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Blogging to Help Increase Positive Behaviors

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blogging to encourage positive reactions

 

There’s a lot we blog content writers can take away from a very unusual experiment called “The Sentimental Savings Study”. This study, reviewed in the Journal of Financial Planning , is about using psychology to help increase positive behaviors (in that specific case, personal savings). And, isn’t that precisely what marketing blogs are designed to do – motivate readers to take positive action? Can psychology help readers envision the positive outcomes that our products and services can mean for them, in terms of improved health, wealth, status, comfort, knowledge, and skills?

At best, financial education efforts had achieved marginal success in improving savings behaviors of Americans, the researchers found. Based on the theory that invoking sentimentality would exert influence on behavior, they employed “emotion activism”, creating art therapy and linking memories of past experience with money to their present attitudes. Participants were each asked to bring in a sentimental item or a photograph of such an item. In the sessions, they were guided to recall in detail how and where they had received that item, and what values they associated with it. Overall, the results of the study appeared to be a strong endorsement of the way in which sentiment and emotional associations drive decision-making.

“Blogs are bricks in decision-making architecture,” I wrote five years ago in a Say It For You blog post. How can blogs, which are short, personal, and conversational, help potential clients and customers make complex decisions? I suggested three approaches:

  1. Suggest questions readers can ask themselves while choosing among options.
  2. “Map” consequences, showing what feeling the prospect might gain through the decision – relief, trust, pride, etc.
  3. Offer easy ways to make choices.

After reading the Sentimental Savings Study, I now think a fourth tactic might be to help readers “reminisce” about how proud or satisfied they felt after having made a decision on a purchase. An anecdote might be the best way to accomplish this type of introspection.

Incorporating emotion might be just the way to increase positive behaviors, converting browsers to buyers.

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Blogging to Make the Reward Worth It

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“Make the reward worth it,” Nancy Duarte advises business speakers in her book Resonate. “No matter how stimulating you make your plea, an audience will not act unless you describe a reward that makes it worthwhile.” The ultimate gain must be clear.”

Duarte lists 7 basic types of reward:

  1. Basic needs – include food, water, shelter, and rest. (Concern for others’ basic needs prompts generosity.)
  2. Security – includes physical, financial, technological, and psychological.
  3. Savings – includes savings in time, labor, and money.
  4. Prize – includes personal financial reward, privilege, market share.
  5. Recognition – People relish being honored for both individual and collective efforts.
  6. Relationship – a sense of community with a group of people who support each other and make a difference
  7. Destiny – includes fulfilling lifelong dreams and reaching one’s potential.

Since one important function of any marketing blog is converting lookers to buyers, and since I train Indianapolis blog content writers, this concept of perceived rewards really piqued my interest. The things that motivate people to buy are product or service features they want, of course, and, as I explain to new clients, when readers arrive at your business blog, it’s because they already have an interest in your topic and are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer.

However, I caution the content writers, whether the blog leads to success in converting lookers to buyers will in large part depend on the rewards those readers perceive are in store for them. Remember, there’s so much information out there for searchers to use, so many bloggers telling what they have to offer, how it works, and how they can help. What needs to come across loud and clear is that the business owners or practitioners understand the readers and those readers’ specific needs and problems.

But more than that is required for success. The focus of each blog post must be on the end result from the recipients’ point of view. Help readers know how good they’ll feel (whether in terms of security, savings, recognition, or basic need fulfillment – after using your (or your business owner or professional practitioner client’s) product or service.

Blog to make the reward worth it!

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Find a Focus in Each Blog Post – So They Can

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focus in blog“Sometimes a writer can go on and on for pages with examples that prove a point…only she hasn’t quite figured out what that point is,” a writing guide from Vanderbilt.edu so aptly points out. I thought about that he other day as I attended what started out to be a fascinating talk on how smart watches and tablets are being used to collect data for predicting illnesses.

Only problem – the speaker began to ramble, “getting into the weeds” and going far over the allotted time. The result – people lost interest and some even stood up to leave. Our presenter had obviously never read the book Brain Rules, in which educator Wilbert McKeachie demonstrates that “typically, attention increases from the beginning of the lecture to ten minutes into the lecture and decreases after that point.”

In a sense, focus is the point in blog content writing. At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the Power of One, which means one message per post, with a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, geared towards one narrowly defined target audience.

