Blogging To The Rule of Three

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Blogging is modern marketing at its best, but bloggers can take advantage of an ancient method of solving proportions called the Rule of Three. 

Basically, the Rule of Three is used when you know three numbers and are out to find a fourth.  Remember those high school algebra problems we used to have to solve:

If ten men can dig a trench in four days, how long will it take seven men to dig a similar trench?

For readers for whom high school is but a distant memory, the process goes like this:

A:C = D:X

A (the ten men) is to C (the four days) as D (the seven men) is to X (the unknown number of days)

So why am I talking about the Rule of Three in my Say It For You blog about blogging?  Since a core purpose of business blogging is to engage readers, you as the business owner want online visitors to your blog to mentally put themselves in the D slot.  In other words, as you’re describing how your product or service solved clients’ problems, the reaction you’d like to elicit in blog readers is sighs of relief that they’ve found you – you can now solve their problems!

  • If, with the AirFlow Breeze, homeowners were able to set the thermostat two degrees higher in summer and still enjoy cool rooms while saving money, I can save even more money!
  • If Classic Cleaners was able to restore a fifty-year old senior skirt, restoring MY twenty-year old dress should be simple!
  • If that executive who dripped sweat out of fear of public speaking could learn to make presentations to the media, Jean Palmer-Heck can help me overcome my fear of speaking!

In other words, while your blog might offer the story of one or two favorable outcomes of using your product or service, readers will realize you understand their problems and are used to dealing with their issues.  The readers will have put themselves in the D slot! And, because by their very nature, blogs are constantly adding new content, the likelihood of readers associating their situation with the problems and solutions described in your blog posts will be multiplied by the Power of Three!


 

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Blogs Can Help Them See That You See Them!

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Attending a trade show for one of her clients, marketing professional Amy Lemen experienced an "Aha!" moment about the "who" and the "how".

Most of the vendors at the show, Lemen realized, demonstrated through their displays and messages that they knew who their target customers were.  In other words, most of the trade show companies were OK on the "who" part.

But only a handful of vendors, she noticed, were OK on the "how", meaning how to let their customers know their business "was specifically focused on meeting their target customers’ unique set of needs."

The Lemen article might have been discussing the key challenge for business bloggers.  Your website content and blog posts can demonstrate that you’re offering all the right products and services your online visitors need. Despite that, you might still be experiencing a very high "bounce rate", meaning that visitors to your blog are thinking to themselves "No, that’s not what I meant!"

Identifying target customers is only half the battle, Lemen points out.  "The other half is appropriately signaling to your target customers that you understand, serve, and are targeting them." One way to accomplish that, she says, is by offering cues that you understand the situations and challenges they face when they’re using your type of product or service.

The more your customers "see" how you understand them and are dedicated to them, the more differentiated and persuasive you become, according to Lemen. As a professional ghost blogger and blog trainer, I couldn’t agree more.  Because of their short, informal, and ongoing conversational style, blogs are actually the perfect vehicle for putting out such targeted "cues" saying "I see you. I really see you!"
 
You’ve used blogs to win search and you’ve been found.  They’ve seen you. Now it’s your turn to demonstrate to those potential clients that you really see them!

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Travel Beyond The Internet With Blogs

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Blogs do it better, I realized all over again while reading my Home and Away magazine from AAA Hoosier Motor Club.  AAA Vice President Suzanne DeCelles’ article, "Travel Beyond the Internet" is what college English teachers call an "argument paper", telling the professional travel agent’s side of the do-it-yourself-travel story.

Could a traditional corporate website bring forth the "argument" in favor of doing business with a particular company as compared to its competitors? Sure, but hardly in as chatty and person-to-person tone, I don’t suppose, as a blog post.

Actually, the DeCellis magazine article might easily be turned into several blog posts, with each one focused on a different aspect of the answer to the frequently-asked question:

 "Why use a travel agent when Web searches offer a myriad of options  for vacation planning with just a quick click?"

