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Good Business Writing Attracts Good Business

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All Or Nothing Keys Meaning Entire Or Zero

 

Poor business writing can never be undone, the American Marketing Association cautions in Business Writing Tips for Professionals. “It can cause you to lose business to your competition and could even cost you your job.”

Good business writing, on the other hand, is marked by using a strong, active voice, avoiding company acronyms and buzzwords. “Be clear, concise, and get to the point,” guiding readers by including a clear call to action, The AMA advises.

One AMA tip I found particularly relevant for business blog content writers is this: “Replace hyperbole with solid facts and reputable testimonials. Phrases like ‘We’re #1’, ‘We’re the leader in our field’, or ‘We provide the best service’ aren’t going to get you anywhere.”

I couldn’t agree more – blogging is not boasting.  In fact, the whole idea behind blogging is that, rather than running traditional ads for your brand of hats, or vitamins, or travel, you provide lots of information on the history of hats, on why vitamins are good for you, and about exciting places to go on safari.  Consumers interested in your subject, but who never even knew your name, come to see you as a resource. When blog readers follow your “calls to action” by phoning your business, faxing in a request or an order, signing up for your newsletter, subscribing to your blog through an RSS feed, or by proceeding to your shopping cart to buy your product or service, you know your blog marketing strategy is working.

But there are millions of other blogs out there for searchers to find, so what is it that can transform yours into a powerhouse?  Fellow blogger Michel Fortin answers that question in one word: PROOF!  People are skeptical, he explains, today more so than ever before.  If there’s reasonable doubt, you’re going to lose the sale.

There are several kinds of proof you can use:

  • Factual proof:  Offer statistics about the problem your product or service helps solve
  • Reverse proof: Compare your product or service with others that are on the market.
  • Credentializing proof: Tell about your years of experience, degrees, newspaper articles you’ve written or that have been written about you.
  • Evidential proof: Clinical trial results, testimonials, company or professional awards.

“A well-written article or report can be like that Porsche 911 Turbo, “the AMA concludes. “It will generate a ton of new business in half the time with more fun.”

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How Will They Know They’ve Been Helped?

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Composite image of hands showing expectations

 

Financial planners could start the meeting with new clients by asking a simple question: “What is it that brings you in today?” the Journal of Financial Planning suggests. Another question to ask to get a sense of expectations is: “At the end of our meeting today, how will you know that it has been successful?”

“Managing expectations, for me, is the single most important aspect to maintaining a healthy and rewarding relationship with my clients,” Annie Pace Scranton writes in Forbes. Scranton suggest five ways to manage client expectations:

  • Be honest from the get-go
  • Under-promise and over-deliver
  • Anticipate the client’s needs
  • Be accessible for communication
  • Use reports to track work done of the course of a week or month

In thinking about how all this might apply to blog content writing, the question I want to raise is this: Since our content is often being read by people who are not yet our clients or customers, how can we address their expectations?

Sure, it’s easy to fall back on analytics: If readers remain on the page for a certain number of seconds or even minutes, if they click through to our website landing pages, if those readers call or email us, if they sign up for our RSS our blog or newsletter, etc., etc., we’ll know our blog posts have been successful.

But I’m fascinated by that image of the financial planner, before the interview has even begun, asking the prospects how they plan to judge whether or not their time was well spent in sitting down with her. Are there ways for us, through the design and language of each of our corporate or professional practice blog posts, to challenge readers to define in their own minds what would make them feel their time on our blog site was well spent?  Here are a couple of thoughts from Darren Rowse of problogger.com:

  • Communicate your own expectations clearly (how often you’ll post, what topics you’ll be covering, etc.
  • Identify common unmet expectations and pre-empt them
  • Don’t hype yourself

For my part, I put a lot of stock in the opening sentences of blog posts, because that’s where I think readers get a cue as to whether they’ve landed in the right place to find the information, products and service, or advice they were searching for.

Sure, it’s the keyword phrases in the title that start the job of getting the blog found. But, once the online visitor has actually landed, it takes a great opener to fan the flicker of interest into a flame, is how I see it.  In fact, a big part of blog content writing, I’ve found, involves getting what I call the “POW opening line” right. That line might be a bold assertion, an in-your-face statement, a stage-setting phrase.

Whichever tactic you choose, you’re setting the stage for the reader to make a judgment about their own expectations, forcing them to answer that financial-planning-interview question, “At the end of the encounter, how will you know it’s been successful?”

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Posing the Question in Business Blog Content Writing

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people question markI tell new Indianapolis blog content writers that, in creating content for marketing blogs, we need to keep in mind that people are online searching for answers to questions they have and solutions for dilemmas they’re facing.  But, even if those searchers haven’t specifically formulated a question, I suggest we do that for them by presenting a question in the blog post title itself:

  • “Is the U.S. Ready for Future Disease Threats?”
  • “Can the Mind-Body Problem Be Solved?”
  • “How Many Lego Bricks Would It Take to Build A Bridge from London to New York?
  • “Do Baby Boomers Deserve Social Security?

