Helping Readers Organize Their Perceptiions

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Helping readers organize their perceptions of your industry and of the services and products you offer is one of the core functions of blog marketing. An article in Forbes, “5 Cybersecurity Strategies for a Riskier World“, is an excellent model of how to present information in a well-organized, easy-to-digest format. For each imperative, a statistic is presented, followed by a piece of advice.

  1.  (Imperative) Balance innovation and security.
    (Statistic) 41% of executives say cyber risk initiatives at their organizations have not kept pace with digital transformation.
    (Advice) Don’t invest in cleanup for legacy systems – bake in security with new efforts.

2.  (Imperative) Inventory your highest risks.
(Statistic) 4 in 10 organizations now take a risk-based approach to cybersecurity.
(Advice) Get your technical teams, partners, and suppliers on the same page.

3. (Imperative) Safeguard remote work.
(Statistic) 67% of business-impacting cyber attacks target remote workers.
(Advice) Offer security awareness training for employees and their families, paying for the use of family password stories and                          antivirus protection for home devices.

In marketing a business or practice, organizing relevant and useful information in a structured format can be very useful to readers. Bullet points and numbered lists help readers’ eyes move quickly through the material. And, when the blog content “walks” readers through logical steps to a conclusion, that can increase the likelihood of them staying around to read all your key points.

Statistics can actually serve as myth-busters; if there’s some false impression people seem to have relating to your industry, or to a product or service you provide, you can bring in statistics to show how things really are. Statistics can also serve to demonstrate the extent of a problem (which is precisely how they are used in the Forbes article).  Once readers realize the problem, the door is open for you to show how you help solve that very type of problem for your customers!

In terms of offering advice, I’ve often mused that, out of all the possible advertising and marketing tactics a business or professional practice might use, blogging’s way ahead of the pack because it attracts customers who want to be sold. In fact, it’s the close match between the type of advice the searcher wants and what you know about that accounts for your meeting them in the first place!

It’s important that the entire format of the Forbes article is built around numbers, both in the “listicle” format and in the statistics. . In an analysis by HubSpot of their own blog posts to see which titles had performed the best in terms of search results, the top eight each included a number. In blogging for business, numbers are a great way to be specific about your accomplishments.  They also show that you pay attention to benchmarks and concentrate on setting and meeting goals.

Organizing the material offered in your blog post helps readers organize their perceptions.

 

 

 

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Your Blog is Part of Your Customer Feedback Loop

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According to one Forbes study, 86% of consumers will actually pay more for a better customer experience, Devin Pickell, writing for helpscout.com, reminds business owners and practitioners; one of the best ways to put your customer first, Pickett urges, is implementing a customer feedback loop. Constantly collecting feedback from customers and readers and following up on that feedback allows you to improve areas causing user frustration and do more of what’s working well. Customers need to “feel heard”.

Agreed. As part of the business blogging assistance I offer through Say It For You, I’m always talking to business owners about their customer service.  The challenge is – EVERY business says it offers superior customer service! (Has any of us ever read an ad or a blog that does NOT tout its superior customer service?)  Fact is, individual blog posts can become a valuable part of each content writing client’s own customer feedback loop.

  •  Blog content should include stories specifically illustrating why your company’s customer service exceeds the norm.
  •  Surveys and self-tests can be used in blog content to find out what negative, “pet peeve” experiences may have caused reader to contemplate changing providers.
  • Messaging must offer the opportunity for personalized service – both before and after a purchase (yes, even in the online product purchase world of today).
  • Customers value the ability to gain new insights and learn new skills. Blog posts that take the form of tutorials and step-by-step instructions tend to be valued by readers.
  •  In Journalism 101, I was taught to “put a face on the issue” by beginning articles with a human example  A case study takes that personalization even further, chronicling a customer or client who had a certain problem or need, taking readers through the various stages of how the product or service was used to solve that problem. What were some of the issues that arose along the way? What new insights were gained through that experience, on the part of both the business and the customer?
  • The navigation paths on your blog site had better to be “easy to digest”. I caution new clients. You may have hired us for business blogging assistance, but keep thi important factor in mind: At the very moment that an online reader decides they’re ready to learn more, that they have a question to ask, or that they’re ready to take advantage of your products and services, you must make it convenient for them. They may want something, but not enough to spend extra energy to find it!

Whether you use survey tools, life chat, social media monitoring, or analytics tools, HelpScout reminds owners, what’s important is that you actually collect feedback so that you know what you’re doing well and what to improve upon.

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Advice-Column Blogging for Business

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You wouldn’t imagine consulting the Farmer’s Almanac for tips on blogging for business, but, hey, ideas are everywhere, as we assure readers of Say It For You. In fact, the two articles “7 Ways to Water Wisely” and “8 Top Water-Saving Tips” might serve as perfect models for what I call “advice-column blogging”.

