Blogging to Share Your Process

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If you do something unknown, unfamiliar, or unexpected, your clients are going to feel their security is in jeopardy, Luke Agree cautions financial advisors. And, no matter how you slice it, Agree adds, that’s not good for business.

Financial advisors who share their process with their clients are able to avoid that risk. Sharing must include not only your value proposition (what makes you different or better than other professionals in your field), but also your process of operating the business and delivering client services.

What are your “habits”? How frequently do you report progress? Do you prefer email, phone calls, texts, or letters? What updates will you be providing and how frequently? How will you provide continuing education – seminar? Podcasts? Newsletters? A blog? How responsive is your office set up to be to inbound inquiries?

In sharing your process, Agree makes clear to his audience of financial advisors, you’re really sharing promises.

Blog marketing is also a matter of making – and keeping – promises, we teach at Say It For You. Over my years as a freelance blog writer, I’ve seen many companies launch a blog marketing strategy with great expectations, but poor implementation. Just as in the world of finance, value is based on a the market’s perception of whether a company is likely to keep its promises about future growth, it is essential for any practitioner, product or service provider to keep promises and deliver predictable and consistent results.

In creating a content marketing plan, I like to begin by challenging the owner of a business or professional practice to answer the following question: “If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you’re passionate about what you sell, what you know, and what you do, what would those words be?” In other words, whether the business owner him or herself is doing the writing, or whether they’re collaborating with a writer, the first steps I creating blog content involve clarifying, and then sharing, the “process” and the promise to follow that process.

Blog to share your process!

 

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In Blog Marketing, Know Their Until and Unless

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At the quarterly meeting of the Financial Planning Association I attended earlier this month, a highlight was attorney Brian Eagle’s two hour lecture on estate planning. After describing each strategy available under our gift and estate tax laws, Engels would pose the question to the audience – So why don’t clients use this strategy? Why don’t they make big charitable gifts? Why don’t clients reduce their taxable estates by using some of the many ingenious trust arrangements available to them?

It’s because, Engels explained, before any clients (no matter how wealthy they are), make decisions to part with assets, they must first feel confident that they will have enough to take care of their own needs for the rest of their lives. Until and unless any client has that feeling of security, he or she is simply not going to make any big decisions or implement any complex asset transfers….

What stands between your prospects and their decision to become your customers? What assurances do they need about your product or service before they make their move? Until and unless what are they not going to make a buying decision?

“Unless you’re intimately familiar with the psychology of your target market, any demographics you claim are mere semantics,” Entrepreneur.com cautions. Some recommended steps include reading up on case studies and analyses by industry reporters, conducting question-answer sessions with a small sample of audience members, looking at products and services your audience is using (unrelated to your own industry), and reading what potential buyers are saying online.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, advises step-by-step risk elimination. There’s some mental or physical barrier, real or imagined, Gitomer says, that causes a prospect to hesitate about ownership. The salesperson’s job is to identify that risk and eliminate it. Some of those fears include:

  • Financial – am I spending too much? Is this a budget violation?
  • Quality – does something better exist?
  • Is salesperson lying – (risk of nondelivery or overstated promises)Until and unless your blog readers feel sure their fears are unfounded, nothing is likely to happen..
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High vs. Low Level Blog Marketing

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“The problem with the hard and soft sell definitions is that they are subjective,” Gemma Wright comments in ProCopyTips. “Hard sell can also be viewed as aggressive and could potentially turn off prospective customers, whereas soft sell can be thought of as ineffective as it’s considered too gentle and doesn’t necessarily convert into sales.” “The trick, Wright concludes, “is finding that elusive middle ground that works for your business.”

When it comes to dog obedience training, as Sit Means Sit explains, “high vs. low level training is kind of like a steak. A ‘medium’ steak is over cooked if you prefer rare, and under cooked if you prefer well done”. And when it comes to dog obedience training, Sit Means Sit goes on to say, “one trainer will feel the level needs to be higher or lower, which might vastly disagree with what another trainer thinks”.

That dilemma constitutes a large part of what blog posts are for, we realize at Say It For You. In any field of business and in every profession, there will be different opinions about the most effective way to approach problem solution. Because it may not be feasible to explore all possible solutions on the welcome page of a website, blog posts are ideal for delving further into the many aspects of a topic.

Most people will not react overly positively to a blog that is just sales spin,” cautions Problogger.net. “While blogs can be used as a tool for selling they are at their best when they are relational, conversational and offer their readers something useful that will enhance their lives.”) The good news for business owners and practitioners who use blogs as a marketing tool, is that blog posts are an ideal vehicle for demonstrating support and concern while being persuasive in a low-key manner.

So what are some different ways to “cook a blog steak”?

