Content Marketing Blogs Explain What Not Everybody Knows

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“Everybody knows that Goodwill helps people, but what NOT everybody knows is how.” The Goodwill Guy then proceeds to tell TV watchers the Goodwill ABC’s:

  1. You give us the stuff you’re not using
  2. We sell it to someone who’ll use it.
  3. Then, we use the money to educate and employ people.

Now, as far as marketing content goes, that’s impressive!  As an Indianapolis blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I think that Goodwill commercial model is exactly what every business owner or professional practitioner – and every freelance blog content writer – should aim for in blog content writing.

Step One consists of establsihing common ground.  What is it about your business or practice that “everybody knows”?  Blog opening lines need to be definitive rather than mysterious, making sure readers know they’ve come to the right site for the information, products, and services they’re seeking.

Step Two includes offering unique, less well-known information about your profession or industry. In blogging, whether you’re doing business-to-business writing or writing SEO marketing blogs for a professional practice, retail business, or not-for-profit organization, taking online searchers “behind the scenes” makes for content that is more compelling.

Step Three is the “why?”, the “what’s-your-purpose” question.  What drives the passion?
When working with business owners to arrive at the right tone and the right emphasis for their SEO marketing blogs, I begin by challenging the owner of the business or professional practice with the following question: "If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you're passionate about what you sell, what you know, and what you do, what would those words be?"

Goodwill’s passion is educating and employing people.  Give your online visitors the chance to get caught up in your passion.readers can get caughtknow exactly what your passion. I once wrote a reminder to eager-beaver business blogger newbies: In the dictionary, the word "belief" comes before "blog"!

 

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Content Marketing Blog Posts are Thaumatropes

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From friends Julie and Kim, owners of Outside the Box Papers, I learned an interesting tidbit about a Victorian paper toy. The description of the thaumatrope reminded me of the way individual blog posts work together, over time, to convey content marketing “leitmotifs”, or themes, to online readers.

A thaumatrope consisted of a card with a picture on each side. The card was attached to two pieces of string.  Twirling the string made the two pictures appear to combine into a single image.

One concept I emphasize in corporate blogging training sessions is that focus is what helps blog posts stay smaller and lighter in scale than the more permanent content on the typical corporate website. What helps the separate posts fit together into an ongoing business blog marketing strategy are the blog "leitmotifs". 

In German, the word leitmotif means "leading theme".  In music, the leitmotif is used when the composer wants listenes to recall a certain character, place, or concept, Chloe Rhodes explains in the book A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi.

At Say It for You, when our Indiana freelance blog content writers are sitting down with business owners or professional practitioners who are preparing to launch a blog, one important step in that launch is to select 1-5 recurring themes that will appear and reappear over time in their blog posts. The themes may be reflected in the keyword phrases they use to help with search engine optimization.  But, more than that, themes are broader in scope than just key words.

  • Letimotifs reflect the core beliefs of the owners, the reason they got into their fields in the first place.
     
  • Leitmotifs reflect owners’ unique slant within their industry or profession.
     
  • Leitmotifs are “dominant colors” that tie together different product descriptions, different sets of statistics, and different processes used to deliver a service to clients.
     
  • Leitmotifs unite different testimonials from customers and clients.


In content marketing, each blog post is like one side of a thaumatrope.  Looked at in isolation, each side of the card presents one picture.  As blog content writing continues over weeks, months, and years, there will be a cumulative effect. Those many separate blog posts, ”tied together” through letimotifs, will create a beautiful, “Who-We-Are” picture!

 

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So Who’s Counting in Your Content Marketing Blog?

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This past Easter alone, infoplease.com informs us, Americans managed to consume some 90,000,000 chocolate bunnies. If, by this point in time, you’re thinking “Who cares?, Just try this fact on for size: 76% of those chocoholic citizens expressed the opinion that the bunny’s ears should be eaten first.

As is more than evident from social media and referral sites, people are unfailingly interested in who-else-is-doing-whatever-it-is-your-company-is-recommending-I-do. Blog readers in particular look at what others are doing when making an online purchase of a product or service. To put it another way, consumers are influenced by references.

