Learning to Bunt in Your Business Blog Writing

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bunt“The bunt isn’t a game changer, like a homer or a triple.  Instead, it nudges things along – keeping the ball as far as possible from where your opponent wants it to be,” is just one of many of the lessons from her Dad that Sandy Hingston recalls in FamilyDigest.

When I offer business blogging assistance to Say It For You clients, I often need to remind business owners new to blogging that it isn’t the sort of marketing tactic likely to “hit it out of the park”.  On the other hand, consistent business blog writing, very much like bunting in a ball game, will almost certainly nudge things along.

Sandy Hingston’s dad taught all his kids that bunts are things of beauty, “means to an end, a strategy, brains over brawn.” As a professional ghost blogger offering corporate blogging training, I think Mr. Hingston’s teachings are quite fitting when it comes to writing for business in the form of blogs.

“Remember: control.”
A blog can give a business the ability to exercise journalistic control.  Blog content writers have the ability to put out news about the business with the business owner’s own slant on it! If there’s ever any negative news about the industry or the company, I teach Indianapolis blog writers, the blog is the perfect place to field questions and comments head-on.

“He makes me do it again and again and again.”
Material that is recent and frequently posted is more likely to be indexed by search engines. Like bunting practice with Sandy’s dad, SEO marketing blogs succeed in large part based on continuing to post new content every few days.

“Brains over brawn.”
Blogging for business is one way small business owners with small marketing budgets can compete, using “pull marketing” to meet strangers and increase their customer base without mounting expensive advertising campaigns. According to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware, because blogs are specific, relevant, and personal, they tend to be more successful than traditional websites in targeting and attracting the right kind of visitors, those who need and want what you have to offer.

No, as I remind freelance blog writers and their business owner clients who are in a rush to make the cash register ring, blogging for business is rarely a game changer. But as a means to an end, part of an overall, long-term marketing strategy, it can be a thing of beauty!

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Ways to Lose in Business Blog Writing Even When You’re the Best

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There are ways to lose in business – even when you’re the best, explains Whalelosing Hunters’ sales trainer Barbara Weaver Smith.  Since SEO marketing blogs are one tactic businesses use to lead to sales, several of Weaver’s observations can be of great use in corporate blogging training.

Your service is too specialized. If your prospects are unfamiliar not only with your company, but with the services or products you provide, explains Weaver-Smith, you have two selling jobs to do!

When it comes to corporate blog posts, online readers likely to find your blog through organic search  will be those who already have a need for what you have to sell and for what you do. On the other hand, at Say It For You, we’re convinced  blogging for business is the perfect tool for introducing readers to newer products and services with which they’re less familiar, but which can solve problems for them.

Your story is too complex. If your service or product is highly complex, says Weaver-Smith, it may turn off buyers, who might seek simpler solutions elsewhere to avoid having to deal with a many-step, high-commitment process.

This is an issue with which freelance blog writers deal all the time.  One recommendation I offer in corporate blogging training sessions is to focus blog content writing on the end results of your process rather than on its steps. “People rarely think of your actual brand first.  They think about what they want,” emphasizes blogger Ryan Karpeles.

Your business blog writing must give online searchers a “feel” for the desired outcomes of using your products and services. While customers may lack experience with the latest processes or technology in your field of expertise, they know what their own needs are. Write about outcomes, I teach Indianapolis blog writers.

You underestimate buyers’ fears. When you’re totally focused on the great advantages that you provide with your products and services, cautions Weaver-Smith,
You forget that 99% of buying decisions are made based on irrational, emotional issues.

Now, there’s a truth every blog content writer needs to keep in mind!  Blogging for business , with its conversational, personal tone, is actually a great way to provide reassurance to buyers fearful of making the wrong choice.  In fact, business blogs take their cue from Joan Rivers, asking “Can we tawk?”

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Leitmotifs are the Turtlenecks of Corporate Blog Writing

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black turtleneckThese days, when company owners express doubt about their ability to keep generating new content for their corporate blog posts, I talk to them about leitmotifs and about Steve Jobs. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late CEO of Apple Computer, Jobs owned some one hundred Issey Miyaki black turtlenecks. Jobs, by all accounts, liked the idea of having a “uniform”, not only for convenience’s sake, but because of its ability to convey a signature style.

In corporate blogging training sessions I teach that effective blog posts are centered around key themes, just like the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony.  As you continue to write about your industry, your products, and your services, you’ll naturally find yourself repeating some key ideas – in fact, that’s exactly what professionals offering business blogging assistance will say you should  be doing to keep your blogs focused and targeted.

