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Blogging for Window Shoppers and Tire Kickers

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“Many of the folks who come to see me aren’t necessarily looking for a new plan or a new planner,” financial advisor Zach Fox, AAMS®, says. “They may just be looking for confidence in their existing plan.”

Diane Wingerter, certified grantwriter and owner of GrantWriting for Goodness™, agrees. “Yes”, “no”, “maybe”, or “not now” are all possible responses by people who are seeking funding – or, indeed, by funders themselves, she notes.

Blog marketers need to approach readers with a similar mindset. Will blog marketing “close deals” in the same manner as a face-to-face encounter between a prospect and a sales professional? Of course not. Hubspot blogger Corey Wainwright lists some of the indirect selling benefits of blogs and their place in the sales process:

  • If you’re consistently creating content that’s helpful for your target customer, it’ll help establish you as an authority in their eyes.
  • Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales process more educated about your place in the market, your industry, and what you have to offer.
  • Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts.

Blogging is what marketing firm pardot.com calls stage-based, meaning that prospects move through different stages of the sales cycle. In one study, Pardot found that B2B consumers started their research with Google, then returned two or three times for more specific information. For prospects at the top of the “funnel”, the most effective content will be light, educational and product-neutral. Later in the cycle, readers who are already sold on your industry, just deciding among vendors or providers, need more specific information.

The “maybes”, the “not nows”, and readers looking only to bolster their confidence in their existing plans or product choices will come away with a positive experience and valuable information. On the other hand, readers who have reached the final decision-making stage might just be ready to consider your unique value propositions and to follow one of your Calls to Action.

In blog marketing, don’t ignore the window shoppers and tire-kickers!

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Blogs are Flip-Flop Interviews

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In the book Stop Hiring Losers, Minesh and Baxi devote an entire chapter to a list of interview questions employers should pose to job candidates. “Why are you leaving your current job?”, for example, is designed to identify past problems a candidate might carry over into a new job. On the positive side, that question can reveal the fact that the candidate sees the new position as an important forward career step.

When you think about it, blog posts are interviews, too. But, in the case of blogs, things are “flip-flopped”, because it’s the blog reader (the “candidate”) interviewing the business, rather than the other way around. At Say It For You, we teach content writers that searchers have some sort of need and are recruiting help!  Just as in a face-to-face interviews, those searchers read what you put out there in your blog posts and evaluate that content in light of their own needs.  Their scanning your blog is the equivalent of them interviewing your business to see if you’re a good fit for them.

Many of the questions Minesh and Baxi recommend that employers pose to job candidates are those blog readers are mentally posing to you when they are reading your content:

  • Why should we employ you rather than one of the other candidates?

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is a succinct, memorable message that identifies the unique benefits that are derived from using your product or service as opposed to a competitor’s. Your blog offers you the chance to constantly refine and improve your USP.

  • What would your co-workers say about you?

Testimonials and client anecdotes in your blog are ways of answering this question.

  • What contributed to the best working conditions you ever experienced?

Your blog posts should include stories about how you successful solved clients problems in the past, expressing the satisfaction you gained from helping customers overcome obstacles. Offer advice about how users can gain the greatest benefits from your product or service.

  • What is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your career?

I teach freelance blog writers to include stories of their clients’ past mistakes and failures. Such stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame not only adversity, but the effects of their own mistakes!

  • What are you most proud of on your resume?

Although at Say It For You, I remind owners and practitioners that blogging is not boasting, it’s good to offer “credentializing proof”, alluding in blog posts to your years of experience, weaving into the text mention of your degrees, quoting articles you’ve written – and even citing awards you’ve won. In addition, people tend to be comfortable associating with professionals and business owners who give back to their community.

When you think about it, blogs are nothing more than flip-flop interviews!

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In Blogging, Keep Functional Alternatives in Mind

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They aren’t really the same as your product or service, but it’s important to analyze how your product or service compares to them, Jeanette McMcMurtry reminds entrepreneurs in Marketing for Dummies, referring to functional alternatives.

What are functional alternatives?
Let’s face it – there are products and services out there that aren’t exactly like the stuff you sell or the services you perform, but which lead to the same, or at least some of the same, outcomes for clients and customers.

Examples:

  • For a health coach focusing on weight loss, functional alternatives potential clients might choose include diet meal delivery, dietary supplements, cosmetic “fat freezing” procedures, and personal trainers.
  • For an orthopedic surgery practice, functional alternatives for potential clients include nonsurgical kinetics, psychological pain management clinics, and cryoanalgesia (using cold to block pain).
  • For a fitness studio, functional alternatives include home exercise equipment sellers, yoga or pilates studios, and online fitness course providers.
  • If you own a hotel, AirBnb and dimilar businesses are functional alternatives.