Of course, when I’m doing corporate blogging training, I advise business owners and professionals to use statistics for three other reasons as well:

1. Attention-grabbing

2. Mythbusting (statistics help prove the reality versus the widely held misperceptions about your product or service)

3. Demonstrating the extent of a problem leads into showing readers ways you can help solve it

Online marketing executive Tom Pick agrees, saying that “the careful use of numbers is one valuable method for maximizing communication while conserving space. To my list of reasons why using numbers in SEO marketing blogs is a very good idea, Pick adds the following:

 4.Numbers add precision. Words like “some,” “many,” “most” and “few” give us only a vague sense of quantity.

5. Numbers are shorthand. Numbers can convey a great deal of information with minimal verbiage.

6. Numbers are compelling. The precision of numbers adds weight to an argument or claim

So who’s counting in your content marketing blog? Are you??

 

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Business Blogs – Both Exploratory and Confirmatory

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Always on the lookout for ways to improve our blog content marketing efforts on behalf of Say It For You clients, I regularly attend monthly luncheon meetings of the Indianapolis AMA .

At our table this month, the conversation turned to telephone surveys.  Fellow member Tim Ittenback (of the marketing research firm SMARI) used terms I hadn’t heard before, referring to questions asked of homeowners who answered the calls. Closed-ended questions, with consumers answering yes or no or ranking something on a 1-5 scale, for example, are “confirmatory”. Open-ended questions, where consumers respond in their own words, are “exploratory”.

I’m reminded of a favorite quote from Shawn O'Donaghue of the Central Indiana Women's Business Center: "Successful business owners understand that the product or service they are selling is the answer to someone's problem."

In creating content for SEO marketing blogs, we need to keep in mind that people are online searching for answers to questions they have and for solutions for dilemmas they're facing. But even if those searchers haven’t specifically formulated their question, I suggest to newbie Indianapolis blog content writers, you can do that for them by presenting a question in the blog post itself!

Now that I think about it, I realize the blog questions can be either confirmatory or exploratory, and could even take the form of a survey or quiz. Unlike marketing research firms, business owners or professional practitioners are not out to gather consumer data; they want to engage their blog readers and show that they understand the dilemmas those readers are facing.

“Suffering from eye strain after long hours in front of the computer? Is the opener for a LensCrafters™ advertorial, for example.

 “Did you know that 9 out of ten of your blog readers don’t get past the first line of your posts?” asks Problogger, explaining that the intent of that line is to have shock value and to “put a finger on the need we’ll be addressing.”

An Indianapolis Woman Magazine article a few years ago, contained a quiz, offering different options, multiple-choice style, for home buyers:

Your dream location is to live….

A. Downtown, in or near a big city
B. Close to the beach or in a rural area.
C. Doesn’t really matter if it’s in close proximity to others.

What you’re looking forward to the most about your home is…

A. Less cleaning. Your last place was too big.
B. Decorating. You can’t wait to get your hands on a paintbrush.
C. Meeting the new neighbors around you.

Business blog post questions can be confirmatory or exploratory – the purpose is to be engaging!

 

 

 


 

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Calls to Action are Not Eye-Opening in Business Blogs

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It’s eye-opening, the blog content marketing tips one can pick up at one’s eye doctor’s’ waiting room!  A LensCrafters™ advertorial titled “Computer-Related Vision Problems Are On the Rise”  in the AAA Magazine caught my attention, triggering the uncomfortable thought: that all of us freelance blog content writers spend far too many of our waking hours in front of computer screens.

As for the article itself – the structure, I thought, presents a perfect template for an effective post for a business or professional practice:

The opening line, “Suffering from eye strain after long hours in front of the computer?”  That question tells the reader that the blog writer understands the issue and that the content will be dealing with the precise topic that triggered the search in the first place.

The next couple of lines establish a baseline of shared knowledge ( “You probably already know…. that a long day staring at your screen can sometimes lead to tired eyes and headaches…)

The writer then offers little-known information to add to that baseline:  “But did you know these issues could be signs of CVS?” The author uses footnotes to properly attribute information which came from the American Optometric Association. In Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I explain how to use links (the equivalent of footnotes) for curated materials that were taken from other blogs, from websites, or books.

The next few paragraphs of the article provide usable information about steps readers can take to protect their own eyes and questions readers can ask their own eye doctors about UV coating on eyewear.

Only at the very end is there a Call to Action to visit LensCrafters™ and take advantage of a special discount.

So, does that last section, in which LensCrafters™ is asking for the customer’s business, invalidate the good information provided in the piece? Not in the least. When people go online to search for information and click on different blogs or on different websites, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to do business. But as long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer.

Calls to action are not eye-opening in successful SEO marketing blogs!

 

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