Not Every Business Blog Post Needs to be About Purple Cows

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“Something remarkable is worth talking about.  It’s a purple cow…  Boring stuff’s invisible.  It’s a brown cow,” posits Seth Godin in his marketing book, Purple Cow.

My freelance blog content writers and I consider ourselves part of each Say It For You client’s marketing team, and Seth Godin, of course, has been one of my marketing idols ever since I began blogging for business. Godin, by the way, introduces his book by saying it’s about “the why, the what, and the how of remarkable.” 

Godin’s expanding on something late advertising guru Eugene Schwartz said: As the market for a certain type of product or service matures, “even unique claims begin to lose potency with buyers”.  Even purple cows, admits Godin, are interesting only for a while.

Business blog writers face exactly that challenge of “keeping the cow purple”. When I’m offering business blogging assistance, business owners, professional practitioners, and bloggers all confide they have trouble continually coming up with fresh ideas for their blog posts and finding new ways to talk about the products and services they offer.

My answer to that has been that, no matter what business, what professional practice, or what organization you’re blogging about, ideas for blog content writing are everywhere, so long as you’re alert. On the other hand, (begging guru Godin’s pardon), I wonder if, given the way the search process itself works, plus the proven very short attention span of online readers, purple-cow remarkable should always be the goal..

After all, first-time readers, (who probably constitute the majority of visitors to anyone’s SEO marketing blog site), came online seeking information about a particular thing.

What happened next, I tell business owners and professional practitioners, precisely because what those searchers were looking for had something to do with what you have, what you know about, and what you know how to do, those readers were matched with you.

Think about it – readers already interested in your topic are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer. Now, I explain in corporate blogging training sessions, the very first task your blog post must accomplish is assuring them they’ve come to precisely the right place to get what they’re after.

Engaging? Fresh? Relevant? Unique?  Idea-centered approach? Yes, those are all qualities to strive for in blog content writing. But I think offering basic, brown-cow, usable information is quite OK in blogging for business.

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Idea-Specific Blogging For Business

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Here’s what NOT to say when asking for a sales appointment, consultant Mel Schlesinger cautions salespeople:

My name is Joe Agent and I would like to schedule a time to get together so that I can introduce myself to you and learn a little bit about what you do in order to see if I might be able to help you.

In training newbie corporate blog content writers, I stress the same WIIFM Radio (What’s In It For Me) principle Mel Schlesinger teaches agents.  When you’re calling a potential prospect, he says, the only thing that person wants to know is how you can improve his current situation.

“You already know many of the common challenges facing your clients,” Schlesinger says. So, instead of a generic opening, he suggests to agents, switch to an idea-specific one:

  • “I have an idea that can help you reduce employees’ pressure for increased wages.”
  • “I have an idea that can help you get control of insurance premiums.”

When offering business blogging assistance, I stress that blog posts tend to be more effective when they focus on a single, powerful idea. Yet, when he narrows down his approach to one idea, admits Schlesinger, it’s possible that the prospect will have zero interest in that idea.  However, during that particular round of calls, he explains, he looks for only those prospects that want to know more about that very idea.

In blogging for business, the same holds true, I explain to business owners and Say It For You
freelance content writers. Before employing any marketing tactic, you need to know what the common challenges are facing the target customers and clients. Choose one of those challenges, then decide what one important point concerning that one challenge you want to make in each post. Not only does this lend more punch to the post, it helps the blog content writer concentrate all his/her efforts around that one focal point, “forgetting about the rest of the picture”. The one-topic-at-a-time technique is excellent for sustained, effective, business blog writing. 
 
Sure, just as Schlesinger tells his agents, it’s possible that some of the searchers who find that particular blog post will have zero interest in the “idea of the day”. The beauty of SEO marketing blogs, though, is that the separate posts fit together into an ongoing business blog marketing strategy through are the blog’s "leitmotifs", or central themes.  While each blog post  is focused on one idea, that "nests" inside an ongoing discussion or explanation continued in other posts.

Whether you’re selling employee benefits or blogging for business, it’s good to get idea specific!

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Successful Blog Writing is Like Anthropology

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Scientists Becker and Geer define culture as “a set of common understandings around which action is organized” (quoted in Culture & High Performance by William C. Jeffries). Successful blogging for business may have a lot in common with anthropology. 

I came to that conclusion because what I’ve found with Say It For You business owners and professional practitioners is that they want their SEO marketing blogs to do just that – help them market.  They hope the blog content writing they’re doing (or the writing they’ve hired professional ghost bloggers like me to do for them) will spur action.

