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Arming Readers With Words

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Farmer’s Almanac 2025 does something content marketers need to do more often – “putting words into readers’ mouths” Why? To make it easy for them to feel not only comfortable, but “smart” when talking about your business or practice area. 

The Almanac authors explain where several of our most common expressions come from:

I’ll take a raincheck:

In 1880s baseball, spectators were given an actual ticket stub for admission to a future game when a game was called off for rain. Later, retailers who were out of stock on an item offered rain checks for discounts at a later date.

I’m on Cloud Nine:

In the 1950s, the U.S. Weather Bureau would give numbers to clouds depending on how high they were, up to 30,000 feet (9 was next to highest).

It’s raining cats and dogs

The Greek word Catadoxa (try saying it out loud) means beyond belief. Another explanation is that in medieval times, homes had thatched roofs, and domestic animals would hide in the roof when the weather turned severe.

Under the weather

In old sailing vessels, “under the weather” meant under the weather rail (the hold of the ship).  If a sailor wanted to reduce the impact of the waves, he’d go below deck.

In blog marketing, once you’ve established common ground, reinforcing to readers that they’ve come to the right place, it’s important to add lesser-known bits of information on your subject, which might take the form of arming readers with new terminology, serving several purposes:

  • positioning the business owner or professional practitioner as an expert in the field
  • adding value to the “visit” for the reader
  • increasing readers’ sense of being part of an “in-the-know” group

As content writers, part of our challenge is to educate both prospects and clients on the issues relating to their decisions to choose between one business’ products and services and those of its competitors.  Introducing a curiosity-stimulating new term is one way to do just that.

At Say it For You, we believe in empowering readers by teaching them the meanings and the correct use of the terminology in that field. Most important, buyers feel empowered to make a decision when they feel “in on” the “lingo”.

Arm your readers with words – they’ll be more likely  to “lend you their ear”!

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How to Build a Great Sports Marketing Strategy for Your Softball/Baseball Brand

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In today’s highly competitive sports world, a solid marketing strategy is essential for any sports brand. An efficiently organized plan can make a difference, whether aiming to increase your brand’s visibility or increase sales. But… where do you begin? In this article, we will discuss some practical steps to help you build a robust marketing strategy that drives your brand forward and resonates with your audience.

Defining Your Brand’s Identity
A clear and consistent brand is essential to stand out in the crowded sports market. Your brand identity reflects your values, mission, and what makes your softball or baseball brand unique. It’s how your audience perceives you and what they do with your brand.

A strong personality helps build trust, fosters loyalty, and ensures your brand is easily recognizable across platforms.

  •  Sports brands must be recognizable and convey their values consistently, as the market is rather saturated.
  •  Brand image is a critical element of your operation as it sums up your corporate belief, purpose, and differentiation of your softball or baseball brand.
  • A powerful personality strengthens confidence, creates trust, and entails brand recognition and customer loyalty across the desired platforms.

Define your brand’s voice:

  •  Decide how you’re going to communicate: professional, passive or inspirational.
  • Choose a voice that would appeal to your target market.
  • Updates or changes should be applied consistently across all areas.

Set the viewing method:

  • Design different logos, colors, fonts and graphics.
  • Ensure that all physical items under the concept are integrated well.
  • You should evoke specific emotions and associations that align with your brand’s message.

Craft Clear Messages:

Craft a catchy, easily memorable key message. This concept should concentrate on what your brand does and provides. The messages reflect your brand value proposition, business’s key message, and vision.

Understand Your Target Audience
One must know about the target market. Understanding their needs, wants, and actions is essential to formulating your plan to address what they need or want. This insight, in a way, aids you in understanding your target group to a certain level, enabling your brand to be appealing and relevant.

How to do it:

  • You must segment your audience based on factors like Product Preferences, Buying Behaviors, or Location. This leads to highly targeted and personalized marketing efforts.
  • It can be a great approach to developing a comprehensive profile of your ideal customers, including their Age, Interests, Challenges and Buying Habits. These personas aid you in content creation and marketing decisions.
  • You can acquire information regarding your potential customers via Surveys and Market Research. This helps you identify key demographics and trends.Choosing the Marketing Channels

Leverage Social Media: Connect with your audience on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to share updates and build community.