Using a question in the title of your blog post can arouse readers’ curiosity about which side of the issue your opinion is going to represent, and about the answers you’re going to provide in the content of the post itself. The question-title also informs the reader that you’re going to be providing information specifically relating to their search:

Blog questions can be either confirmatory (closed-end, yes-or-no) or exploratory (open-ended). Remember, unlike marketing research firms, business owners or professional practitioners are not out to gather consumer data; they want to engage their blog readers and show that they understand the dilemmas those readers are facing.

  • Did you know….?
  • How do you….?
  • What’s one of the most common problems in…..?
  • Do you want to learn how to…?
  • Have you ever…?
  • you ever wonder if…?

Besides offering readers a promise of relevant content in the body of the blog post, the title question can include keyword phrases to help Google index the blog.

Question: Does your business blog deserve better titles?

 

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Your Business Blog Can Be Their User Manual

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User guide book illustration design
“In the olden days – say the 1980s – if you bought a piece of technology, a paperback user guide came with it.  It was the manufacturer’s one big chance to explain its engineers’ thinking to you, to communicate what the designers and marketers had in mind,” David Pogue writes in Scientific American. Then, Google happened, Pogue says ruefully, and physical manuals began disappearing from our hardware and software boxes.

It’s not that users understand all the features of the devices they’ve purchased, although the kind of technologies we use has changed, Pogue explains. “People increasingly spend time in apps and social sites that have a fairly simple interface”. To this day, however, “it’s astonishing how little we know about our phones, computers, and software,” he observes.

Hardware and software makers still operate with their traditional business model: Every year or so they sell us a new version, whose appeal is supposed to be more features. Yet our access to documentation remains scattershot and incomplete, Pogue concludes. That is true, he asserts, despite the availability of answer sites, online communities, and YouTube mini-tutorials.

Enter business blogging.  In fact, according to Forbes, the #1 most important component of the perfect business blog post is answering this question: “What’s the unique angle of this post, and how will it help my audience?”  A blog post can be well-written, but it will be virtually worthless if it doesn’t speak to its audience’s interests, needs, preferences and pain points.

People are online searching for answers to their problems.  They might be there because they need answers to questions they have or solutions for dilemmas they’re facing – or because they don’t know how to use a product or service they’ve already paid for.! That’s when, if you’ve been consistently blogging, they find you, because your blog post gives them just the information they’re looking for in terms of “how-to” content.

Now, I’ve been touting “how-to” content in business blogs for years.  yet it often happens that new blogging clients have a fear that, if they “teach” in their blog, demonstrating the steps in their process, they’ll lose, rather than gain, customers and clients, because the customers will be able to “do it themselves”! In reality, the opposite is true: Consumers who feel fairly informed often prove more willing to make buying decisions.

Let your business blog be their user manual!

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The First Blog Post is Like the First Day of Class

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Young teacher near chalkboard in school classroom

“What impression would you like to make on the first day?” asks Elizabeth Natalle, author of Teaching Interpersonal Communication. In fact, the first day of class gets a lot of attention from pedagogues, Natalle explains to teachers, because “what happens that first day demonstrates to students what to expect from your instruction.” Some teachers even forget to introduce themselves before launching into the lecture, she notes.

Like Natalle, Harsh Agrawal of Shout ME Loud stresses the importance of demonstrating to your audience what to expect, except that Agrawal’s referring to bloggers, not classroom teachers. “Get it wrong,” he warns, “and you’re doomed to fail.  But, if you get it right, you’ll lay the proper foundation for success,” he tells those just beginning to post blogs. “People want to connect with you on a deep level, Agrawal says, advising new bloggers to tell readers what their experiences have been in life, revealing who they are as a person, as a professional, and as a blogger. Include pictures of yourself to show authenticity and to help readers connect with you, he advises, cautioning them to “make it clear why you’ve decided to offer a blog”.I couldn’t agree more with Agrawal’s advice.  In fact, the first post for every new Say It For You client is a why-blog-about———– (pet care/ bankruptcy/ tutoring, etc., etc.).

The art of writing a good blog post has dramatically evolved in recent years, as teamtwago.com points out in “How to Write Your First Company Blog Post”. “Readers expect far more in return for their time than an ill-conceived or badly-written blog post, Twago warns. “If you aren’t able to talk authoritatively and in-depth on a subject in your chosen field then you can wave conversions goodbye.”

Just as instructors make clear to students what the syllabus is for the semester and what tasks they are expected to complete before the next session, it’s crucial for us blog content writers to tell the readers what actions we would like them to take when they have reached the end of the blog post.  “Readers actively seek this out; they want to know what comes next,” explains Twago.

Remember – the first blog post is like the first day of class!

 

 

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