Don’t Blog Only From a Front Row Seat

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Financial professionals often have a “front row seat”, getting to see up close the how clients transition into retirement, Robert Laura writes in Financial Advisor Magazine. “We get to see how they accumulated their savings, and what their plans are for life after work.” Problem is, Laura points out, like people sitting too close to a high stage in a theatre, many advisors have a partially obstructed view, missing scenes playing out in the background. Just as a good play transports you into another world and into other lives, Laura tells advisors, you must be willing to look at more than what is on “center stage” and notice the backdrops.

“Buyers are 48% more likely to consider products and services that address their specific business and personal issues,” uplandsoftware.com stresses. In practice, the authors point out, most companies don’t dive deeply enough into the concerns and needs of their target customers. Instead, most marketing is based on a “front row” view, using demographics such as age, role, and location. The result is marketing materials that simply don’t resonate with the target audience. Hootsuite summarizes the marketing challenge blog content writers face in an almost brutally “in-your-face” way: “You can’t speak directly to your best potential customers if you’re trying to speak to their kids and parents and spouses and colleagues at the same time.” In other words, you need to go narrow and deep rather than using a broad brush.

I’m fond of thinking of ghost blogging as an art, but, truth be told, there’s quite a bit of science to it as well. Since your blog can’t be all things to all people, any more than your business can be all things to everybody, the blog must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who will want to do business with you.  Everything about your blog, we stress at Say It For You, should be tailor-made for your target customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it. In short, you’re giving up your “front row seat” and mingling with the audience members in the “cheap seat”, offering cues that you understand the situations and challenges they face.

Don’t blog only from a front row seat!

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Blogging for Business with Sympathy and Service: 4 “Amens”

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“Instead of selfish mass marketing, effective marketing now relies on sympathy and service,” Seth Godin posits in the book This is Marketing. What marketing is, the author explains. “the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem.” “Getting discovered”, “getting found”, and “getting the word out” are no longer the first things to consider, but come last. As marketers, Godin is firm, it’s our job to watch people, figure out what they dream of, than create a transaction that can deliver that feeling.

In planning how to market your product or service, Godin suggests, start by filling in the blanks in this sentence: “My _________ will be exactly the right choice for people who believe that_______ and who want to feel_________.”

Four Say It For You “Amens”:

  1. Belief and trust, we have found at Say It For You, are in large part a function of familiarity Precisely because blogs are not one-time articles, but conveyers of messages over long periods of time, they serve as unique tools for building a sense of familiarity (and ultimately trust) in readers.
  2. In blog content writing, ask yourself: Which psychological fulfillment does your brand support most? Exactly as Godin is expressing, blog readers will self select and become buyers only to the extent your content has focused on creating experiences that align with their values. Business blogs should never be rated “E” (intended for everyone).
  3. As content writers, we’ve also come to understand over the years that face-to-screen is the closest we will come to the prospective buyers of our clients’ products and services. Even when it comes to B2B marketing, we know that behind every decision, there is always a person, a being with feelings they have and feelings they want to have.
  4. Through the pandemic we became familiar with the phrase “social distancing”, which is the precise opposite of what we must try to do in blog marketing, which is to create connections with our audience and make them feel supported and in turn receptive to our message. As writers, we must present the business or practice as very personal rather than transactional.

In blog marketing, aim for sympathy and service!

 

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Blog Listicles Must Appeal to Readers’ Immediate Interests

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They’re both “listicles”, but, for me as a blog content writer, there’s an interesting difference:

  • 7 Things You Should Know About Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’
  • 10 Things You Might Not Know About Mother’s Day

Yes, I was an English major in college, so of course I’d studied the book To the Lighthouse. That was a long time ago, though, and today I just didn’t feel as if I needed to know more things about the novel. Mother’s Day, on the other hand was something happening right now. So, while I agree that listicles really “work, as insightsyesadagency.com points out, they must appeal to searchers’ immediate interests.

“Don’t get even – get odd!” is one piece of advice the insightsyesadagency offers, recommending odd-numbered lists over even-numbered ones. In general, listicles are popular because they require minimal effort on the part of readers, conveying authority and appealing to our desire for organization.

Listicles should offer creativity and originality, while still touching on the key points that drive traffic,” insights.digitalmediasolutions.com advises, adding that .”the type of content in listicles should fit the target audience.” At Say It For You, we couldn’t agree more with that last statement. Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it, I tell newbie blog content writers, and listicles are no exception to that basic content planning rule.