  1.  Both these articles are in “listicle” format, with titles heading up paragraphs explaining how to use that tip. The listicle visually organizes the page, making the information easy to digest. Under the heading “Create a sprinkler-friendly lawn”, for example, the author advises adjusting the lawn’s shape so the sprinkler waters the lawn without dampening the driveway, porch of bare ground.
  2. An odd number of tips is presented. As Blue Orchid Marketing explains, studies have shown that odd-numbered lists trigger better responses from readers, perhaps because they’re perceived as more ‘decisive”.
  3. The tips are practical and doable by readers, with no direct tie to product “pitches”.
    There’s a reason “how-to” blog post titles work, marketing gurus Guy Kawaski and Peg Fitzpatrick show in the Art of Social Media. The best “How-to’s, they explain, are neither too broad nor too limited. They have a “news-you-can-use” feel. At Say It For You, we sometimes encounter resistance from business owners when it comes to starting a blog. Owners of personal service businesses, in particular, voice fears of giving away valuable information “for free”. (What happens in the real world is that readers don’t want to do it all themselves and turn to the source of the advice they’ve been offered.).
  4. The language is personal and direct: “You can….” “Your garden… “Select hoses for your needs.” “Good soil is your partner….”
  5. Both articles are compact, with well-organized information confined to a single page.
    Opinions differ on the optimal size for a blog post, with one “rule” I have read being to keep the post short enough so that the reader needn’t scroll down the page. Unlike purchasers of Farmer’s Almanac issues, online searchers tend to be scanners more than readers, and it’s important to engage attention quickly.

In creating advice-column blog posts, you might want to start with the Farmer’s Almanac!

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In Horseracing or Blogs, Ask for Permission

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Barbara Bush agreed; Margaret Thatcher didn’t. The point, Jake Rossen explains in the Mental Floss article titled “Hoof-Hearted; the Reason Racehorses Have Such Weird Names”, is that most governing bodies for thoroughbred racing set certain parameters for names, and when you opt to name a horse after a person in tribute to them, you have to ask permission.

Similarly, there are rules authors and blog content writers need to know about fair use and attribution. Whenever you want to directly quote, excerpt, or reproduce someone else’s work in something you are writing, you should consider whether or not you need legal permission to protect yourself and your business from potential future problems, the Vervante blog reminds us.

Vervante lists instances when you need to cite your source:

  • You’re quoting someone else.
  • You’re mentioning statistics that you didn’t collate yourself.
  • You’re using another person’s thoughts or ideas that aren’t your own.

The most common way we cite our sources (whether it be an article or a website) within our blogs is by paraphrasing and hyperlinking back to the page where the information originated (precisely what I’ve done three times in this very blog post).

Unfortunately, Jane Friedman explains, quoting or excerpting someone else’s work falls into one of the grayest areas of copyright law. There is no legal rule stipulating what quantity is OK to use without seeking permission from the owner or creator of the material. It’s fine to link to something online from your website, blog, or publication. Linking does not require permission. One guiding principle – if your use is not likely to affect the market for the original work, you’re probably OK.

“At first, it might seem odd that we should direct to other websites the users we’re always struggling to attract to our own domain,” rockcontent.com wryly comments, but “realizing the importance of referrals from other pages to the success of yours will change your mind”, the author adds.

Since the purpose of this Say It For You blog is to help content writers improve their craft, I consider linking to other websites to be my way of paying tribute to those authors’ expertise and knowledge.

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When Blogging, Be Prescriptive, But Be Present

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Understanding how the point of view differs in three different types of personal narratives is crucial in telling a story effectively, William Kenower explains in Writer’s Digest.

  1. A memoir is how we tell a story about something that happened to us in the past.
  2. A personal essay describes a solution to a problem the author sees in the world and lays out how the solution should be brought about.
  3. In a prescriptive, the author is an instructor and the article or piece is an instruction manual.

“Though the author may use stories to illustrate their lesson, in a prescriptive piece, the reader expects and understands that the author will be the one delivering the knowledge. To write these kinds of pieces, the author must feel comfortable in the rule of a teacher or guide,” Kenower says. But even in telling a story, he adds, an author is driven to write because of what experience has taught them.  

“Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story,” observes Seth Godin in his latest book All Marketers Tell Stories.

Not all stories succeed, Godin points out, because not all stories have the following essential elements:

  • Great stories are authentic
  • Great stories are subtle, allowing the target audience to draw their own conclusions.
  • Great stories appeal not to logic, but to the senses.

In business blogs, when we tell the story of a business or a practice to consumers, we “frame” that story in a way that will appeal to the target audience. The business owner or professional practitioner is the “teacher”, driven to write because of what experience has taught them.

Blog marketing is prescriptive, offering how-to advice on solving a particular problem or filling a particular need. At the same time, we’ve learned at Say It ForYou, blogging is a very personal form of communication, and our clients’ corporate messages need to be translated into human, people-to-people terms. The blog is the place for readers to connect with the people behind the business or practice.

Because of what experience has taught me, my advice to bloggers is to be prescriptive, but be present!

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