Do Content Marketing: Create articles, blogs, posts, and videos to drive traffic and build trust with your audience.

Email Marketing: Develop relationships with personal and professional emails.

Influential Commerce: Collaborate with influencers or athletes to increase visibility.

Events: Sponsoring events is also an excellent approach to establishing your brand in the community.

Meme Marketing: You can also leverage meme marketing by creating sports-related memes. This will boost social media engagement and audience engagement.

 

Some USA Brands Using Marketing Channels:

  • JustBats uses Instagram to build trust and establish baseball gear expertise.
  • Companies like MLB use email marketing to help fans offer new news and updates.
  • Personalized emails provide timely and needed offers and/or motivational content, thus contributing to sales.
  • Under Armour’s strategy for brand building; it partner with the best athletes in the current generation.
  • Brands like Adidas have applied meme marketing to reach young people, as their content is always shareable and fun. Creating Engaging and Compelling Content

Inspirational Stories: Individuals relate to stories of struggle and achievement. If possible, post interviews with athletes or other achievements of a specific team in videos or a blog displaying your brand’s principles.

Educational Tips and Drills:  Sharing more instructional material benefits your viewers by developing their competencies and positions your brand as authoritative.

Post videos or written blog entries on the right way to approach the batter, a good exercise for the pitcher or a player to do in between pitches.

Behind-the-Scenes Glimpses:  Sharing such moments increases your brand’s authenticity and engages your audience, making them trust it.

Post pictures or videos of your manufacturing or team’s daily activities so as to show your brand’s personality.

Product Reviews and Demos: A customer getting to see how your products work is a good approach as it assists him or her in seeing them being useful. Make demonstrations and ask for a review of the service.

Contests and Giveaways: Competition is always healthy for any business since it increases traffic and the number of bot and human followers.

Run promotional campaigns on such social networks, offer goods with the company’s logo to winners, and encourage using specific hashtags.

User-Generated Content:  Content by your audience is engaging and makes for good promotion without feeling like promotion.
Often, consumers share photos or videos of products they have bought; promoting this and using the content on popular channels with a branded hashtag is advisable.

Tracking and Analyzing Results: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Quantitative measures include such things as website traffic, followers on social media, click-through rates on emails and actual sales as they relate to your marketing. Analytics Tools: One should always monitor the process and look for optimization spots by means of analytical tools such as Google Analytics or social media analytics.

A/B Testing: Explain how communication ideas can be experimented and why it is crucial to do so to find out what works for an audience most.

Final Words:
Creating a great sports marketing strategy requires a well-thought-out approach. You should must be familiar of your brand’s identity, and target audience, and most effective marketing channels.

Remember – To maintain a competitive edge, you should stay adaptable and continually refine your approach.

 

Today’s guest post was contributed by Henrii Joy, professional; guest blogger and content writer, specializing in product descriptions technical articles, and SEO content. The author may be reached at henriijoy@gmail.com.

 

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“What-Just-Happened?” Content Marketing

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“Write a short story in which a person wakes up to find the world outside the front door has changed dramatically. What can they figure out in the first hour of this new situation?” Writer’s Digest contributor Amy Jones suggests to authors looking for fresh ideas.

Problem solution selling is a sales approach that aims to solve customer problems rather than just focusing on selling a product or service, Breakcold explains. “It requires a deep understanding of the customer’s pain points and challenges, and the ability to present a tailored solution that addresses those specific needs.”

While, in this Say It For You blog, we’ve often stressed how very important it is for content creators to understand the needs and concerns of the target audience, I think Amy Jones’ “What-just-happened?” approach goes a step further. When marketing a product or service that those prospects might very well have a need to use in the event of a future catastrophe or scarcity, the content marketing goal is to spur preventative action now.