Career coaches suggest that using numbers may be one of the most underutilized strategies in cover letter writing. Numbers are a great way to be specific about your accomplishments, demonstrating that you pay attention to benchmarks and concentrate on setting and meeting goals. As a blog content writer and trainer, I stress that numbers can be used in business blogs to “build belief”. For example, statistics can demonstrate the extent of a problem your product or service helps solve.

Using numbers in blog post titles is a great way to both attract attention and to set expectations for a post. Words on the other hand, are used to put lists and statistics into perspective, so that readers are given the answer to the “So what?” and “So, what’s in-it-for-me” questions. Just why do I need to know 7 things about Virginia Woolf’s novel just now? Mother’s Day, in contrast, is something to be dealt with this very month.

Listicles must appeal to readers’ immediate interests.

 

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The Good and the Bad of Fillers in Blogs

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Fillers are words that add no substantive meaning to a sentence and merely fill the space, Wordvice.com explains. Whether you’re writing a journal article, a research paper, a dissertation, or a blog, creating sentences that are strong and concise is important in conveying your message to your audience.

Wordvice.com offers three examples of sentences that can be shortened by eliminating filler words:

  • “There is an octopus sitting on top of my car.” (Better: “An octopus is sitting on my car.”)
  • “This is actually an interesting question.” (Better: “This question is interesting.)
  • “In order to apply the new method to our entire system, perhaps we should perform a local test.” (Better: “We should perform a local test before applying the new method to our system.”)

In speech, grammarly.com notes, while fillers such as “ums” and “uhs” don’t add meaning to your statements, they do allow you to take a second to think about what to say next. In writing, though, unnecessary adverbs and empty phrases add length but not substance.

Filler words and phrases commonly used in writing include: basically, just, really, highly, needless to say, in my opinion, okay, totally, and literally.

Blog content fillers and SEO
Unfortunately, blog content writers often insert fillers for the sole purpose of increasing the word count of each post. Based on the perception that search engines use article length as a ranking signal, writers intentionally use word fillers to “plump up” their content with an eye to SEO.

Since search engines do measure reader time on site, instead of fillers, writeonline.io suggests “grease-slide copy”, which are phrases that create smooth transitions between paragraphs and sentences and keep readers on the page.. Grease slide text might include questions such as “Have you wondered why…..?”i..Ever noticed how…..?” “Want to know a secret…?” or provocative statements such as “Be honest….” or “We’ve all done it….”

Problogger.com ,  meanwhile, suggest “killer fillers”, which are shorter posts requiring less original in-depth research, including guest posts, interviews,  link roundups, and reader discussions.

At Say It For You, we have found, the most effective length for any one blog post is as long as it takes to show readers that “right here” is where to find answers. I teach the importance of keeping a very specific focus within each post, avoiding either extraneous words or extraneous material.

“Fill” your blog with valuable, “killer”, content, but avoid fillers that have little value to add.

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Blog What the Best Have in Common

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“We’ve become experts in identifying what draws a person’s eye to a cooking space,” Sarah Weinberg writes in delish.com, and we’ve noticed that the best ones have things in common.

  1. Smart and accessible storage
  2. Countertops that are easily cleaned and that don’t absorb food particles and odors
  3. Smart appliances
  4. Attractive, bright lighting

Quality is always defined in the eyes of the customer, Simple-PDH.com notes. Different groups of customers might define “best” in different ways, and we can group customers into “target markets” to better understand their needs and preferences. “Quality is defined by two elements: customer satisfaction and customer expectations.” Meeting customer expectations is what defines success.

For that very reason, it’s a very good idea to blog about “what the best have in common” when it comes to your category of product or service. Learning about these “commonalities” helps prospects define their expectations of you and of what you have to offer them.

In working with Say It For You business owner and practitioner clients to create blog content for them, I often encounter resistance to the what-the-best-have-in-common model. Reluctant to suggest that they have things “in common” with some of their competitors, they prefer to focus only on aspects that prove they (and only they). are “best”!

” An informed consumer is capable of making sensible decisions by gaining an insight about a product prior to its purchase.” Based on that belief, one of the primary objectives of the European Union has been the provision of information to consumers. The opposite effect happens with “choice overload”, which can lead to behavioral paralysis, KelloggInsight points out.

At Say It For You, we know that consumers know: whatever your business or practice, there are other out there, and realize that some of those are worthy competitors of yours. But, when visitors to your website find answers to their questions, updated information about your type of product or service, and social proof offered by clients and customers, you won’t need to be “the only one” to be “the one” with whom they choose to do business..

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