What-It-Would-Do-For-You Blog Content Writing

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“When asking ‘What do you want?’ you are seeking an answer that is very specific and positive. ‘I don’t want . . ‘” is not something for which you can coach,” explains Laura Poole, author of the book Perfect Phrases for Coaching Employee Performance.

 

How can that coaching insight apply to the content we create for business owners and professional practitioners to offer their online readers?
Some of the areas in which employees often crave coaching, Poole notes, include:
  • Applying new skills
  • Dealing with task management
  • Balancing work and life
  • Improving communication skills
  • Launching a pet project

And, while blog content can address each one of those things, offering valuable information and advice to readers, it’s important to remember what coaching is not, as Poole cautions.  “Coaching assumes individuals know what they want and need. The process helps them uncover it, take ownership of it, and move forward in a productive, sustainable way.” The ‘coachee’s desire should be specific and measurable, so that the result becomes obvious when it’s been achieved, the author asserts.

Three questions Poole suggests coaches ask their clients demonstrate clearly why blog content can often achieve what static web page content cannot:

  1. What would it do for you?  (It’s the employee/client who must find the answer for him or herself)
  2. Who else would be affected?
  3. What is it costing you not to have this?
Like coaching, our Say It For You content writers have come to understanding, blogs are not there to admonish, or warn, or even inspire online readers, who have arrived at a particular blog post on a fact-finding mission, looking specifically for information about what that business or that practitioner does and knows about. The tone of the blog content should assume that with complete information, readers will translate that information into action.
The coach/practitioner/business owner is posing the three questions (what would our product/service do for you, who else would be affected by your action or inaction, and what is the cost of your failing to act), allowing the reader to own that choice.
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Blog Hunter-Gatherers Tell Stories to Ignite

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Anybody can become a better communicator, a better storyteller, says Carmine Gallo, author of “the Storyteller’s Secret.”.  Tell more personal stories, he advises.  Unfortunately, he laments, most of what we read and hear is 99% facts and 1% story. “I say, turn it around”, Gallo urges.

 

In the 1960’s, a Canadian anthropologist studying hunter-gatherer Bushmen in the Kalahari desert, a society that had existed in southern Africa for more than 150,000 years, found that  the Bushmen were hunter-gatherers by day and storytellers by night. In a place of frequent droughts, floods, and famine, the Bushmen used storytelling to boost their social relationships and create bonds.

 

“No matter who you are, you are a storyteller, says Karen Friedman of the Public Relations Society of America. Research shows that people are more likely to remember a story than a statistic. In a program at Stanford University, students were asked to give one-minute speeches that contained three statistics and one story. Only 5 percent of the listeners remembered a single statistic, while 63 percent remembered the stories.

 

Friedman’s message has direct applicability to blog content writers, and it comes in the form of a warning: …”Using digital content will not increase brand loyalty or enhance your marketing efforts. It takes an old-fashioned story that keeps listeners on the edge of their seats to help you shape your outcome.”

 

But, like every worthwhile endeavor, storytelling takes some skill and demands practice. True, as Elizabeth Bernstein said last year in the Life & Arts section of the Wall Street Journal, “when we share our personal narratives, we disclose something about our values, our history, and our outlook on life. But the bonding benefits of storytelling only work if you’re good at it, and many of us aren’t.”

 

As a professional blog content creator and trainer in corporate writing, I think storytelling is a perfect vehicle for blogging. While blog marketing can be designed to “win search”, once the searchers have arrived, what needs winning is their hearts, and that is precisely what content writers can achieve best through storytelling. Done well, the stories will show why you are passionate about delivering your service or products to customers and clients.
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Let’s Be Designerly in Our Blogging

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DORIS Research, I learned in the Indianapolis Business Journal, uses design thinking to organize workplaces. As a blog content writer and trainer, I particularly liked two suggestions DORIS founder Samantha Julka offers for being “more designerly”

1.  “Spend time thinking about people. Think about how they would react or feel about the action you are making or the thing you are creating.”
This statement reminds me of a statement I found in a West Bend Insurance promotional piece: “Much like beauty, ‘value’ is in the eye of the beholder.” Because of that truth, success in blog marketing is knowing your particular audience and thinking about how they (not the average person, but specifically “they*) would probably react or feel about your approach to the subject.at hand.

