Posts

Don’t Fear ROI…Embrace It!

/0 Comments/in /by

Jane's Picture (2)I like receiving e-letters from my friend Jane Thompson, the trade show marketing consultant. Invariably I find Jane’s advice about trade shows applicable to blog marketing, and that’s certainly true of her latest piece about embracing ROI.

Impact on revenue
Jane cites an article out of Exhibitor Online advising marketers to estimate the impact of each trade show on company revenue. Companies need to count the number of sales leads garnered, the “close rate” out of those leads, and what the total revenue was from that show.

As a corporate blogging trainer and content writer, I find business owners’ overriding concern is, in fact, realizing a Return on Investment from their blog marketing efforts and expenditures. At the same time, though, it’s not always possible to associate a specific ROI measurement to the blog without regard to all the other initiatives the client is using to find and relate to customers.  All the parts have to mesh – social media, traditional advertising, events, word of mouth marketing, and sales.  Every effort that “makes the cash register ring” contributes to “marketing ROI”.

Cost avoidance
“Every dollar of cost avoidance is tantamount to a dollar of profit,” Thompson reminds readers. She advises figuring out what you might have spent on sales calls and meetings to achieve the same results you accomplished at your show.

Years ago, Compendium Blogware, Inc. co-founder Chris Baggott used to point out that blogging provides some of the same benefits as email in an easy-to-use and inexpensive way.”  You can’t email people without permission and you can’t ask for permission if you don’t know who they are, Baggott would explain, and that’s where blogging comes in to help in customer acquisition, avoiding mailing costs and expensive sales calls.

While total precision in isolating blogging ROI may not be possible, examining your blog’s general “bottom line”  should be something to embrace.

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

A Business Blog Needs Words

/0 Comments/in , /by

emoji

“Blogging has become the best possible way to leverage your online presence and gain traction with Internet searches performed by your potential clients.”(No surprise there, but what I did find surprising is the source of the remark – none other than the National Association of Realtors!)

The realtor website went on to repeat the modern blogging mantra: “An interesting, relevant image is an essential part of your blog post. It’s not merely aesthetic; it’s crucial for boosting your readership and your SEO. People are much more likely to read a blog illustrated with a nice image,” the NAR advises. “It doesn’t matter what industry, topic, niche, or specialty, images matter.”

“Hey!” I sometimes want to shout. “Don’t forget that, no matter what industry, topic, niche, or specialty, the main content of the blog post consists (or at least should consist) of WORDS. Words matter.” Jennifer Olney of bealeader.com knows what I mean. In “Lazy Blogging: Why Your Word Matter,” Olney comments that too many authors rely on visuals to take the lazy way out of writing. Real authors, she implies use adult words and showcase their understanding of the use and beauty of the English language.

“Content comes in many forms, but web copy, articles and blog posts are among the most popular – and effective,” writes Dan Hughes of jtvdigital. Like Olney, Hughes observes that “ Many people overlook words and the power they have to entice their target audience. In this day and age, pictures and video are powerful promotional tools that cater to the attention span of the modern digital consumer, Hughes points out. “However,” he continues, “much like any business, well-crafted web copy is an essential part of success.”

“Words are art, and our ability to convey our message in words helps us be understood without distraction, Olney says. All the emojis in the world could not convey the extent to which I agree!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Business Blog Tidbits Far From Useless

/0 Comments/in , , /by

love and togetherness
So, why do I find seeming “useless” tidbits of information so very useful when it comes to blog content writing? Let me count the ways:

1. Tidbits can be used to describe your way of doing business, to clarify the way one of your products works, or explain why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem. It’s interesting when business owners or practitioners present little-known facts about their own business or profession.  In “Keep It Cool,” for example, Mental Floss magazine reviews the history of air conditioning, telling the story of how, when President Garfield was shot and lay dying in the White House, inventors rushed forward with devices they hoped would help, using a contraption to blow air over a box of ice into a series of tin pipes, eventually using a half-million pounds of ice. History tidbits in general engage readers’ curiosity, evoking an “I didn’t know that!” response.

2. One thing I suggest stressing in blog posts is best business practices.  While one goal of any SEO 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. Mental Floss Magazine highlighted the making of the 1991 movie “The Silence of the Lambs”, in which the serial murderer is obsessed with collecting rare moths.  Animal rights groups might have protested the exploitation of harmless insects just to make a film, but, thanks to animal wrangler Raymond Mendez, the 300 tomato hornworm moths traveled first class, were kept in a room with special heat and humidity settings, outfitted with tiny harnesses during high speed stunts. Blog content writing is the perfect vehicle for conveying a corporate message like this one, starting with a piece of trivia, presented to make a point.

