Citing Statistics Doth Not a Corporate Business Blog Call to Action Make!

My Say It For You business blog writing advice pieces this week were all triggered by items in the latest copy of Scientific American Mind magazine.  One corner of one page features only a headline, which was taken from a CNNHealth story:

“Insomnia costs U.S. $63 billion annually in lost productivity”
 

Citing startling statistics like this one is, without doubt, one tactic blog content writers can use to capture readers’ attention.  But my experience as a ghost blogger for business – and as a corporate blogging trainer – has shown me that statistics, even the startling sort, aren’t enough to create positive results for any SEO marketing blog.

Why not?  The fact that a serious problem exists (even if the searcher suffers from that very problem) is not enough to make most readers take action. And in the final analysis, of course, the success of any blog marketing effort depends on that action. As Health.com puts it, “People who have trouble sleeping rarely see their problem as an illness that requires treatment.”

True, as I stress in corporate blogging training sessions, blog content writing has one enormous advantage over traditional “push marketing” tactics. What blogging does best is deliver to corporate blog sites customers who are already interested in the product or service they’re providing!

While it may not in itself galvanize customers into action, including “startling statistics” in corporate blog writing can serve several functions:
 

• Assuring readers they are hardly “alone” in their need for solutions to their medical, financial, or personal challenges
   
• Assuring readers they’ve come to the right place for help, and that this blog content is being offered by a business or professional practice that knows the field and is “up” on recent developments in it.

Once that basic connection has been established through the attention-commanding statistic, the blog content writing can focus on creating the emotional connection with the reader.  At Say It For You, in fact, we believe that more intense connection is what blog writing services should be all about!