Counting Down and Looking Up

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“Yes, the end of December is the perfect time for a year-end review, for taking a few moments to look at what you’ve accomplished over the past 12 months, and taking stock of all the things you still want to accomplish,” Nathalie Thompson of vibeshifting.com so aptly writes…

Counting down the past year, you are reading the 130th semi-weekly Say It For You blog post of 2023, There have also been twelve monthly Say It For You online newsletters, Meanwhile, year-round, the team has generated dozens upon dozens of blog posts and other content pieces for our clients.

Is blogging still going to be “a thing” in 2024 and beyond? A resounding “Yes!” is our answer, The Say It For You blog is on a WordPress platform; on that platform alone, there are now more than 20 billion views per month. “Even in today’s world,” Creative Boom remarks, “where brevity rules and attention spans are seemingly at an all-time low, there undoubtedly remains a place for a regularly-maintained blog that’s crafted with care and with its audience in mind.”

While Mark Prosser of Score.org lists reasons for keeping an active business blog (driving traffic to the website, informing customers about the good work you do, sharing client testimonials, finding out what customers want, promoting your brand to potential employees, and analyzing marketing demographics), there is one important thing about blogging that I try to impress on each business or practice owner: a blog is an ongoing training course for you.

You see, the interesting thing I’ve found over the past sixteen (yes, count ’em!) years of business blogging is that the very exercise of thinking through the themes and the ideas for the blog, even if the actual content writing task is being outsourced, helps train business owners and practitioners to articulate those ideas when interacting with their own customers. In a very real sense, maintaining an active blog not only helps your business, it can help you do your business better! 

Meanwhile, for us on the content writing team, the ongoing learning process is the true blessing. The tremendous variety of topics –  from dry cleaning to electromagnetic fields, from family law to finance, from HVAC to dry cleaning, from air quality to architecture, organ transplants to trucking, car painting to long term care…..every assignment is a doorway to fascinating insights.

At Say It For You, we’re right there with you, counting down to the end of 2023, and looking forward – and upwards – to 2024.

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Speaking Their Language in Content Marketing

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“I stepped up to the deli counter and gave my order: “Eight ounces of turkey breast, please.” “We don’t sell by the ounce, only by the pound,” the clerk informed me. “So, can I get half a pound of turkey breast?”  “Sure!” (from Reader’s Digest Dec./Jan issue’s “All in a Day’s Work”)

 “In order to write an effective sales page, it’s absolutely critical to speak the language of your target market,” Joey van Kuilenburg writes in Linkedin. Drafting a list of everything you know about the people you want to reach and constructing a profile, is his advice to content marketers. Pay attention to the terminology they use, van Kuilenburg adds, including phrases and word choices. (By joining social media groups in which they are participating, asking questions, and carrying on conversations with followers, you can get a feel for their ways of expressing themselves.) “Using terms, words, phrases and acronyms that your audience themselves use, will result in your audience feeling connected and included in the conversation,” BrainyGirl Kim Garnett says.

Your own language, meanwhile, can help audience members truly understand and imagine what you are saying, the University of Wisconsin tells students.

As content writers, we know at Say It For You, before we can position any client within the marketplace, we absolutely must study the surroundings of that client’s target audience. Planning content involves thinking about how “they” (those readers, not the average readers) are likely to react or feel about any chosen approach to the subject at hand.

As content marketers, our message to the business owner and practitioner clients who hire us is this:

Your business or practice can’t be all things to all people. Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for your ideal customer – the words we use, how technical we get, how sophisticated the approach to a subject, the title of each blog entry – all must focus on what together we learn about your target market – their needs, their preferences, their questions. – Only secondarily is it important to discuss how wonderful you and your staff are at satisfying those needs and preferences.

Helping our clients define their audience is the first step in the process. Are they more likely to ask for a pound or for eight ounces of that turkey breast? 

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Blogs Give a Quick Take

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Every half year, Bloomberg puts out a mini-magazine called “Quick Take”, designed “to give readers and even-handed explanation of the context behind the latest developments in economics, finance, geopolitics, and society”. Examples of the rather weighty topics include”

  • Can central banks tame inflation without triggering recession?
  • Why It’s Hard for Europe to Rearm
  • Why Copper is the New Must-Have Metal

In presenting its streaming video business network (also named “Quicktake”),Bloomberg explains that its purpose is to help viewers “make sense of the stories changing your business and your world”.

“When you think about your ideal reader, you may naturally think about demographics (age, gender, geography) and psychographics (beliefs, values, goals)—and those qualities are important to understand so you can connect with your readers,” Karin Wiberg writes in clearsightbooks.com.But also consider their current knowledge level about your topic.

The marketing team for the book Moneyless Society, Wilberg explains, identified two main audiences:

  1.  people who are interested in but relatively new to the topic
  2. people who are familiar with the topic and want to share the ideas but struggle to explain them to others

A useful tip she mentions is that, If you are writing for an audience well-versed in the topic, it may be appropriate to jump right into using professional jargon. But, if you define a term early on and then don’t use it for awhile, consider repeating the definition or putting it in a “callout box”.