In writing for business, as blog content writers soon learn, the variety comes from the e.g.’s and the i.e’s, meaning all the details you fill in around these central leitmotifs.  Indianapolis blog writers might use different examples of ways the company’s products can be helpful, or examples of how the company helped solved various problems.  It’s these stories and examples that lend variety to the blog, even though all the anecdotes reinforce the same few core ideas.

Like the Jobs turtlenecks, freelance blog writers will find, leitmotifs in blogs help develop a company’s signature style, which is part of any company’s branding. Focus (just as in building an entire wardrobe around one type of garment) helps corporate blog posts stay smaller, lighter in scale, and more flexible than the more permanent content on the typical corporate website.

You might say leitmotifs are the turtlenecks of corporate blog writing!

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Need-To-Know Corporate Blog Writing

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pointy headed bossThe pointy-headed boss wants Dilbert to show him how to download apps on his new phone. “How often do you expect to download apps?” asks Dilbert.  “It’s hard to say.  I just know I want all of them.  How many are there?” To which Dilbert replies: “Four”.

Comic strip writer Scott Adams is using dry humor to convey a message about non-productive effort.  (Dilbert knows perfectly well that the number of phone apps is closer to fifty thousand than four, but he isn’t interested in spending time teaching phone apps to a man who’s failed to catch on to Excel after Dilbert spent eight sessions teaching him).

There are a couple of messages here for corporate bloggers, too.  As I explain to freelance blog writers and business owners, trying to engage potential customers, anyone with a computer has access to the largest repository of information in human history, namely the Internet. Online readers, though, can absorb only so much in a sitting. Still, the statements in SEO marketing blogs must be correct and truthful – four in place of fifty thousand just won’t do.

What I’ve found in my work as professional ghost blogger is that both sides may need some business blogging assistance.  Blog content writers, on the one hand, need to keep each blog post focused on one main idea, one “app”, if you will, out of all the products and services and expert advice the company has to offer.

Blog content readers, on the other hand need to gain perspective about the information they’re being given. Is that different than what I’ll find with your competitor?  In what way?  What makes your company so special? How will the information you’ve offered benefit me? Assuming the reader understands that you’ve offered technically correct information, that reader may still not know what to make of that information.

Like the pointy-headed boss, readers want an answer to the question “How many are there?”  Effective writing for business serves to reassure those searchers that you can, over time, offer help with all of the “apps”.  But, for today’s corporate blog post, teach just one.

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The Client May Be King, But He’s Not Blog Director

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"The client may be king, but he’s not the art director," is the Von R. Glitschka quipking passed along in a recent tweet out of Melbourne-based marketing firm BaselineDesign. Eleven words, but enough to make any provider of client services stop and think, no?

C’mon, admit it. If you make your living offering creative services to clients (in the case of Say It For You, we offer business blogging services and corporate blogging training), you’ve had times when you wanted to tell the client to lay off and let you do what you’re good at.  Sure, (you’d love to say) you’re the client writing the check and running the business, but our little project here is going to work only if you’re open to the expert advice I’m trying to implement.

Wait a minute – isn’t it the client who’s the expert here? In fact, whenever I’m giving a talk or presentation about corporate blogging for business, one very natural question that almost always arises is "How can any professional ghost blogger understand enough to write about a business if the writer is not experienced in that very field?

The answer goes to the heart of the interaction that needs to take place in business blog writing.  Remember, SEO marketing blogs are (or at least should be) just one tactic in any business’ or professional practice’s overall marketing strategy. And what I’ve found is that, in the real world of small to medium-sized business, the owners are so focused on the day to day running of the business, they stop thinking about those eight to ten words I asked them for when we first met:

If you had only 8 – 10 words to describe why you’re passionate about what you sell, what you know, and what you do, what would those words be?

If what freelance blog writers do is help business owners build their brand (whether the employees or the business owners are doing the writing or whether they’re collaborating with outside writers), then the process of deciding what to include in the corporate blog becomes one of self-discovery.

People want to do business with people, people they know, like, and trust (we’ve all heard this expression).  Basically, potential buyers want to know what makes the business owners tick and what "ticks them off".  In blogging for business, therefore, it’s really all about "the king" rather than about the products and services he provides.

And is the king the "blog director" as well? When there’s an expert blog content writer involved, you will never be able to tell!

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