            
Why you?
Your blog offers the chance to present your expertise, your unique approach to your field and the business principles you live by.

""Instant access to detailed information about any hotel, resort, or vacation or cruise destination is only one facet of the research an experienced travel agent conducts," explains Decellis.

Story board
Your blog offers the chance for you to tell your story, or to allow a customer to tell a story about you in the form of a testimonial.  As Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware points out, people like to do business with people they know. Your blog lets them get to know you.

"A few years ago," Suzanne DeCellis relates, "a travel advertisement featured two hotels, both listed as first class.  One was dilapidated, the other rustic and quaint." The pictures were somewhat inconclusive.  The caption: "Only your travel agent knows how rustic a property should be!"

Your company website can offer relevant and engaging information to online searchers.  Your blog is more in the Paul Harvey camp, letting searchers in on the "rest of the story"!

 

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Smaller Might Be Better For Radio Stations And Blogs

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"Making things happen, meaning sales, web hits, engagements, etc. is not just a function of how many people you reach; it’s also a function of how many times you reach them, and how much you spend reaching them,". Bryan Farrish explains to speakers trying to get radio interviews.

The idea of blogging for business is an almost exact parallel to Farrish’s idea about radio interviews: You want to hit as many people as possible, several times, and do so for the least amount of money as possible, he says. In reaching these goals, he goes on to say, you’re going to have advantages with small stations in smaller markets.

Each one of the advantages Farrish mentions relative to radio fits for blogging, I found…

  • Most listeners need to hear something several times before they act.  (Since smaller stations are more likely to ask guest back, you’ll have several "shots" at your audience). With short, focused blog posts appearing with frequency, you’re more likely to not only "win search", but gain repeated opportunities to spread your message. Through links and archives, your Individual readers are easily able get back to earlier posts, or navigate to other sources you’ve found.
  • Small stations are more likely to put you on their website, plus announce your website during the interview, Farrish tells speakers. Readers are more likely to leave comments on your blog rather than communicate with you through a traditional website.  Its simple for interested readers to sign up for an RSS feed to your blog, and even list it on their blog roll. Traditional websites are not flexible – or small – enough to move with ease among online conversations.
     
  • With smaller radio stations, you’ll reach a larger demographic of listeners (with fewer stations in small cities, each station has a broader spectrum of people listening to each). With blogs, the reach is basically unlimited!
     
  • Smaller stations’ advertising rates are less. You can’t get lower advertising rates than the zero space-cost for blogs!

    When you think about it, smaller might be a lot better for both radio stations and blogs!
           
     

 

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Blog Comparisons To Explain Your Business

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It was a sign post, not a blog post, that caught my attention during a recent visit to the Indianapolis Zoo.  Whoever wrote the copy for that placard promoting the zoo’s new cheetah exhibit, though, would make a great blogger for business!

The sign itself, I might mention, was affixed alongside a 30-yard track where visitors were invited to try running as fast as cheetahs.  In other words, the zoo was engaging its audience, rather than merely having them gaze passively at cheetahs. That mini-promotion serves as an excellent model for Commandment One of blog marketing: Thou shalt engage thy readers!"

The title of the signpost used two "keyword phrases" (as every good blog title should), creating a tie with a current happening (the Indianapolis 500):

Like a Race Car, a Cheetah Is Built For Speed

Race Car                                     Cheetah
Chassis                                      Skeleton
Tires                                           Claws
Paint Job                                     Spots
Brakes                                        Footpad
Engine                                        Heart      

This "post" discusses cheetahs in scientific terms, (explaining, for example, that cheetahs have extra-large heart chambers), but makes the information easy for "readers" to understand by comparing the unfamiliar with the familiar and the timely.

One core function of blogs for business is explaining yourself, your business philosophy, your products, and your processes.  An effective blog clarifies what sales trainers like to call your "unique value proposition" in terms readers can understand. And one excellent way to do just that is by making comparisons with things with which readers are already comfortable and familiar!

Like a racecar, a cheetah is built for speed.  What is your business "like"??

 

 

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