According to the Writing Center at The University of North Carolina, “In order to communicate effectively, we need to order our words and ideas on the page in ways that make sense to a reader”. Assume your readers are intelligent, the authors advise, but do not assume that they know the subject matter as well as you. Using familiar words and word combinations gives readers a sense of comfort and “wellness”.

When it comes to blog marketing, the goal is to attract the “right kind” of readers (those with an interest in our topic and who will value our products and services and be willing to pay for them), In creating content, we remember that people are online searching for answers to questions they have and for solutions to dilemmas they’re facing. It’s all about them as potential customers and clients, never about the business owners and professionals for whom we’re posting.

As the Bloomberg editors so clearly understand, our purpose is to help readers “make sense of it all”.

 

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Oops! There Goes Another Misspelled Word

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The staff at my local grocery store obviously meant to convey the message that they don’t ACCEPT returns.  In fact, I found out later, the word “accept” did not make dictionaryscoop.com‘s list of 12 Most Common English Spelling Mistakes, which includes the words accommodate, apparent, acknowledgment, calendar, colleague, entrepreneur, led (past tense of “lead”), necessary, receive, successful, and withhold. CNBC adds conscientious, experience, guidance, occurrence, and fulfill.

“Spelling seems like such a minor thing,” Kathy and Ross Petras admit in the CNBC piece, “but It’s actually one of the most problematic issues we deal with in the business world.”  Bad spelling can put a dent in your professional reputation, the authors caution, citing a survey showing that 79% of recruiters and HR managers said spelling and grammatical mistakes “were the biggest deal breakers in job hunting.”

Along with spelling mistakes, grammar errors can make a content writer “look dumb”, as Brian Clark of Copyblogger emphasizes, pointing to your/you’re, it’s/its, there/their, and affect/effect.

“We’re all busy, and we all make mistakes,,” Clark admits, but if you want to be taken seriously, it’s important to get serious about grammar.

As a content marketer at Say It For You, my favorite recommendation to both business owners and the freelance blog content writers they hire to bring their message to customers is this:

Prevent blog content writing “wardrobe malfunctions”, including grammar errors, run-on sentences, and spelling errors. Blogs (as I’ve often taught) are more personal and more informal than formal letters or even home pages on websites, but they shouldn’t be sloppy.  Unlike your sixth grade teacher, internet searchers won’t “correct your paper”. They may very well navigate away from your blog and find somewhere else to go!

When it comes to common grammar mistakes, the pairs I find are most often confused are these:

Who/that

“Who” always refers to a person; “that” refers to a thing.

Between/among

“Between” refers to the space or difference between two things: “among” refers to the difference among three or more things.

Lay/Lie

“Lay” means to set something down; the verb “lie” means either to tell an untruth, or to assume a horizontal position.

Advise/Advice

“Advise” (with the “s” pronounced like a “z”) is a verb meaning you offer “advice” (counsel).

Allow the next spelling or grammar error to be something you find in someone’s else’s message, not your own!

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The Four Elements of Query Pitches and Posts

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“You’ll need all four elements in your tool bag over time,” Amy Collins tells book authors in the Writer’s Digest 2024 Yearbook, referring to statements authors send to agents and publishers about their books. When it comes to blog marketing, content writers can use all these elements to attract and maintain the attention of blog readers.

1. Loglines:
These answer the question, “Would I like this book?”, using culturally relevant references to give the reader a chance to identify their potential interest.

The reason so many online searchers return to a particular search engine to find products, services, and information, is that they’ve found what they “would like” on that site before. The organic search process is the “logline”, delivering readers to your blog post who are most “likely to like” the information you’ve provided.

2. Elevator pitches:
These answer the question “What’s the book about?”, giving the reader “an idea of the premise and the stakes”.

When it comes to blogs, the “elevator pitch” is the title. We want the searcher to click on the link, and of course we want search engines to offer our content as a match for readers seeking information and guidance on our topic. More than that, though, a blog post title in itself constitutes a set of implied promises to visitors. In essence, you’re saying, “If you click here, you’ll be led to a post that in fact discussing the topic mentioned in the title.

3. Query pitches:
These add a few more compelling details to convince the agent that your book is different from – and better than – others in its category. What does your book add to the game? What are your future readers buying and reading right now?

To achieve success in content marketing, your having gotten to know your particular audience is crucial. While you may point out that your product or service can do something your competitors can’t, that particular “advantage” may or may not be what your audience is likely to value

4. Plot synopses:
These answer the question, “Does this book have the elements needed to be successful?” Here is where the author tries to prove that “the plot is not derivative or dull”. Collins cautions authors to focus on the main character arc and the story arc without over-cramming details. Just as “cramming everything about your plot into your synopsis will not help convince an agent to read your book,” cramming everything about your product or service into a single blog post is not going to help convince readers to take the next step.

In a sense, focus is the point in blog content writing. At Say It For You, we firmly believe in a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, with the message geared towards one narrowly defined target audience.

Very much like authors pitching their book ideas to agents and publishers, at Say It For You, we know that the secret of success lies in skillfully using Amy Collins’ four elements.

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