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Bloggership – the Art of Getting Them to Want To

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Products And Services Keys Show Selling And Buying Online

Dwight D. Eisenhower had a great definition for leadership: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Is it simply a matter of selling your product or service to prospective customers? After all, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Everyone lives by selling something.” Sort of, say  co-authors Steve Chandler and Scott Richardson in 100 Ways to Motivate Others.  “Leadership means asking for what you want, being very direct with your request, and having your communication centered on requests and promises.”

“Bloggership” might well be defined the same way as leadership, I think – getting readers to want to. “Briefly,” says Jim Connolly of Jim’s Marketing Blog, “here’s how content marketing works: You build and market a website and stock it with free information that has real value to your prospective clients.”

Damon Rouse of problogger.net advises business bloggers looking to sell stuff on their blog is to be careful not to be purely sales oriented. “While blogs can be used as a tool for selling, they are at their best when they are relational, conversational, and offer readers something useful that will enhance their lives in some way…Most people will not react overly positively to a blog that is just sales spin,” Rouse adds.

“If you show how individual bits of information are related in ways readers hadn’t considered, says Jim Connolly, that establishes your expertise and keeps readers’ attention long enough to you to your “ask”.

Even if “they want to”, readers may be fearful of making the wrong choice. Don’t underestimate those fears, cautions Whale Hunters’ sales trainer Barbara Weaver Smith.  You may be totally focused on the great advantages that you provide with your products and services, and forget that potential buyers are fearful of making the wrong decision. Searchers may lack experiences with the latest proce4sses or technology in your field of expertise, but they know what their own needs are.  Give them a “feel” for desired outcomes of a commitment to buy.

Bloggership – the art of getting online searchers to want to!

 

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Selling 102 for Business Blog Content Writers

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Exceptional Selling

“Your ability to constructively attract and engage a customer in relevant dialogue requires a conversational style as well as substantive content,” cautions Jeff Thrull in his book Exceptional Selling.

Thrull might have been offering advice to us blog content writers, I couldn’t help thinking.  What I like to call the “I/you conversational style” is precisely the approach most effective for business blogs.  At the same time, there is so much internet content proliferation that it’s definitely becoming a challenge to get noticed online. If the hard-sell technique ever worked, it certainly doesn’t work any longer!

Thrull describes the new reality of selling:

  • When customers are engaged, they learn.
  • When what they learn is compelling enough to make them want to change, they will buy.

In short, he’s advising – don’t push!

The good news in blog marketing is the same as the good news Thrull describes as operative in direct selling: Customers have negative stereotypes about salespeople.  That makes it easy to differentiate ourselves by acting against type. “When in doubt,” he says, “do the opposite of what a salesperson would do.”

Applying that very logic to blog copywriting, I advise using blog posts to demonstrate the business owner’s or professional practitioner’s expertise, and to offer valuable tips to readers.

The goal of each post  continues to be providing those who visit your site with a taste of what it would be like to have you working with them!

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