“Which Means That” Business Blogging

Radio Station WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) is an old sales training rule that all writers of SEO marketing blogs had better remember: Buyers care about benefits, not features.

In “Twelve Tips for Writing Better Marketing Brochures”, marketing professional Al Trestrail suggests a system that copywriters and salespeople can use to develop a list of benefits. In corporate blogging training, I plan to share that system with business owners who are just beginning to blog and with freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis. And, in my work as a professional ghost blogger for business, I think that Trestrail system is likely to come in very, very handy.

Draw up a list of product features, Trestrail advises. (The professional practitioners – the doctor, lawyer, CPA, financial advisor, and insurance agent Say It For You clients can use the system to draw up lists of the services they provide.)Then, after each feature, Trestrail directs us, add the words “which means that…. “The rest of the sentence will be devoted to explaining the “WIIFM” benefit to the buyer or blog visitor. In short, in applying that copywriting rule to the business of corporate blog writing, you’ll be answering each reader’s “so what?” question before it’s even asked!

Each claim a content writer puts into a corporate blog needs to be put into context for the reader, so that the claim not only is true, but feels true to online visitors. Remember, there are millions of blog posts out there making claims of one sort or another. Based on my own experience reading all types of SEO marketing blogs, I'd venture to say only the very top few manage to convey to blog visitors what the claims about their products and services can mean to the customers!

Let’s practice together:  My special challenge to my Say It For You readers is this: Within the coming two weeks, submit to me a description of one feature of either a product you offer or a service you provide, followed by a “which means that” explanation of the way that product or service is of help to users. I’ll link back to you, which means that there will be one more “back link” to your site, which means that search engines will perceive your site as “valued” by others.