Still, they quickly learn, it’s rare for online searchers to spring into immediate action, navigating straight from blog to shopping cart. Why?  Because that Becker-Geer set of common understandings must be established first. What are some of those common understandings?

  • Right here is the right place.
    Translated into blog writing for business, while readers arrive at your business blog because they already have an interest in your topic and are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer, the content must assure them that they’ve come to precisely the right place to get what they’re after.
     
  • We’re the right size for each other.
    One of the most important functions of a business blog, I explain to Say It For You clients and to newbie freelance content writers, is assuring readers they’ve come to a company or professional who fits their “size” and their needs. Are you “too big” to care about a smaller client? Are you accustomed and equipped to take on larger assignments? Just where do you “fit” within your industry or profession?
     
  • I care/ I can tell you care.
    Business blog posts convey the values and beliefs of the owners. Remember that old sales mantra – “They won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!”
     
  • It’s apparent you’ve made it comfortable for me to proceed to the next step – or to do that later.
    When giving business blogging assistance, I constantly stress delivering on the promise – blog navigation paths need to lead to expected results rather than to negative surprises.
     

Once business blog content has created those common understandings with readers, it will be easy to organize the action!

 


 

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“Tis the Season at Say It For You – Part Three

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This holiday week has been, for me, a time for looking back at the online content writing topics I had thought most important to bring to readers in earlier years of my Say It For You blog.

Towards the end of 2010, an article I’d found in Money Management International about enjoying the season on a budget triggered a post about “borrowing” ideas from other blogs and magazine articles.  Over the years, I’ve continued teaching blog copywriters to use others’ material, giving credit to the original authors, then adding their own advice and perspective on the topic.

One year later, in the winter of 2011, I wrote about “cleaning up” in time for the holidays. I’d found an article about pre-holiday kitchen clean-ups, and drew a number of parallels to share with Say It For You readers.

Just as cooks were advised to level the refrigerator by adjusting the feet at the bottom of the fridge, I explained that leveling business blog writing included checking the keyword phrase list on SEO marketing blogs to be sure some terms weren’t be overused while others were being neglected. And, just as it’s a good idea for homeowners to check each kitchen appliance’s user manual to see what recommendations for care the manufacturer was offering, I suggested that business owners and freelance blog content writers review the features and benefits of whatever blogging platform they use.

Now, in my fifth holiday season offering corporate blogging training, I’m grateful. I realize that, while the technology of blogging platforms will continue to change, and while everything we thought we knew about SEO algorithms keeps getting turned on its head, good blog content writing to help business owners and professionals tell their stories – well, that will never go out of style!

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“Tis the Season at Say It For You – Part Two

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Since we’re in the holiday season, a time for looking back and looking ahead, this week I’ve been looking back on the online content writing topics I had thought most important to bring to readers in those early years of my Say It For You blog.

After a year and a half of posting how-to-write-a-blog advice, in late December of 2009, I was ready to caution business owners, professional practitioners, and freelance blog content writers about three business blogging “Don’ts”.

Once again, I’d taken inspiration from OPW (other people’s writing), this time from Indianapolis Business Journal technology columnist Tim Alton, who was issuing cautions to users of Power Point in business presentations. (As a freelance blog writer, I’d learned that linking to outside sources is a good tactic for adding breadth and depth to my  content.  Linking to a news source or magazine article, I’d seen, had the effect of adding credibility to the ideas I express on behalf of Say It For You client companies.)

Alton had named three bad habits Power Point users seem to have:

Too much content:  Slides work best if they’re used only to cue and remind, he pointed out. Business blog posts, I realized, are the same way, in that they are best kept brief, focused on just one new piece of information, one anecdote, or one how-to.

Too technical for the target audience: Alton suggested tailoring charts and graphs to the client’s own data, but steering the client to think about the information in new ways. One excellent use of SEO marketing blogs, I observed in that year-end blog post, is showcasing the business or practice by taking a new approach to familiar information.

Too “self-conscious” or sales-ey. Alton explained that most speeches can do without Power Point slides altogether, but that one of the purposes is to have take-home material for audience members, in which the “bullet points” points need to be brief and targeted to that specific audience. As a corporate blogging trainer, I offer similar cautions, reminding content writers to keep it about readers and their needs, and less about the business being ”marketed” through blogging.

Three holiday seasons later, I realize, avoiding those three content writing pitfalls still makes for good year-round advice!

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