Of course, in blog marketing, one purpose of the content is moving visitors along the spectrum from scanner to reader, to customer/client. One technique salespeople are taught is adding an “Oh, by the way…” to describe an add-on service or product that can go along with the primary purchase. In blog marketing, there are ways to do that kind of “oh-by-the-way” without losing focus: provide a link to a landing page, or simply tell readers to watch for information on that related concept, product, or service in your next blog post.

“The simple reason a lot of blogs struggle to succeed,” writes Jeff Goins, “is a lack of focus.”
Focus consists of three elements, Goins adds – the subject, the theme (specific angle), and the objective. “Focus is the feature of effective writing that answers the question ‘So what?’”, Academic Writing explains.”By establishing a clear focus, students can craft their writing into a coherent, unified whole.”

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The All-Important Call to Action in Blog Content Writing

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One of the resources Ivy Tech offers to students is the Study Power Leader’s Guide. The Guide suggests students keep a daily activities list containing three categories:

  1. Must Do!
  2. Should Do
  3. Could Do

“We live in a culture of information-saturation. Consumers today are highly-distracted, which is why you need to end your posts with a bang, by including enticing, well-written calls to action,” writtent.com suggests. An effective call to action will act as a logical extension of your blog posts, the authors add. “Your calls to action should never seem abrupt, or you’ll struggle to get the reaction you’d hoped.”

Over the years of working with business owners and practitioners, I’ve encountered two very different attitudes towards blog marketing and specifically towards Calls to Action. At the one extreme are those who feel that any direct Call to Action is abrupt and obtrusive, believing that if the blog provides useful information, the reader will want, without being asked, to follow up with the company or practice. At the opposite end of the spectrum are owners who feel uneasy about giving away valuable information “for free”, even though they realize their blog will become a way of selling themselves and their services to online searchers.

In response to the first fear, I explain that a CTA does not at all invalidate the good information provided in the piece. When people go online to search for information and click on different blogs or on different websites, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to do business. But as long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer.

Similarly, I can reassure business owners getting ready to launch a marketing blog that the only people who are going to notice their blog are the ones already interested in that topic. “Giving away” knowledge showcases the owners’ experience and expertise rather than threatening it in any way. More often than not, readers want to get it done, not by themselves, but by the expert you’ve shown you are!

Using those three Study Power categories might be a good way to vary the Calls to Action in blog posts, was my thought.

  • Must-do!s can include safety and health checklists, along with an offer to download a white paper or brochure.
  • Should Dos might include links to landing pages with more information.
  • Could Dos include an invitation to chat or telephone for further information.

Using the three categories can help students keep track of their activities, and varying your calls to action can help you get the reaction you’d hoped for, I teach at Say It For You.

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Attract, Don’t Demand Attention with Stick Blog Content

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Making messages deliver impact is, of course, “our thing” as business blog content writers, and this week’s Say It For You blog posts are devoted to sharing wisdom from Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick. 

We can’t succeed if our messages don’t break through the clutter to get people’s attention, the authors point out, and surprise gets our attention, Chip and Dan Heaths agree. Opening your blog post with a startling statistic can be a way to grab visitor’s attention, I often point out to writers, adding power and focus to posts, and showcasing your own knowledge and expertise.

“If you want your ideas to be stickier, you’ve got to break someone’s guessing machine and then fix it.” Gimmicky surprises can’t do that job; you must target an aspect of your audience’s thinking that relates to your own core message, the Heaths emphasize. To be satisfying, the surprise must be “post-dictable”, so that the next step becomes obvious to readers.

But we also can’t succeed if we can’t keep people’s attention, the authors caution. I agree. My experience as a blogger and as a blogging trainer – has shown me that statistics, even the startling sort, aren’t enough to create positive results for any business or practice. We need to search for sticky ideas that have the power to maintain our interest over time – and to propel action.

The authors offer specific steps to follow in crafting a message:

  1. Identify the central message you want to communicate.
  2. Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message. Why isn’t the result already happening naturally?
  3. Communicate the message in a way that “breaks the audience’s guessing machine”.
  4. Help them refine their “machine” with a solution.

    Item #1 on this list is the foundation. It’s advice writers too often forget; their blog content is often the worse for it. Each article, each blog post, I teach, should have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of a business or practice.

Using the counterintuitive is an excellent tool for engaging interest. But in creating blog content, I add, look beyond the surprise. The risk content writers face is being perceived as “bait and switch” advertisers. The unlikely comparison must clarify issues, helping readers get the answers they came to find.

Attract attention with sticky blog content that gets and keeps people’s attention by offering solutions.

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