Certainly, “disaster preparedness “ a set of actions before an event, can “avoid or at least lessen negative outcomes”,  but the challenge in marketing preventative tools – from back-up generators to regular HVAC checkups to long term care insurance — lies in evoking that “what-just-happened?” short story in readers’ minds.

“Agents must get customers to focus on the risks they face and the appropriate coverages, not on the price, Insurance Thought Leadership cautions.” .Without getting prospects to visualize “expensive emergency repairs and premature failures” , the advice given by an HVAC company to its prospects packs minimum power.

As content writers, we cannot position ourselves (or our clients) within the marketplace without studying the surroundings for our target audience. And, for content pieces to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements to let readers know who’s asking for the action. That “action”, however, is unlikely to take place until and unless prospects are able to visualize that “what-just-happened?” scenario.

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Tell Them What They’re Getting for Their 1%

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Over time, in the financial planning industry, advisors went from phoning clients and executing transactions to fee-based money management. “It’s becoming a 1% business,” one advisor grumbled, noting that sometimes clients don’t “get” the total value of the relationship and the many ways planners can help their clients. Don’t those clients ever ask, he wonders, “What do I get for my 1%?”

The author, Bryce Sanders, proceeds to discuss different tangible benefits effective advisors can offer their money management clients, including

  • a dedicated advisor with whom you can meet face to face
  • a live person answering the phone
  • someone to help measure your progress towards your goals
  • college planning, retirement planning, and even some estate planning advice
  • referrals to specialists when needed

Sanders conclude his article with a point I find highly relevant to the work we do in content marketing: Advisors who seek to build long term relationships with clients, he emphasizes, “need to bring substantial value to the table to make this case. If the client feels they are getting substantial value, cost often becomes secondary.”

That is precisely the reader reaction we are after as business content writers, we realize at Say It For You. Content writers must learn to become value creators, and blog content is all about value, not pricing. . “People like to know how much stuff costs,” Marcus Sheridan of social media examiner.com warned. Still, at Say It For You, we don’t think price is the No. 1 consumer question on the minds of web searchers who land on our clients’ content. Instead, what the writing needs to do is provide value – answer questions, offer perspective and thought leadership.

Yes, inquiring minds want to know, and searchers need to know they’re being introduced to a business or practice where they can find value. Rather than emphasizing the 1%, tell ’em what they will be getting for their 1%!

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Who Will Taste This Almanac Tidbit?

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“Have you ever wondered what “sugar plums” were? Like every child used to hearing about sugar plums in “The Night Before Christmas” poem, the author of Harris’ Farmer’s Almanac thought sugar plums were fruit.  He was wrong, he later learned. In England in the 1600s, sugar plums were confit candies with a core of nuts or dried fruit encased in layers of crystallized sugar. To make the comfit, a seed or nut would be placed in the center of a pan, with sugar is layered around it. Depending on the size of the candies, a batch could take up to a week to complete. Subsequently, sugar plums were a cherished luxury back in the 18th and 19th centuries, Readelysian.com explains…

I find seemingly inconsequential tidbits of information like this highly useful when it comes to content marketing. Tidbits, I explain to clients and to writers, can be used to describe your unusual way of doing business, or to explain why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem. The time and care that went into producing the sugar plums can be compared to the complex processes that go into producing your own products. The image of a “solid core” can be used as a metaphor for solid business practices and ethical standards upheld in your own company.

 

Content writers need never run out of ideas if they keep a file of interesting tidbits of general information on hand, and including interesting tidbits of information in corporate marketing blogs can help::

  • educate blog readers
  • debunk myths
  • showcase the business owners’ expertise
  • demonstrate business owners’ perspective

There’s another purpose tidbits can serve – softening. One of my favorite business books is Geoffrey James’  Business Without the Bullsh*t . The author showcases a point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions – whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve need to express an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers.  Well, including interesting tidbits softens the effect of the strong opinions the business owner or practitioner might express in the content of the post, while at the same time helping to explain the reasoning behind those opinions.

Readers will savor those “sugar plum” tidbits in your content..

 

 

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