Since this week my Say It For You blog is devoted to sharing tips from three different books, today I’ll share a thought on blog content customization from Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw.

One of the many anecdotes Gladwell relates in the book is, in two ways, especially relevant for blog content writers.   During a market research project for which H.J. Heinz Company sent researchers into people’s homes to watch the way they used ketchup, a three year old child reached for the 40-oz. bottle. His mother intervened, taking the bottle away from him and giving him a dollop on his plate.

The researcher had an epiphany: since a typical child consumes 60% more ketchup than a typical adult, the company needed to put ketchup in a bottle a child could control. The EZ Squirt bottle was born, made of soft plastic with a conical nozzle.  In homes where that bottle is used, ketchup consumption grew by 12%!

Lesson One: Those of us who provide blog writing services must know the needs of our audience.  Our corporate blog writing must speak to each blogging target audience in their language. The reason Gladwell’s story can be of such enormous business blogging assistance is that it reminds us to write content designed to let online readers know the company understands their specific needs.

Lesson Two: If you are four,” explains Casey Keller (until recently chief growth officer for Heinz), you don’t get to choose what you eat for dinner.  The one thing you can control is – ketchup! “It’s the one part of the food experience you can customize and personalize,” adds Keller. When it comes to SEO marketing blogs, success hinges on narrowing down your market and then doing everything you can to appeal to just that audience.

Remember that the secret Heinz discovered was allowing the customer to customize. Offer more than one Call to Action. Those who need more information before making a decision should be able to pick up the phone and call (and easily get a live person on the line!). Or for those not quite ready for that, they should be able to email a question (without needing to provide an entire personal biography in return!).  Or, for online visitors not quite ready even for that – they may choose to watch a video or download a white paper.

Are you serving up YOUR blog content writing in EZ Squirt?

Browsing through magazines can be good for your business blogging health, which is why I’ve devoted this week’s Say It For You blog posts to corporate blog writing a’ la Natural Health Magazine. 

My motive for periodically testing my wits in a “Magazine Challenge”: to prove the point that blog content writers need never run out of ideas for their SEO marketing blogs.

While a restless mind seems to be a Rhoda Israelov hallmark, I’ve never been diagnosed with “restless leg syndrome” (I’d never even heard of the condition before all the TV ads began harping on it).  So, why am I choosing to highlight the Natural Health article “How can I calm restless legs?” Because it illustrates an effective way to impart important information in corporate blog posts without the business owner or practitioner coming across as either pompous or critical of readers’ behavior.  

In the magazine article, advice from three different sources is presented to readers:  an integrative physician, a nutritionist, and a naturopath. We read how each one of those professionals describes RLS symptoms and what each one suggests the possible causes might be. From my viewpoint as an Indianapolis blog writer, it seemed that, while I was getting a whole lot of information, the tone was not at all threatening – these were three authorities expressing their points of view.

One very compelling aspect of business blog writing is that business owners have a chance to provide very valuable information to readers relating to their industry or professional field.  In other words, your corporate blog posts can be a tool to position yourself and your business as the “go to” source for things readers want to know!

But what this restless leg syndrome article in Natural Health Magazine showed me is that letting outside authorities help you convey your message to your readers can be a very good idea in blogging for business. For this tactic to be of the most business blogging help, however, I’d have business owners “let the authorities talk”, then add their own spin based on their own experience in their field.