Wednesday Wordsmithing Tip for Business Bloggers: Customizing for Customers

Since this week my Say It For You blog is devoted to sharing tips from three different books, today I’ll share a thought on blog content customization from Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw.

One of the many anecdotes Gladwell relates in the book is, in two ways, especially relevant for blog content writers.   During a market research project for which H.J. Heinz Company sent researchers into people’s homes to watch the way they used ketchup, a three year old child reached for the 40-oz. bottle. His mother intervened, taking the bottle away from him and giving him a dollop on his plate.

The researcher had an epiphany: since a typical child consumes 60% more ketchup than a typical adult, the company needed to put ketchup in a bottle a child could control. The EZ Squirt bottle was born, made of soft plastic with a conical nozzle.  In homes where that bottle is used, ketchup consumption grew by 12%!

Lesson One: Those of us who provide blog writing services must know the needs of our audience.  Our corporate blog writing must speak to each blogging target audience in their language. The reason Gladwell’s story can be of such enormous business blogging assistance is that it reminds us to write content designed to let online readers know the company understands their specific needs.

Lesson Two: If you are four,” explains Casey Keller (until recently chief growth officer for Heinz), you don’t get to choose what you eat for dinner.  The one thing you can control is – ketchup! “It’s the one part of the food experience you can customize and personalize,” adds Keller. When it comes to SEO marketing blogs, success hinges on narrowing down your market and then doing everything you can to appeal to just that audience.

Remember that the secret Heinz discovered was allowing the customer to customize. Offer more than one Call to Action. Those who need more information before making a decision should be able to pick up the phone and call (and easily get a live person on the line!). Or for those not quite ready for that, they should be able to email a question (without needing to provide an entire personal biography in return!).  Or, for online visitors not quite ready even for that – they may choose to watch a video or download a white paper.

Are you serving up YOUR blog content writing in EZ Squirt?