Business Blogs Must Magnetize and Mesmerize Before Monetizing

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Magnetizing, then mesmerizing your audience is all about you stepping out of old fashioned magicthe realm of mediocrity as a speaker or trainer and into the realm of magic, says Callan Rush, the self-dubbed Maven of Motivation. Only after those first two steps are accomplished, she explains, can any speaker monetize his/her business.

I was struck by how relevant Rush’s advice is to business blog content writing. Problem #1 for seminar leaders, she explains, is low attendance.  Isn’t “getting found” online the first step for businesses?  Doesn’t every business or practice need to draw online traffic before anything else can happen?

The first three steps on Rush’s Magnetic Marketing Checklist are:

  •  Choose a specific audience
  • Choose a specific problem
  • Create a tantalizing title

The Say It For You “take”:

Your knowledge of who your target audience is must influence every aspect of your blog  – the words you use in the title, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach – all of it meant to magnetize the specific type of customer or client you want and those who will want to do business with you.  That’s why we content marketers use and repeat keyword phrases to help search engines  recognize us as the best match for the right online searchers.
Millions of people are putting ideas and information out on the Web, often just to share knowledge and give others the benefit of their opinions.  But in your case, you’re using your blog as part of your marketing campaign. The blog is your “podium” – you get to showcase your business so customers will want you to be the one to provide them with the product or the service they need. But, like the seminar presenters whom Callan Rush advises, even after they arrive, if you fail to mesmerize your audience – you’re toast!

Captivating readers, just as captivating audiences, depends on what Rush calls WDYD – (What do you do?)  In other words, you need to choose a very specific problem or need, and offer a very clear and compelling solution.

We business bloggers are faced with a tall order: our content must magnetize, then mesmerize. Only then will any “monetizing” become possible!

 

 

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Business Blogs as Tools for Helping

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football stadium“Journalism students at IUPUI took advantage of the Super Bowl festivities in Indianapolis by working as reporters and social media experts,” reports the IUPUI website.

As an executive career mentor at Butler College of Business, of course, I can appreciate the benefit of this “real life, real business” experience the student journalists are receiving.  But the aspect of the article I found most interesting from my business blogger’s point of view was this:

The focus isn’t on touting the Super Bowl – or the restaurants, hotels, and transportation companies in town.  Instead, the focus was to have the students use social media as a tool for helping.  In one example highlighted in the article, “the Social Media Command Center team monitored Twitter feeds in order to offer help, directions, or other services”.

Since the work I do as a freelance blog writer and corporate blogging trainer has everything to do with enabling people to search for and easily find the information, products, and services they need, I liked what the students were doing to help visitors navigate our town.

Ease of navigation (as I stress when offering business blogging help) is absolutely crucial to the success of any SEO marketing blog. From the manner in which the corporate blog page is set up to the corporate blog content writing, the process must be smooth.  (One of my favorite cautions is that frustrating potential clients is to be avoided like the plague.)  In fact, the emphasis always needs to be on helping, never on selling.

Unlike the case with us content writers, for the Super Bowl student journalism students, identifying their target customers is not a challenge.  But, like us, that team was tasked with appropriately signaling to target customers that they understood and were dedicated to serving those customers.

The more your customers “see” how you understand them and are dedicated to helping them, the more differentiated and persuasive you become, according to local marketing professional Amy Lemen.

Even with as desired and popular a “product” as the Super Bowl, journalism students were learning, social media (and especially business blogs, I’d add!)  efforts work best when they are used “as a tool for helping”.

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Going for a Globe or an Oscar in Your Business Blog?

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When it comes to the business of honoring those who toil in filmmaking, the two Omain rivals are the Golden Globe Awards and the Oscars. Susan Woszczyna of USA Today clarifies the differences between the two.

 

WHO DECIDES?
For the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s 93 members aim to recognize excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign. The Academy Awards or Oscars honors cinematic achievements only.  The Oscars are overseen by the nearly 6,000 member Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

One good rule of thumb about business blogging is to narrow down the target audience.  To be an effective marketing tool for your business, your blog must to be the result of a well-planned strategy aimed at a specific segment of the market.
WHAT’S THE VENUE?
The Globes prefer a party atmosphere, says Woszczyna, and the event takes place in a banquet room at the Beverly Hilton hotel, with dinner and beverages served. The Oscars, by contrast, are held at a movie theater inside a shopping mall and, according to Elena Sheppard of Arts.Mic, are “all business”.