For example, while you may point out that your product or service can do something your competitors can’t, that particular “advantage” may or may not be what your audience is likely to value. Are you the cheapest (is that likely to appeal to your audience?) or the most expensive (is your audience on that prizes exclusivity?)
2.  “Simple is smart.  Making something simple for other people is actually much harder than making something complex…When it feels effortless to them, you’ve done your job.”
There is actually a Simplicity Score for writers, based on the idea that average sentence length is a good indicator of text difficulty. In preparing blog content, simple can be the smarter choice.  There’s a caveat, though, we maintain at Say it For You. Given the limited attention spans of online readers, we may need to compromise between interesting and simple.
On the keeping-it-simple side, content writers can dump qualifiers (extraneous adverbs and adjectives), while at the same time, using repetition of key phrases to build “blog muscle”.

To be effective, let’s try to be more designerly in our blogging!

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Turns of Phrase Catch Readers By the Curiosity

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Blog post titles have two seemingly contradicting jobs to do – arousing readers’ curiosity while still assuring them they’ve come to the right place, I’ve often explained to blog content writers at Say It For You.
Sometimes, in either the title or the body of a post, “misdirection” adds humor. I remember Jeff Fleming of the National Speakers Association of Indiana teaching us that speakers and magicians use misdirection to cause a surprise, which tickles listeners’ funny bones.

Just the other day (Employee Benefit News is just one example of the “reading around” I do to keep content fresh),  I came across two examples: “Not-So-Sweet-Dreams” was the title of an article about lack of sleep on the part of workers. (We’re used to the expression “sweet dreams”, so the title sort of brings readers up short.) A second article in the same issue was called “Thank God It’s Thursday”, discussing the merits of a four-day workweek.  Since the expression “Thank God It’s Friday” is so ubiquitous, the insertion of “Thursday” arouses curiosity.

Using unlikely comparisons is another technique content writers can use to engage readers. Putting ingredients together that don’t seem to match is not only an excellent tool for creating engaging business blog content, but also a good teaching tool. Going from what is familiar to readers to the unfamiliar area of your own expertise, allows your potential customers to feel smart as well as understood.

One point I keep stressing to business owners and practitioners hesitant about launching a blog
on the grounds that “I’ve already covered my products and services on my website – what else is left to say?” is that the blog is there to provide relevant, useful, and timely content to your prospects and customers to help them solve problems, understand industry trends, and make sense of the news and how it relates to them.

One caution about surprising readers – far-fetched can come across as “bait ‘n switch” if the unlikely comparison doesn’t clarify and help readers get the answers they came to find. You might say that, when it comes to blog content writing, misdirection needs to end up by offering direction!
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Blogging About Your Five

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Most businesses are good at 95% of what they do, says billionaire restaurateur and hotelier Tilman Fertitta in his newest book Shut Up and Listen. It’s the remaining 5%, he says, that determines whether the business excels or not. That 5% is the difference driver or tipping point, the author explains, offering examples from restaurant settings. 

On the negative side, that 5% difference can be made by a server bringing a drink without a napkin or a four-person table with one mismatched chair. A positive “fiver” could be knowing the names of repeat customers and where they prefer to be seated
Fertitta’s firm message for success: “Aim for a culture that puts the five percent at the forefront of your thoughts, decisions, and acts.” 

Blog titles and content, we emphasize at Say It For You, need to focus on the positive aspects of your business or practice, and primarily on the positive results customers can expect from selecting to work with you. Fellow blogger Michael Fortin agrees.  “Leave out the ‘buts”, he advises, and substitute ‘ands”.

 

And, while one approach in blogging is to compare what you have to offer with competitors, avoid devaluing other companies’ products and services. Focus on demonstrating what you value and the way you like to deliver services.

 

Behavioral science introduced a term that can be very useful for blog content creators: framing. Even a slight alteration to the way something is presented can result in a completely different response or decision, the authors of the digitalalchemy.global blog explain.

 

It’s interesting that when customers have a bad experience, they are four times more likely to dump your brand, as ZCNet reminds us. What’s so ironic is that the bad experience almost always relates to the 5%, not to the usually satisfactory performance that results in customer loyalty to providers whose overall performance is just OK. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as “negativity bias”, which explains our tendency to make judgments based on negative far more than positive information.

 

In your business or practice, you’re probably on top of your 95%. The 5% tipping point is what you need to clearly convey in your blog!
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