3. 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. In Mental Floss Magazine, I found a cute myth-debunking article about the “Eskimo kiss”. Popular wisdom claims that Eskimos rub noses (because kissing on the lips would cause their mouths to freeze together). The myth started in Hollywood when the director of the 1922 movie “Nanook of the North” saw Eskimo women giving their babies “kuniks”, pressing their noses against their babies’ cheeks and breathing in their scent. Truth be told, Eskimos kiss on the lips just like everyone else. That Eskimo kiss debunk would be perfect for the blog of a lip balm company, a lipstick manufacturer, or a candy company around Valentine’s Day.

For clarifying and debunking, and to add variety and fun, tidbits of information are far from useless!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

A Tale of Two Ad Titles – Part Two

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Yellow sunglasses isolated on white background
The second of two advertisements that appeared in Science News Magazine illustrates a second set of lessons about blog titles and blog content writing in general.

(The first, “It’s Enough to Make You Blue in the Face” was an advertisement for the Stauer Urban Blue® wristwatch.) That ad was overloaded with features, benefits, a testimonial, even a giveaway offer. And, while the title made a “cutesy” use of the color blue of the watch and the expression “blue in the face”, it had no keyword phrases in it that would work for SEO.

The second ad,

“But When Driving, These Sunglasses May Save Your Life”
(advertisement for Eagle Eyes® Navigator sunglasses)

used a very different approach, called “fear marketing”, centering on the dangers of not using the product:

  • “Driving in fall and winter can expose you to the most dangerous glare…do you know how to protect yourself?”
  • “Some ordinary sunglasses can obscure your vision by exposing your eyes to harmful UV rays, blue light, and reflective glare.”

Like the Stauer® Urban Blue wristwatch ad, this ad lists product benefits:

  • “The TriLenium® Lens Technology offers triple-filter polarization to block 99.9% UVA and UVB
  • A 60-day money-back guarantee

And, like the wristwatch ad, this one offers a giveaway – an extra pair of glasses, with two micro-fiber drawstring cleaning pouches.

In place of a customer testimonial, this ad cites the official recognition given its product by the Space Certification Program of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

What are some takeaways for corporate blog writers?

First, while fear is one of the seven emotions that marketing writer Courtney Mills calls key drivers for successful ad copywriting, my view is that scare tactic marketing is not the best approach in blogs. To appeal to a better kind of customer – the kind that buys for the right reasons and then remains loyal, Calls to Action  should appeal to readers’ logic and positive emotional appeal.

The blog title does contain the keyword “sunglasses”, but might be more effective placed at the beginning, “These sunglasses may save your life”.

The connection with research done at NASA makes for interesting “backstory”content that could have been made the focus of the blog post. Alternately, the focus might have been on helpful hints for protecting your eyes.

As I like to remind business owners and professional practitioners, it’s interested people who are showing up at your blog in the first place. Now the task is to help those searchers get to know you and your company. Keep it informative and go easy on the hard sell.

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Just a Spoonful of Keyword Phrases Makes SEO Go Up

/0 Comments/in , /by

White sugar

“To maximize the traffic that comes to your blog via search engines, focus on optimizating each of your blog posts for just one or two keyword phrases.  Too many keyword phrases dilutes the content of your post for readers and can look like spam to both readers and search engines,” Susan Gunelius cautions in abouttech.com.

What, exactly, are keyword phrases? “These are words that you enter into your meta tags that describe your page so that when someone goes to a search engine and types in one or more of those words your page will be added to the list of pages they are given,” Linda Roeder explains. How long are keyword phrases? Statistics show that nearly 60% of keyword searches include phrases consisting of 2-3 words, according to Gunelius..

Gunelius’ tips for effective keyword use include:

  • Choose just one or two keyword phrases for each blog post
  • Use them in the title (however, don’t sacrifice the title’s ability to motivate people to click through)
  • Use keywords multiple times in the post, first within the first 200 characters, several times throughout, and near the end.
  • Use keywords in and around links
  • Use keywords in image alt-tags

While using keywords in links is a great way to boost search engine optimization, Gunelius warns, too many links can be viewed as a spam technique. The accepted link-to-text ratio is one link per 125 words. (For this very Say It For You post, for example, the two to three links I’ve used are just about right.

So how do you know which keywords deserve your focus? One of the easiest ways to get a basic idea of what people are looking for online, Gunelius says, is to check the popularity of keyword searches on websites that deal with keyword popularity, such as:

  • Wordtracker   (http://www.wordtracker.com/)
  • GoogleAdWords (http://www.google.com/adwords/)
  • Google Trends  (http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends)
  • Yahoo! Buzz Index  (https://www.yahoo.com/)

Like Mary Poppins’ recipe for making the medicine go down, incorporating keywords into blog posts – but only by the single spoonful – can be the secret for getting found on search engines.

 

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail