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5 Ways to Talk About Tile

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TV reality show personalities Drew and Jonathan Scott have long been favorites of mine, so I was delighted to find their new lifestyle magazine, “Reveal” at a neighborhood newsstand.

At Say It For You, our content writers are always seeking to vary the ways we present information on a single topic in many different ways. Not only are we on the lookout for different “templates” in terms of platform graphics, but different formats for presenting information about any business or professional practice.

Well, I found, the Property Brothers have that technique down pat. In this single magazine issue, there are five different articles, all relating to just one aspect of home decor – tile!

1. the Tile Files
To help readers “know their options”, Drew and Jonathan present an overview of seven different tile types, including ceramic, porcelain, terra-cotta, class, cement, Natural stone, and peel-and-stick, listing the pros and cons of each.

The point of using lists of options, I explain to blog content writers, is to provide valuable information, to readers, suggesting different ways in which the business owner’s products – or the practitioner’s services – might be of particular use to them, perhaps in a way they hadn’t considered.

2. the Shape of Things
Here Drew and Jonathan delve into their subject in greater detail, first listing the different shapes in which tiles or sold. This “listicle” doubles as an advice column, since certain shapes, the brothers explain, work best for certain applications. “Mermaid” or scallop-shaped tiles, we learn, are sold interlocked for easier installation on kitchen backsplashes or behind bathroom vanities. “Square Zelligs” are glazed, often non-uniformly shaped, ceramic tiles best used for countertops and shower walls “for people who like a little character and don’t mind a snag here or there.”

Offering advice that’s out of the ordinary is actually great advice for business blog content writers. Drew and Jonathan are offering advice readers can use right now. More important, the authors are explaining the reasons behind each piece of advice.

3. the Trends
In this article, the Property Brothers collate advice from four different prominent designers. Barbie Palomina, for example likes using tiles on ceilings as well as on walls and floors. Gabrielle Aker likes mixing three complementary colors of tile to create a sunrise effect.
Kathryn Berschback installs tiles with prints and patterns in a butler’s pantry, while Zzoe Gowan “mixes and matches: patterned and solid tiles.

Since we are hired by clients to tell their story online to their target audiences, we need to do intensive research, as well as taking guidance from the client’s experience and expertise. Interviewing experts allows us dig deeper into the topic, offering added value to readers by bringing in expert insights.

4. All About Grout
This piece falls into the “how-to” category, with practical tips and cautionary advice for DIY readers. “While figuring out the right mix of cement, water, and sand may seem like more of a practical decision than a pretty one,” the authors caution readers that the grout they select is going to be permanently visible between the tiles. That means that both the color of the grout and the amount of spacing between tiles will have a big impact on the finished appearance.

As effective blog content writers, we can demonstrate to our readers how to dodge dangers and avoid costly and embarrassing mistakes. The Property Brothers’ articles are the kind home remodelers might cut out and keep. In the same vein, effective blog content should offer cut-out-and-keep, useful and actionable advice.

5. Install Intel
Before you invest in tile, the Property Brothers advise, find an installer with credibility. The Tile Council of North America (TCNA) certifies installers and keeps them up to date on the most current standards and practices around the installation of tile.

The success of your blog marketing efforts, we explain to Say It For You clients, will be very closely aligned with your positioning yourself as a go-to source of trustworthy information. Using factual proof involves offering statistics about the problem your product or service helps solve; credentializing proof cites your years of experience, and degrees earned.

At Say It For You, our content writers are on the lookout for different formats for presenting information about any business or professional practice. Those five different Reveal Magazine articles, all about tile, yet all different, serve as a great example of imaginative ways to deliver information to blog content audiences.

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Blogging Kernels of Wisdom

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Ease, flavor, and healthiness are the three ways Kelsey Ogletree rates different methods of preparing popcorn (Kernels of Wisdom in a recent issue of AARP Magazine). As a blog content writer, I couldn’t help thinking how, using those same criteria, I might rate the different categories of business blog posts….
‘
Ease –
“Listicles” would probably rate highest on ease, both in terms of the writer’s time in preparing the posts and in terms of how easy numbered or bullet-pointed lists are for readers to scan. The lists can be of tactics to try, alternatives for solving a particular problem, or a “best of” collection.

Flavor –
Personal story blog posts and interviews would rate high on “flavor”. In a different way, opinion pieces would be rich in flavor, showcasing the unique slant of either the business owner of practitioner or that of an employee or customer. You can add “flavor” by revealing how you arrived at the name of your business, and even by revealing the biggest mistake you made in starting your business or practice and what you’ve learned from that mistake.

Humor can be a hook, grabbing attention with a wry “flavor”. Like spices, humor is best in small proportion, and most effective when focused around a problem your company can solve.

Healthiness –
Using content to add value is healthy – for both owner and visitor. How-to blog posts and articles describing unusual applications for a product all add “healthful” value. News-based blog posts can be “healthful”, in that they help readers put current community or industry happening into context. It can be “healthy” for owners to promote products or services by tying in their link to current concerns.. Conversely, it’s healthful for readers when owners use blogs to debunk false information or even to clear the air and erase doubt by responding to a complaint.

Ease, flavor, and healthiness may be used to rate different ways of preparing popcorn, but for content writers, they offer guidelines for creating content that is engaging.

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Blogging a Surround Sound Effect

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The Guy Raz book, How I Built This is all about starting and building a successful venture, with insights and inspiration from the world’s top entrepreneurs. In one of my favorite chapters, Raz talks about creating what he calls a “surround sound effect”.

