectory,” says Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks. “The goal is to take the listener from where he is to someplace new. That means trying to make the sequence so stepwise that no one gets lost along the way.”

A blog isn’t a container or bin that you put content in, either, and, particularly in the case of business blogging, the goal definitely is to take readers from where they are to someplace new.

“It’s especially important,” Anderson reminds speakers, “to do a jargon check.  Any technical terms or acronyms that may be unfamiliar to your listeners should be eliminated or explained.” But what he is NOT advocating,” he hastens to say, “is that everything be explained on a level appropriate for sixth-graders.” At TED, he reminds readers, they use the guideline based on Einstein’s dictum: “Make everything as simple as it can be, but no simpler.”

When it comes to blogging, there are tests you can put your blog through to see how you’re doing in terms of readability – are you reaching the right people and doing it by using words and sentences to which they can relate?  Well, a readability index calculator can give you the answer. Both Lexile and Flesch-Kincaid measure how easy your text is to read, based on what grade in school a person would need to have reached to be able to understand your content. (The reason Anderson specifically mentions sixth-graders is that a score of 6 would be considered optimal in journalism.)

What, exactly, do readability index calculators measure to take your readability “temperature”?  Essentially, two things:

  • The average number of syllables per word
  • The average number of words per sentence.

On the other hand, you don’t want to insult your audience’s attention, Anderson cautions speakers. “Indeed, the best explainers say just enough to let people feel like they’re coming up with the idea themselves.”  To create excitement in your audience, he says, start by making the talk relevant to them. After all, it’s not a given that anyone in the audience actually cares that much about your topic.”

In a sense, with blog readers, it IS a given that the audience cares about the topic. Online searchers arrive at your blog precisely because they have a need for the very kinds of information, products, and services you provide!  Now that they’ve arrived, though, it’s up to you to take those readers to “someplace new” in their knowledge and thinking!

 

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