Posts

How Will They Experience Your Blog Post?

/0 Comments/in , , /by

 

 

 

Ellen Dunnigan

 

At a recent Drive Indy event, executive coach Ellen Dunnigan emphasized the mantra “Intentionality is the hallmark of influence”. Keeping in mind the formula P+A=MA (purpose + Audience = My Actions), before entering a room or beginning an encounter, you must predict, Dunnigan advises,  how they are likely to react to your presence. Your presence includes the way you look, the way you carry yourself,  the words you choose. How do you intend for the person or people you will face to experience their encounter with you?

Always ask yourself, Dunnigan urges, what the single most important point (of the meeting, the encounter, the speech) will be. Translated into content creation, that very concept is expressed as “The Power of One”. Each blog post should have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, we teach at Say It For You. Focused on one thing, your post has greater impact, since people are bombarded with many messages each day. The Power of One also means targeting one audience per blog post. The more focused a blog is on connecting with a narrowly defined target audience, the more successful it will be in converting prospects to clients and customers.

In dealing with an employee whose dress or manner of speaking with customers needs changing, a member of the Drive Indy audience asked Dunnigan, how can I best approach that encounter? Again, intentionality is the saving force, was the speaker’s answer. In preparing for the meeting, focus on the “single most important point”, predicting how the employee is likely to experience the encounter.

“Executive presence” means showing up – at the head of a room or on a web page, as confident and competent, respecting your audience while “predicting” their response to the information or advice you’re providing. “It’s your rant, but it’s all about them,” as I stressed in my last Say It For You post. People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even if they respect your expertise and have a need for your products and your guidance.

How will your readers experience the blog post you’re preparing to publish?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

It’s Your Rant, But It’s All About Them

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

l

A “rant”, (venting a complaint in an angry, loud voice), is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “a high-flown, extravagant, or bombastic speech or utterance, a piece of turgid declamation, a tirade.” While oral tirades are still with us, Daniel Seidel writes in Slate, the last decade or so has seen more and more written rants, “a form that has blossomed on the Web.” A good rant, Seidel thinks, expresses a real passion, often one enflamed by a feeling of powerlessness. Still, many rants are humorous, with a tongue-in-cheek tone. Whatever the tone of aa particular rant, he adds, there is neither the expectation nor the desire for a response. “It would be simplistic to think of blogging as a kind of sublimated ranting,” Seidel remarks, “but blogs do form a part of our cacophonous culture.”

Not all blog posts are rants, of course. There are, however, three “rant”- like content piece types that our writers at Say It For You have found useful:

  1. An “if only” best business practice that you wish everyone with whom you do business would adopt. The content makes the point that doing things in a certain way would make the lives of both the provider and of the customer so-o-o much easier and business dealings so much more efficient!
  2. A device, program, or source of information that the owner wants t make sure everyone knows about, something that would make doing business s much smoother and more efficient
  3. A mistake that you see others making over and over that you believe is a big barrier to their success.

(To be most effective, even if a rant post is focused on a single idea, the content should be broken down or “chunked” into bullet points or numbered steps to make the concept easy to remember, as demonstrated above.)

Needless to say, rant blog posts can elicit strong reactions on the part of readers (either because you’ve touched a nerve (what you’re complaining about may be their pet peeve, as well), or because they totally disagree and want to prove you wrong. Worse, your rant risks rubbing readers the wrong way, making them feel as if they are incompetent or uninformed.  People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they come to your blog seeking information on what you sell, what you do, and what you know about!

If you’re moved to include a rant or two in your content marketing, the cardinal rule to remember is that it’s all about the readers, not about you. How will they experience your rant?

,

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Take a Few of the 100+ Writer Prompts and Call Me in the Morning

/0 Comments/in , /by

Writer’s block is like being stuck at a truck stop parking lot, unable to start your car, the editors of The Writer magazine understand. For online content marketers, writer’s block may put its victimes in een greater pain, given that frequency is so crucia to the success of online marketing through blogs. At Say It For You, .after years of being involved in all aspects of blog writing and training, one irony I”ve found is that business owners who “show up” with recently published content on their websites are rare.  there’s a tremendous fall-off rate, with most blogs abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. Pity, because in all advertising and marketing, as Mark Zimmer of Zimmer Marketing explains,  the more often a customer is exposed to a message, the more of a sense of “omnipresence” there is.

The fear of “saying old things” is one many business owners and professional practitioners have when it comes to their blog. Even if they understand the overall marketing value of having a blog, their concern is that, sooner or later, they (or their blog content writer) will run out of things to say. In blogging training sessions, I need to explain that it’s more than OK – in fact it’s a good idea – to repeat themes already covered in former posts. The trick is to adding a layer of new information or a new insight each time.