In actual surround sound, one or more channels are added to the side or behind the listeners to make it seem as if the sound is coming at that listener from all directions. Translated into marketing, Raz explains, the secret is to give the impression that you are “everywhere”, when in reality you’re getting your name out in the handful of places where your core customers spend their time.

To market successfully, Business News explains, “your customer can’t be everyone.” Instead, you need a targeted marketing strategy, the authors stress, to succeed. You must define your niche and target those specific customers.

In fact, Spider Graham writes in bizjournals.com, “the whole goal of all marketing is to get the right message to the right person at the right time”. Of course, Graham adds, we must make sure to do this at the best price possible. If you try to be everything to everyone, your message becomes less impactful, he emphasizes.

Learning about your target customers includes gathering intelligence about:

  • their gender
  • their average age
  • their marital status
  • their educational level
  • their employment
  • their outlook on life
  • where they get their news

OK, OK. But how can marketers help entrepreneurs achieve that “surround sound” effect while still carefully targeting their customers? For our content writers at Say It For You, the challenge is using blogs to inform, educate, and persuade. Where does the “surround sound” come from?

Just as your target market can’t be “everyone”, a blog isn’t –and cannot be – an all-purpose, Swiss-army-knife solution for all your marketing needs. In fact, blogging is just one piece of the general strategy you work on with your team (which might well include a blog copy writer, but which also might include the web designer, the business manager, the employees, loyal fans, even, sometimes, a franchisor).

All the pieces used to promote your business or practice must mesh – social media, traditional advertising, event planning, word of mouth marketing, community involvement. Together all those pieces create the “surround sound effect”.

 

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The 4 Things Your Resume – and Your Blog Page – Should Include

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“There are many different opinions on what information you should and shouldn’t include on your resume. But there are certain basics that must be there,” Zip Recruiter advises in an article reprinted in the Indianapolis Star. “Here’s the good news.” The authors say: “You already have all the answers.”

As a content marketing professional, I found this Zip Recruiter advice highly relevant. What’s so interesting is that, while there are articles galore about what elements should be included in a blog post, there’s relatively little guidance on basic pieces of information that need to appear on a blog page.

Forbes offers a list of 8 must-haves for the blog post content itself:

  1. magnetic headline
  2. compelling lead-in
  3. useful subheads
  4. informative body
  5. appealing graphics
  6. powerful call to action
  7. relevant internal link
  8. good meta description

However (and this is the eye-opening aspect of the Zip recruiter piece), as blog marketers, we’re missing the boat if certain key information isn’t right there, in the same visual field as our wonderful content, quickly accessible to our blog readers:

Contact information
“Include your name along with the proper pronunciation if you find that others have trouble with it,” Zip Recruiter advises. Include the phone number you use most, and your email address. (Sure, your website has an “About” page, but what if a blog visitor is moved to act now?)

Work experience
Your blog is a way to assert your authority as a SME (Subject Matter Expert). You’ve successful dealt with – many times before – the problem with which the reader is dealing now. You’ve got this!

Education
Do business blog readers need to know about educational credentials of a practitioner or business owner? You bet. Today’s consumers won’t do business with someone they don’t trust, and “credentializing” is one way to build trust. Degrees and certifications may be listed or shown as logos, and educational experiences can be woven into blog content itself.

Skills
Demonstrating not only what you know but what you know how to do is a crucial function of any business blog. Specific services offered may be listed on the blog page itself (in addition to offering case studies, testimonials, and descriptions as part of the blog content.

The Zip Recruiter article serves as a reminder to us content writers and the business owners who hire us: The visitors you hope to attract to your website may not be in search of a job, but the same four types of information that belong on a resume belong on your blog page!

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For Business Bloggers, the First things is Finding New Things to Say

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Gerald Ford must have had blog marketing in mind when he stated, “When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to decide is what to say”.

Copyblogger’s Liz Fulghum knew that, too. Back in 2008, Fulghum suggested that blog platforms come with a warning notice:

Blogging is not easy. You may experience unexpected droughts of inspiration, difficulty maintaining a schedule, or succumb to the  pressure of always needing fresh content.

Business bloggers often confide they have trouble continually coming up with fresh ideas for their blog posts and finding new ways to talk about the products and services they offer.  In this, the #1898 of the Say It For You blog, we have several blog “starter kit” models to offer:

Kit #1 – “Interview questions”
How did you arrive at the name for your business? For services or “packages” you offer? What do the names say about the outcomes you hope to bring for your clients and customers? What’s the biggest mistake you feel you’ve made in starting your business and what have you learned from that mistake?

Kit #2 – “Collating”
Collect information from different sources on a specific topic related to your business and organize the information in a new way. Use content from your own former bog posts, newsletters, and emails, adding material from other people’s blogs and articles, from magazines and book, summarizing the main ideas your readers are likely to find useful.

Kit #3 – “Curating”
Find opinion pieces that relate to your industry, quoting from those and then expressing your own unique perspective on that topic.

Kit #4 – “Listicles”
Listicles round up existing content pieces and present them in the form of numbered lists – of tactics to try, alternatives for solving a particular problem, or “best of…” compilations.

Kit #5 – “Changes of heart”
Go back and read your own past blog posts – the further back the better. Has experience – or have outside factors – caused you to change your mind on any of those statements? How? What factors caused your change of heart?

Kit #6 – “In the now”
Enter trending “conversations” about topics in the news. Scour the daily news and pay attention to talk shows, finding “hooks” to promote your products or services by weighing in on current concerns.

Blogging wasn’t yet around in the Gerald Ford era, but the former U.S. President was certainly right about this one: When a man (or woman!) is asked to make a speech (or compose a blog post!), the first thing to decide is what to say.

Keep your blog starter kit stocked and ready to wow!

 

 

 

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