Add the Fred Factor to Your Business Blog

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Within ten minutes of his house are two giant hardware stores that are known for their low prices , Mark Sanborn relates in his book The Fred Factor, but he never goes to either one. Instead, Sanborn goes to a smaller store about ten minutes away. There, when you walk in the door, knowledgeable helpful staff members greet you and take you to the exact spot where you can find what you need. And, Sanborn adds, they ask enough questions to find out if what you asked for is what you need for the job. All organizations have access to the same information, training, compensation systems, and processes. So why do some succeed and others flop, Sanborn asks? The secret is passionate employees.

How can that “Fred Factor” be made to come across a computer screen, I wondered. With so many potential customers meeting you online these days, rather than in person, how can you replicate the feeling of being greeted by “knowledgeable and helpful staff members”? First-time blog site visitors can, indeed, become customers IF, Neil Patel explains, “you listen to them and give them a good visitor experience.” The goal – moving visitors upwards through the “trust pyramid”, from awareness to understanding, then belief, and finally to action.

The process begins, Patel says, with defining your ideal reader. See that customer as one person, not as groups of people, then develop a unique selling proposition around that very person. Just a Sanborn was saying about his favorite hardware store, success is all about solving problems and making customers happy. What valuable gift can you give to your first-time blog visitors in order to excite and retain them. Put yourself in their shoes and feel their pain, Patel says.

Sanborn was impressed with the fact that the hardware associates were right there at the door to welcome him and help him navigate to precisely the right shelf to find what he needed. In precisely the same way, now that visitors have found their way to your blog, your immediate challenge is to put them at ease by assuring them they’ve come to the right place and convey that they are valued.

Translating a face-to-face shopping experience into a digital visit is the challenge we blog content writers take on. Saying you offer superior customer service is never enough – you have to specifically illustrate ways in which your company’s customer service exceeds the norm. Stories of all kinds help personalize a business blog. Even if a professional writer is composing the content, true-story material increases engagement by readers with the business or practice. Case studies are particularly effective in creating interest, because they are relatable and “real”.

You might not think of simplifying your website navigation as another way to personalize your service, but it absolutely is. Both the content of your blog posts and the navigation paths on the blog site had better be easy, calling for fewer keystrokes and less confusion. Just as the hardware salesperson asked questions before taking Sanborn to the right section of the store, the website can help “steer” visitors to the right click.

Think of ways to add a “Fred Factor” to your website and blog.

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For Business Bloggers, the First things is Finding New Things to Say

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Gerald Ford must have had blog marketing in mind when he stated, “When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to decide is what to say”.

Copyblogger’s Liz Fulghum knew that, too. Back in 2008, Fulghum suggested that blog platforms come with a warning notice:

Blogging is not easy. You may experience unexpected droughts of inspiration, difficulty maintaining a schedule, or succumb to the  pressure of always needing fresh content.

Business bloggers often 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.  In this, the #1898 of the Say It For You blog, we have several blog “starter kit” models to offer:

Kit #1 – “Interview questions”
How did you arrive at the name for your business? For services or “packages” you offer? What do the names say about the outcomes you hope to bring for your clients and customers? What’s the biggest mistake you feel you’ve made in starting your business and what have you learned from that mistake?

Kit #2 – “Collating”
Collect information from different sources on a specific topic related to your business and organize the information in a new way. Use content from your own former bog posts, newsletters, and emails, adding material from other people’s blogs and articles, from magazines and book, summarizing the main ideas your readers are likely to find useful.

Kit #3 – “Curating”
Find opinion pieces that relate to your industry, quoting from those and then expressing your own unique perspective on that topic.

Kit #4 – “Listicles”
Listicles round up existing content pieces and present them in the form of numbered lists – of tactics to try, alternatives for solving a particular problem, or “best of…” compilations.

Kit #5 – “Changes of heart”
Go back and read your own past blog posts – the further back the better. Has experience – or have outside factors – caused you to change your mind on any of those statements? How? What factors caused your change of heart?

Kit #6 – “In the now”
Enter trending “conversations” about topics in the news. Scour the daily news and pay attention to talk shows, finding “hooks” to promote your products or services by weighing in on current concerns.

Blogging wasn’t yet around in the Gerald Ford era, but the former U.S. President was certainly right about this one: When a man (or woman!) is asked to make a speech (or compose a blog post!), the first thing to decide is what to say.

Keep your blog starter kit stocked and ready to wow!

 

 

 

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Blogging Lessons From the Courtroom

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‘The courtroom was his job, writes Trey Goudy in Doesn’t Hurt to Ask, but you, too, he tells readers, will need to successfully advocate about something or someone. You will be persuading others to either come closer to your way of thinking or at least see why it is you believe what you believe, he says.

Based on Goudy’s decades-long experience as a prosecutor, he has arrived at certain conclusions about what persuasion is not (debating or arguing) and what it is (incremental). Both conclusions relate directly to blog marketing, I couldn’t help thinking. Blogging is certainly incremental, delivering information on a topic over a series of different posts, all part of a longer, ongoing, messaging process.

You have your facts, Goudy says, as you’re preparing to persuade, with a sense of which are most compelling. You’ve prioritized them properly. You’ve thought through every point and have a plan for defending it. But only sometimes, he admits, is the objective knowable (such as a verdict or an election tally). In real life, persuasion is movement, and movement can be small at times. In fact, I mused, in blog content marketing, persuasion is meant to happen in small increments.

Think how they think, Goudy advises (he might well have been referring to blog readers as much as to a jury). What do you really know about what they think? he asks. You’ve spent time gathering all the relevant facts, but you need to have a clear sense of which group you are trying to move, persuade, or convince. .Then comes evaluating how heavy a “lift” you need. Remember, if you are resolute in your own mind, chances are good that the audience is resolute in theirs, he reminds us.

In a non-digital conversation, you can come across as agreeable and likeable by saying things such as “I understand where you are coming from.” In blog marketing, however, the printed words are your one tool to demonstrate that level of likability and openness. “Start with your consensual point,” the author advises, “not your most provocative one.”

In the arena of persuasion, traits to be desired include believability, likability, authenticity – and access to facts. In a courtroom, Goudy says, you want to “impeach” the statements made by the other side (the facts they rely on and the overarching principles or conclusion behind those facts, but not the people).

Since blog content writers’ tools are words, Goudy’s chapter on “Big Words, Soft Words” offers helpful concepts. Certain words, he says, are “simply too big to make for objective and precise communications”. One of those words is “always” (as in “You always interrupt me when I am speaking”). Virtual or no, discussions need to allow for respectful dialogue.

The final paragraph of the book might have been directed specifically towards blog content writers: “Go communicate what you believe and why you believe it in the most persuasive way possible.”

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Taking a Moment to Introduce Yourself in Your Blog

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The other day, when I opened my Indianapolis Star (yes, I still enjoy a “real” morning paper, not the digital version), the following note, printed on a strip of white paper, fell out.:

Good morning. We just wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves. We are
Bobby and Jenny…. We have been your carriers since September, and we hope to
give you the best service possible. If you have any concerns, please feel free to call
or text…or you can email at ………. Hope you have a wonderful day. We really
appreciate you..

Wow! What a wonderful reminder of the power of personal communication, I thought. And,
because as blog content writers we are in the business of personal communication, I wanted
to share this story with my Say It For You readers. This note from my newspaper mail carriers,
I think, reminds us of an all-important point: blog content writers must focus on personal
anecdotes and on the personal values of the business owners and the people promoting their
products and services.
.
One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional bloggers is that we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  That, by the way, is the precise reason I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”. I believe people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

Personal doesn’t necessarily mean over-casual or informal, however.  In fact, for us freelance blog content writers, getting the tone exactly right for a new client is the big challenge. Crystal Gouldey of AWeber Communications names five different “tones” to consider when planning a blog:

  • The formal, professional tone
  • The casual tone
  • The professional-but-friendly tone

Regardless of the topic, I believe, the blog is the place for readers to connect with the people behind the business or practice. To the extent readers feel there are real people introducing themselves and offering solutions, the material will not be perceived as too academic-sounding or overly “sales-ey”.

Whether you’re doing your own writing or using the services of a content writer, take the time to introduce yourself in your blog!

 

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Embracing the Encouraging Side of Blogging

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Corbett Barr, writing in thinktraffic.net, encourages blog writers to “embrace your encouraging side.” There’s plenty of cynicism and negativity in the world, Barr says, and sometimes readers just want to be encouraged. I heartily agree. In fact, one of the things we tell content writers is that the last thing you want to do in a blog is to be downbeat or attempt to “scare” readers into taking action.

The “press release” aspect of blogging for business dictates that the first sentences of any post must engage interest (with the “or else” being that visitors click away). Different tactics include raising questions in readers’ minds or describing a provocative scene or situation. Your post might play off a topic currently trending in the news, especially one relating to your profession or industry. Now, having gathered information, using it to demonstrate how readers can use that information in their own lives, remember to present the material in reassuring and encouraging words.

As a retired financial planning practitioner myself, I really appreciated what financial psychologist William Marty Martin advised financial planners: “How you communicate can serve to eliminate, decrease, or exacerbate panic experienced within yourself, your family, your team, and your clients…Words have the power of providing comfort, or generating panic, or even helplessness.”

One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional blog content writers is that we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  That’s the reason I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”. (I think people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.)

The idea that little things can mean a lot when dealing with difficult circumstances is reinforced in an article in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge newsletter. “Even as COVID vaccines begin early deployment, pressure on leaders continues to mount to engage in ‘Big C’ change.” But, “instead of questioning everyone and everything I a crisis, leaders should create an atmosphere of trust and confidence.”

“Empathy is the key to gaining readers and followers in all kinds of writing, says Karen Hertzberg of grammarly.com. “from blogging to marketing to social media.”

Embrace the encouraging side of blogging!

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