For the benefit of my Say It For You readers, I’m using this post to highlight just four of the Writer prompts that seem most applicable to blog content writing:

“Take something you have recently learned – a fact, a skill – and give it one of your characters in a significant way.”
One point I’ve consistently stressed in these blog content writing tutorials is how important it is to provide valuable information to readers, while avoiding any hint of “hard sell”.  It’s helpful to collate helpful hints from a variety of experts, offering those as a “gift” from the business owner to blog visitors. Even more impactful, though, is sharing valuable lessons learned by the professional practitioner or business owners based on their own hard-won experience and expertise.

“Use a line from poetry to inspire new work”
When it comes to blogging for business, reading poetry teaches content writers clarity and precision. T. S. Eliot’s “April is the cruellest month” can inspire a piece about preparing one’s hoe for spring, about college application essays submission, or about tax planning..

“Create an unconventional graveyard scene with a surprising outcome.”
While a funeral company’s “green burial” practices might be the subject for its content marketing, an estate planning attorney might use an anecdote to stimulate thoughts about estate planning,

Write the sequel to your favorite fairy tale. Does money really buy happiness for Jack and his beanstalk? Do Snow White and the prince end up getting a divorce?
Online readers likely to find your blog through organic search will be those who already have a need for what you have to sell and for what you do. On the other hand, at Say It For You, we’re convinced blogging for business is the perfect tool for introducing those readers to newer applications and uses for your products and services One important function of a blog is to “point picture’ of the consequences of inaction.

With a main key to business blogging success being simply staying on task, you may find writer prompts may be just the ticket!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Are You Targeting Cat Owners or Dog Owners?

/0 Comments/in , /by

 

Reading through the Harvard Business Review the other day, I discovered a startling piece of scientific information that content marketers need yo know: Cat owners are more cautious consumers than dog owners! Professor Xiaojing Yang of the University of Southern California explains that consumer behaviors are driven by two opposing mindsets:

  • a promotion focus (eagerness, risk seeking, desire to maximize gains) – Dogs’ openness and adaptability are associated with a promotion focus.
  • a prevention focus (caution, risk aversion, priority on minimizing losses – Cats’ wariness and aloofness are association with a prevention focus.

Given the prevalence of pets in our society, Yang concluded, “:they’re an important part of our socialization”. How can this understanding be put to use in marketing products and services? When the features and benefits are mostly promotion-related, Prof Yang suggests, companies might feature dogs in their marketing materials. When they have more to do with prevention, cats would be a better choice.

Calls to Action in persuasive blog posts, as we know at Say It For You, can succeed only if our content has tapped into an underlying need or “desire” on the part of the reader. In the book Well Spoken, Kevin Mayer lists possible “wants”, or persuasive appeals to help prospects be willing to move forward and take the desired action, including approval by others, cleanliness, convenience, safety, health, or safety, each goal may be understood from either a promotion focus or a prevention focus.

No blog – and certainly no blog post – can be all things to all people. Each post must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who are most likely to want to do business with you.  That way, the appeals, as well as the way they are presented, can be chosen specifically for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, even the title of each blog entry.

In your content, are you targeting cat owners or dog owners?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

To Be Original, Be Well-Versed

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

 

“Originality is important for publication, and to be as original as possible, you have to be well versed in what has already been done,” Ran Walker, author of 28 books, tells writers in a Writer’s Digest piece. With millions of people working in the horror novel genre, for example, “it’s easy to go for the easy scares or gross-outs. It’s good to be inspired by other writers, he admits, but that inspiration needs to guide you into new and uncharted territory.

When it comes to online content marketing, Camille Allegrucci has a slightly divergent view, citing “the myth of originality”. Your voice, Allegrucci says, is more important than new ideas, and no “original” idea is truly original, anyway. (Would anyone seriously contend that Anna Karenina lacks originality or is not worth reading because of the plot points it shares with Madame Bovary?) The question to ask yourself is not “How can I say something that has never been said before?” but rather “How can I express myself in the best way that my voice allows?”

It helps to bring in less well-known facts about familiar things and processes, and even more when you suggest new ways of thinking about things readers already know. New ideas may not be “a thing”, but new insights and opinions can be. At Say It For You, our advice to business owners and their content writers is that you must offer an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up to readers. No, it’s not “new information”, and you’re not re-inventing the proverbial wheel. What’s “new is the clarity of your views on the subject.

There may, in fact, be “millions of people” working in the horror novel genre, as Ran Walker points out, but there are 4.4 million new blog posts being published every DAY! So, as Allegrucci claims, it may not be about “originality” after all, but more about “un-packaging” information already out there, proactively interpreting content in ways that are not only understandable, but usable by readers.

The other “piece” of being well-versed to be original involves the research into emotive power responsiveness. Researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, came up with two ways to score ads.

1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

The “originality” of effective blog posts, I teach at Say It For You, consists of offering the business owner’s (or the professional’s, or the organizational executive’s) unique perspective on issues related to the search topic and their unique experiences and insights gained.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail