The Number One Ingredient for Successful Business Blogging

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It’s not easy to be considered an expert – otherwise, we’d all be experts, observes Renee Quinn on IPWatchdog.com. Yet, for us Indianapolis blog content writers, one big goal of the writing we do for our business owner and professional practitioner clients is just that – positioning them as experts in the eyes of their clients and of online searchers.

To be positioned as an expert, Quinn says, you can either be excellent at a few things or OK at a long list of things, but generally not both. Once you’ve decided on one of those two paths, never stop educating yourself in your area. Be confident in your knowledge, she advises, and stay active to show those who follow you what you’re passionate about. Needless to say, as a long-time business blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I was delighted at Quinn’s next piece of advice: Get writing – that’s a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field.  “When you answer unasked questions, you are gaining credibility and building trust,” she adds.

“Discuss specific topics of interest and newsworthy topics in your industry that are current and carry a lot of interest with your field,” Quinn continues. “By doing so, you are giving people a sneak peak at your level of knowledge on each topic while also remaining relevant and current”.

Having decided to devote this week’s Say It For You blog posts to the topic of expertise, I was absolutely intrigued by this statement by Stan Smith of Pushing Social:  “…dozens of compelling tactics compete for your attention.  With all these options, it’s easy to forget that expertise is the #1 ingredient for a successful content marketing and blogging. Without expertise, all of these topics are reduced to fancy magic tricks…”

Smith quotes one of my own favorite marketing gurus, Seth Godin: “Writing’s power of clarification is the main reason why he posts daily. Writing long-form content on popular topics in your niche will put your thinking on display and give your readers an opportunity to evaluate your expertise.”

No, it’s hardly easy to be considered an expert, hardly easy to be a blogger for business.  In fact, in the early years of my company Say It For You, I talked about the “drill sergeant discipline” needed by blog content writers and about the fact that the main key to business blogging success was going to be simply keeping on task.

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Blogging the Right Stuff to the Right Audience

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“If your marketing is not getting enough people into the pool, you’ll find the problem is in one of three places.  You’ve either got the wrong STORY, the wrong STUFF, or the wrong AUDIENCE,” says my Rockstar friend and fellow blogger Thaddeus Rex.

Since blogging for business is all about telling and selling stuff, I found Rex’ list of “Four Ways STUFF has of Differentiating Itself” worth sharing with Indianapolis blog content writers:

  1. Features – your product or service can do something your competitors can’t (or yours does it better).
  2. Location – your product/service is available someplace your competitors’ is not (or it’s more easily available)
  3. Service – the buying experience you provide sets you apart
  4. Cost – you’re the cheapest or the most expensive (exclusivity).

(As a corporate blogging trainer, I need to repeat here that what you don’t want to do in any business blog post is “litanize”, meaning offer an extensive boast session of all the ways your stuff is better than their stuff.  In fact, this stuff-characteristic list is for your own use, your tool kit from which you’ll select just one item to emphasize out of all the things you have, do, and know how to do.)

The real secret, as Thaddeus Rex so rightly points out, is to know, really know, your audience. That way, you’ll know which “tools” out of your STUFF list will be most likely to appeal to that audience.

To achieve that outcome, advises blog consultant Mark White, “your knowledge (of your target audience) needs to influence every aspect of your blog, including:

         What your blog looks like
         The content of the blog
         The style of writing
         The length and frequency of posts
         How you elicit comments and feedback

Your “water slide” (which is how Thaddeus Rex refers to the sales process) must take people where they want to go. “Otherwise you just generate work vetting leads that will never convert,” he cautions.

When you blog the right stuff to the right audience in the right way – magic happens!

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Straight Line Blogging

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golfingA couple of weeks ago, my Circle Business Network group meeting was held at Parmasters indoor golf training center in Noblesville.  The dozen of us in attendance were treated to some delicious muffins and coffee, then to a simulated tour of the famous Saddlebrook golf course with pro Clayton Meeks.

An absolutely abominable golfer myself, I still got a big kick out of seeing the wonders of modern computer technology put to the task of teaching a skill.  Parmasters is amazing! The part of Clayton’s talk I found to be the most interesting had to do with the golf teaching system used at Parmasters, called Straight-Line Golf.  This is a system that allows the player to consistently hit the ball straight.  Straight Line, (and this part  was significant to me as a seminar presenter and former teacher), in contrast with traditional golf instruction’s focus on correcting a player’s faults and weaknesses, takes all players through the same teaching track, focusing on the golfer’s getting the ball straight to its target.

My “Say It For You” ghost blogging for businesses is, in a way, based on the same “Straight Line” principle.  Search Engine Optimization consists of  “driving” (pun intended) traffic to your website.  The straight line begins when someone browses the Web searching for information about a topic related to your company’s expertise, product, or service.  Your blog contains recently posted, relevant information.  Since you’ve been consistently posting good, frequently updated material, the search engines have rewarded your efforts by putting your blog closer to the top of their search list.  The browser spots your blog (because it uses all the search terms he/she’s designated), then finds what you have to say compelling enough to continue along the path – straight to your website. 

So, thanks for the memories, Parmasters!  And thanks for setting a good example for “straight-line” corporate marketing through blogs.

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Tip Talk For Blogs

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Woman’s Day Magazine has a section called “Solutions Tip Talk”. The tip topic this time was toothpaste, normally not a theme designed to pique my interest.  It was the title of the piece, “5 Uses For Toothpaste” that reeled me in.  Fascinating.  Just last week I’d posted a blog specifically warning against cramming corporate blogs with too much information about the benefits of a product or service.

But here’s the thing:  This toothpaste mini-article was effective using a list because not one of those five uses on the list was anything anybody (well, maybe Martha or Heloise) would’ve ever thought of.  Had you thought of using toothpaste to remove crayon marks, whiten sneakers, buff DVDs, defog goggles, or deodorize hands after peeling onions or garlic? It was a “Who knew?” experience, I’ll tell you, reading that little article.

I realized there was a lesson here for me as a ghost blogger.  If I can get your blog to capture an Internet browser’s interest with useful – and unexpected – ways the expertise or product line your company has to offer can help customers, we’ve got a good chance of converting a “Gee, who knew?” browser into a website visitor wanting to know more!

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