I remember reading an article in Speaker Magazine about the Alice Cooper rock music group who developed their brand around one target audience – kids.  “If the parents hate, the kids will love it” became their motto.  Know your brand and choose everything from the style of your writing to the visuals you use in your business blog based on what “venue” you wish to be associated with.

 

ONE TOPIC OR TWO?
The Golden Globe awards include television shows in addition to films, and often are drawn to different and more obscure films. The Academy Awards leave TV to the Emmys and (at least in Woszczyna’s opinion) focus primarily on well attended and well recognized movies.

Blogging can have several different purposes, but make no mistake – blogging for business is marketing. The more focused our efforts are, the more successful the blog will be in converting prospects to clients and customers.

Are you going for a Globe or an Oscar in YOUR business blog?

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In Order to Engage Blog Readers, Avoid Spoon-Feeding

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Feeding a cute Lovely Baby Girl“Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.”

I was hearing this phrase for the first time, spoken by a police chief in a news broadcast, but later learned that the saying has been around for decades.

As a writer, I’m always fascinated by what makes certain word combinations pack such tremendous power.  In this case, I concluded, it was because I. as the listener, needed to go through a certain thinking process in order to get the meaning. Couldn’t that same concept apply to readers of our business blog posts, I wondered?

Reminds me of something that humorist Dick Wolfsie teaches. In order for a joke to be funny, he explains, the person listening to the joke or reading the joke has to figure things out!  The laughter is the reward that the listener or reader gives himself for having figured out what the punch line is really saying.

It may be that the same concept applies to the material presented in our business blog content writing, and that, for the blog to cause real communication, it takes two.

People go online and use search engines to find information.  They need to know more about something, and that something has to do with what you have, what you know about, or what you know how to do.  If you’ve provided relevant, up to date content in your blog post, the reader’s browser found you, and you’ve got yourself a potential client or customer. That individual, just like the person who gets a joke, feels rewarded for the search.

Needless to say, the content needs to be understandable.  But what the “Better to be tried by 12…” lesson might add here is that we don’t want to spoon-feed the readers. They need to be able to do part of the “work”.  Otherwise, like bored students at a lecture, they might doze off (or, in the case of online readers, click off!).

Educational theory supports my understanding.“A lecture is still a lecture, and having students simply listen is still a passive action,” observes Ben Johnson of Edutopia. “The solution is simple,” he offers: “If a teacher wants to increase student engagement, then the teacher needs to increase student activity — ask the students to do something with the knowledge and skills they have learned.”

Engage blog readers, but avoid spoon feeding!

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How About a Riddle for Your Business Blog?

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One curious thing I’ve found is that blog readers tend to be curious creatures.  In Hands holding a white piece of paperfact, their curiosity factor is highest when they’re learning about themselves.  As a longtime Indianapolis blog content writer, I’ve found that “self-tests” and surveys tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to information presented in a marketing blog.

Taking that concept one step further, we can use riddles as jumping-off points to the content in a blog post.  I found some great examples of the way riddles can get readers’ brain cells whirring from the get-go.

A riddle can help define basic terminology:
What is the one thing shared by all four of these: a needle, a potato, a hurricane, and a person?
Answer: An eye.
(This riddle might be used to introduce a post about hurricanes for a vendor of weather apps for mobile phones.)

A riddle can explain why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way:
If you have me, you want to share me.  If you share me, you haven’t got me.  What am I?
Answer: A secret.
(This riddle might be used to assure potential clients that their information will be kept confidential.)

A riddle can be used as a call to action:
What is always coming but never arrives?
Answer: Tomorrow.
(This riddle can be used to urge readers of a diet and exercise blog to get started on a program to better their health and not procrastinate.)

A riddle can be used as a “mantra” or as “motto” for a business:
A mile from end to end, yet as close as a friend., a precious commodity freely given.  What is it?
Answer: A smile.
(This riddle could adorn the website of a dentist or orthodontist.)

How might YOU use a riddle to enrich your business blog content?

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