  • building good will
  • staying in touch with existing customers and clients
  • defining terminology
  • offering how-to hints
  • announcing changes in products and services
  • controlling damage when it comes to negative PR or complaints
  • recruiting employees
  • ”humanizing” the owners and employees by presenting them as real, likeable peopleAt Say It For You, we teach that blog posts are, like advertorials, a “softly softly” form of advertising, in which you use a news or human-interest story to sell a product or service. The story ties together the answers to readers’ questions, and the solution you’re proposing.

You might say that well-written blogs combine the best of both high and low level marketing!

 

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Blogs are Flip-Flop Interviews

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In the book Stop Hiring Losers, Minesh and Baxi devote an entire chapter to a list of interview questions employers should pose to job candidates. “Why are you leaving your current job?”, for example, is designed to identify past problems a candidate might carry over into a new job. On the positive side, that question can reveal the fact that the candidate sees the new position as an important forward career step.

When you think about it, blog posts are interviews, too. But, in the case of blogs, things are “flip-flopped”, because it’s the blog reader (the “candidate”) interviewing the business, rather than the other way around. At Say It For You, we teach content writers that searchers have some sort of need and are recruiting help!  Just as in a face-to-face interviews, those searchers read what you put out there in your blog posts and evaluate that content in light of their own needs.  Their scanning your blog is the equivalent of them interviewing your business to see if you’re a good fit for them.

Many of the questions Minesh and Baxi recommend that employers pose to job candidates are those blog readers are mentally posing to you when they are reading your content:

  • Why should we employ you rather than one of the other candidates?

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is a succinct, memorable message that identifies the unique benefits that are derived from using your product or service as opposed to a competitor’s. Your blog offers you the chance to constantly refine and improve your USP.

  • What would your co-workers say about you?

Testimonials and client anecdotes in your blog are ways of answering this question.

  • What contributed to the best working conditions you ever experienced?

Your blog posts should include stories about how you successful solved clients problems in the past, expressing the satisfaction you gained from helping customers overcome obstacles. Offer advice about how users can gain the greatest benefits from your product or service.

  • What is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your career?

I teach freelance blog writers to include stories of their clients’ past mistakes and failures. Such stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame not only adversity, but the effects of their own mistakes!

  • What are you most proud of on your resume?

Although at Say It For You, I remind owners and practitioners that blogging is not boasting, it’s good to offer “credentializing proof”, alluding in blog posts to your years of experience, weaving into the text mention of your degrees, quoting articles you’ve written – and even citing awards you’ve won. In addition, people tend to be comfortable associating with professionals and business owners who give back to their community.

When you think about it, blogs are nothing more than flip-flop interviews!

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Great Beginnings for Business Blogs

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“Set the hook with great beginnings,” Sharon Short teaches in Writer’s Digest. Standard pieces of advice include:

  • Immediately grab attention
  • Don’t start with description – especially weather!
  • Don’t jump right into dialogue or action

Take some pressure off yourself, Short advises writers – openings will emerge when the theme of the project becomes clearer, she says, noting that there are 5 characteristics of a great story beginning:

  1. Immediacy (readers need an immediate reason to care)
  2. Tone (light-hearted, wry. Comedic, serious, informational)
  3. Suspense (teasing readers’ curiosity)
  4. Specificity (provide context right away)
  5. Fair play (consistency of style as the piece progresses).

It is the five specific techniques that Sharon Short describes that I believe are especially applicable to business blog content writing:

1. Dialogue – We all love to eavesdrop just a little.
Any good narrative should contain some dialogue and sensory details. In blog case studies, incidents from the news, folklore, including actual quotes and dialogue makes the material more real for the reader.

2. Superlatives – Describe an event or item as the least, biggest, most, smallest, first or last.
Superlatives in headlines “sell”. “The most successful people”, “The happiest people”, “The most interesting people” – these are people we want to know more about. Readers enjoy discovering, learning, and challenging the details behind blanket assertions.

3. Thematic statement – State the premise or thesis of the entire book – what you are about to prove.
Putting a summary or conclusion at the beginning of a piece of writing certainly sounds like a strange thing to do, but the pow-opening-line idea I teach in corporate blogging training session focuses on that very sort of “descending” writing structure.

4. Voice – Hook readers’ empathy with a compelling voice, making each reader feel as if you’re in a conversation with her alone.
In your business blog, while viewers are reading, not hearing, the “voice”, it’s important to have “voice variety”. That can come from writing some of the content in I-you format, with other posts written in third person. If a company person or a customer is being interviewed, the can be written in the “voice” of the interviewee or that of the interviewer.

5. Surprise – Shock the reader, even in a small way.
Beginning with a startling statistic is certainly one tactic blog writers can use to bring a point to the forefront of readers’ minds, then illustrating that point with specific examples.

Set the hook to each blog post with a great beginning!

 

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