“We see potential everywhere, whether it’s a purse or a person,” declares the Goodwill Guy in the TV ad, referring to the fact that donations of goods are turned into cash that goes to help train workers.  

With my ear always to the ground, alert for interesting word tidbits, I thought about that phrase “purse or person”.  As a professional blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I help business owners market tangible products (the “purses”).  In addition, I offer business blogging help to professionals such as attorneys, insurance agents, and physicians (the “persons”). Like the Goodwill Guy, I’ve helped realize the potential in both those marketing situations.

“Tangible products are goods that a buyer can see, touch and feel. Intangible products, or services, are solutions that offer benefits such as convenience, efficiency or expertise but no hard goods,” explains Neil Kulkemuller of Demand Media. “Selling tangible and intangible benefits requires distinct strategies and different persuasive tools,” he adds. A high-quality tangible product can often be witnessed directly by the buyer,Kulkemuller goes on to say, while an intangible solution relies more on the levels of trust and confidence.

At Say It for You, we’ve come to realize, it’s the job of us Indianapolis business blog writers to  “flesh out” the intangibles of both purses and persons. For every fact about the company or about one of its products or services, a blog post addresses unspoken questions such as “So, is that different?”, “So, is that good for me?” 

Whether a business owner is composing his/her own blog posts or collaborating with a professional ghost blogger, it’s simply not enough to provide information to online searchers who’ve landed on a company’s SEO corporate blog. The facts. which are the raw ingredients, need to be “translated” into emotional terms that compel reaction – and action – in readers. That’s true, I find, for both tangible products and professional services.

“Blogging,” says Practical eCommerce’s Paul Chaney, “consists of one person – or one company – communicating directly with consumers in an unfettered, unfiltered manner.” That “one person”, I explain to newbie freelance blog content writers, might be a giant corporation or a  mom-and-pop operation, and might be selling either a tangible good or a service. With blog writing for business, we see potential everywhere!
 

 

If you ask the question, I’ve learned over the years of Say It For You freelance blog content writing, most business owners will tell you they have more than one target audience for their products and services. Still, what I’ve found is that, while there may in fact one market segment or demographic that has proven to yield the greatest number of raving fans for them, they also have “outliers” who bring in just enough revenue to matter.

Fortunately, blog writing is made of very “stretchable fabric” Today’s blog post can slant in one direction; tomorrow’s can take the same theme or “leitmotif” and deal with it in a different way. When I’m offering corporate blogging training, one of the things I keep stressing is that you don't want your blog to be an all-in-one marketing tool that forces a visitor to spend a long time just figuring out the 99 wonderful services your company has to offer.  In fact, ideally, your business blog post is rather short, offering just enough to convey to individual searchers they’ve come to the right place, and to invite them to click over to your website to learn further details.

On the other hand, what you can do with the blog is offer different kinds of information in different blog posts. In a way, each time you post you're pulling out just one of those attachments on your “swiss army knife” and offering some valuable information or advice relating to just one aspect of your business. Another day, your blog post can do the same with a different "attachment".

 For instance, a recent issue of Mental Floss Magazine (I highly recommend this publication as a business blog content idea generator) talks about dogs.  First, there’s a main story, “How Seeing Eye Dogs Found Their Way to America. But there are also smaller articles about what breed of dog is

• Most likely to win a show
• Most likely to stay healthy
• Most unbeatable

Each vignette includes interesting statistics, history, and facts about the breed.

In blogging content terms, what type of target reader might be interested in each of these offerings about dogs?  Well, history buffs (the part about the seeing eye dogs coming to the U.S.).  Dog lovers.  Dog breeders.  Dog obedience trainers.  People who work for organizations serving the blind. Pet store owners.  Vets.

One over-arching topic, something to satisfy each market segment. That’s the beauty of blogging as a marketing tool – you can have different posts for different folks!