You need to decide how you compete with functional alternatives to your business or practice, McMurtry explains, then build action items into your marketing plan.

In blog marketing, as we know at Say It For You, content creation must be built around a thorough understanding of your target market. What are their goals? What choices do those prospects have in achieving those goals? In what way are your products/services substantially different?

Years ago, I met Jeff Bowe, owner of a private equity group called Actum. I remember him saying “When you walk into a room, everyone should know you for one thing, and that one thing needs to be very, very clear – to you and to your target audience.” In blog writing, it is crucial for business owners and professional practitioners to differentiate themselves from their functional alternatives.

Do you…do things faster? Operate at a lower cost? Make fewer errors? Offer greater comfort or less pain for the customer? Provide a more engaging experience?

In blogging, keep functional alternatives in mind!

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Placement Smarts for Stores and Blogs

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Blog marketing and placement of goods in a grocery store have a lot in common, it seems.

Consumer psychologists have found that shoppers need a little time to get into the shopping mindset. That’s why you’ll often find magazines, books, and flowers near the front of the stores, to get shoppers into a more relaxed frame of mind, authors of The Big Book of Secrets explain. Then, since frequent customers who buy the same staples each week might ignore other items, stock is rotated frequently to lure shoppers to consider new items. Placement on shelves is super-important, because study after study has shown that items put at eye level are most frequently purchased. For that reason, smart merchandising involves placing the most expensive items on eye level shelves; suppliers may be charged extra for placing their goods at eye level,

Welcoming readers to the store or the blog
Just as shoppers arrive at the grocery store because they are interested in finding certain goods, online readers will have landed on your blog because they are interested in finding information on your topic and possibly making a purchase. Unlike the grocery shoppers described in the Big Book of Secrets (who know they’re in the right place, just need to be put into a more relaxed frame of mind), online searchers need immediate confirmation that they’ve come to the right place. To that end, according to blog mavens Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos, key words and phrases should be among the first words in your blog title and then reappear in your first lines of the post.

Staying at eye level
In comparison with putting grocery goods at shoppers’ eye level, eye-tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a page top to bottom and left to right, looking for information that matches what they typed into the search bar.

Putting the thesis and conclusion on the “end caps”
Grocery marketing studies have shown that placing items on end caps (the shelves at the outer end of each aisle), can boost sales by as much as a third. When it comes to blogging for business, I teach at Say It For You, the “end caps” of blog marketing are titles and closing lines. in helping high school and college students write effective essays, I often suggest they introduce their readers to both their topic and their thesis, doing both those things on the “end cap” where they’ll get the most attention. That way, I teach each the student writer, your readers will understand not only what issue will be under discussion, but towards “which side” of the argument you’re trying to steer your readers. In business blog writing, for the opening “end cap”, you may choose to present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy, challenging statement. Later, on the “back end” of your blog “aisle”, your “pow” closing statement ties back to the opener, bringing your post full circle.

Checking out
In a grocery store, even shoppers who leave totally empty-handed must pass by the checkout counters. In blog marketing, the equivalent is an “enticing, well-written Call to Action, as written.com suggests.

Just as if your were managing a grocery store, use your placement smarts in blogging for business!

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Calls to Action Must make Clear Who’s Asking – and of Whom

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For blog content writers, there’s a moral to the following humorous anecdote I found in Readers Digest:

          Eating breakfast at a diner, a man who had a cup of coffee but no spoon called out to the waitress, “Excuse me, but this coffee is too hot to stir with my finger.” A minute later, the waitress returned with another cup of coffee saying “Here, this one isn’t so hot.”

Sometimes the same type of misunderstanding can elicit the wrong reaction from readers of our blog posts. “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.

In the story, of course, the diner did not know the waitress. Perhaps he thought the humorous approach (talking about stirring the coffee with his finger) would stimulate a smile plus a quick response from the server. He obviously judged the situation incorrectly. As the Brussels event planning firm Spacehuntr cautions, in blogging you have to know your target audience before asking them to act.

When building a plan to connect with an audience, Francesca Pinder advises, consider not only age, gender, and nationality, but where your target readers “hang out”, what they read and watch, and what they’re saying on social media.. Interviews, focus groups, and a lot of very alert listening can help you understand what causes they support.

As content writers, we cannot position ourselves (or our clients) within the marketplace without studying the surroundings for our target audience. And, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements to let readers know who’s asking for the action.

Years ago, I heard a speaker say that if your marketing isn’t working, you might have the wrong story, the wrong stuff, or the wrong audience. In the Readers Digest story, the “audience” was the right one (the server was the correct person from whom to request a utensil); what was wrong was the way the request was worded.

In blogging for business, if you know your target audience, you’re more likely to find the right way to approach them in asking them to take action.

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