Content to Get Them Going

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“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”, Charlotte Westerhaus-Renfrow, in an IBJ piece, reminds business owners eager for employees to “take a long, confident gulp from the digital watering hole”.  Getting employees onboard, though, is a human problem, not one of the technology itself, the author maintains, reviewing Robert Caldini’s six principles of persuasion to explain how each of those principles can be used to gain AI “buy-in” from employees.

Realizing that those same six principles can be applied to content marketing, I’m devoting this week’s Say It For You blog posts to showing just how I believe that can be accomplished….

Make it approachable – Success stories from employee champions who are approachable, not just tech experts, will resonate more deeply than top-down memos, Westerhaus-Renfrow explains. When it comes to content marketing, I call that “reaping testimonials of the right kind”. Testimonials in general help your business in two ways – not only helping prospects decide to do business with you, but also fostering commitment from those providing the testimonials. At Say It For You, we believe a testimonial is most “approachable” and believable when it’s actually created by (not only approved by) the customers themselves.

Show the payoff early – Demonstrate immediate value, the author cautions.  I remember a National Speakers Association teacher saying that “Customers do not want your products and services – they want what those products and services will do for them”. You might say that content marketing is all about demonstrating value. Although “listicles” can be popular with readers, that’s true only if the information appeals to searchers’ (how-do-I-?)..immediate interests.

Use the principle of scarcity – Highlight immediate opportunities that may be “going away”, Westerhaus-Renfrow advises. In content marketing, calls to action (CTAs) often use imperative verbs designed to provoke immediate positive action: find out more, call now, provide contact information, etc.. creating a sense of urgency around the offer.

No, having led them to the water, you still cannot make them “drink”. But sharing knowledge and showcasing  business owners’ and practitioners’ experience and expertise can certainly help “get them going” towards taking a sip.

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Hater-Hugging Content Marketing

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When customers complain, the last thing you feel like doing is giving them a hug. But that’s precisely what Jay Baer recommends in his book Hug Your Haters. In fact, Baer teaches, openly embracing and dealing with complaints can turn bad news into very good news for your business, because complaints can help you:

  • create advocacy
  • gather insights
  • differentiate you from your competitors

When Baer talks about dealing with complaints, he means all complaints, all clues that a customer’s experience with a business or practice hasn’t been up to expectations. That means paying attention to in-person and phone conversations. Most “haters”, though, complain “offstage”, rather than directly confronting an owner or customer service rep via phone or in persona, they use e-mail , texts, and post negative reviews, Baer explains in a podcast hosted by Kerry O’Shea Gorgone.

 

An Inc. Magazine review of the book emphasized a startling observation by Baer – Complainers fall into two camps – those seeking help and those merely seeking attention. The first category of complainers actually want and expect a response;  while the complainers don’t expect a response, when they do receive one, they are twice as likely to recommend that company in the future.

Too many business owners shy away from regular posting of articles and blogs for fear of receiving negative comments, we’ve found at Say It For You. Of course, if you don’t create and publish content frequently, you may not receive as many negative reactions, but neither will you attract the attention of search engines or of readers! In fact, “getting in front” of complaints by demonstrating in your content how you remedied a negative customer situation is probably the most positive kind of publicity you can ask for!  Don’t be afraid of showing your err-is-human side.  Your blog, I emphasize, gives you a chance to turn a “failure” into a success story.

 However, unlike working to amass “piles” of compliments in the form of reviews and survey responses, look for opportunities to create content telling “the whole story” – what the issue, problem, or complaint was, how you worked to solve it, and why the solution worked better than what the customer had ever experienced before.

 

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Elevating Content with Semi-Colons

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In content marketing, the most common use of the colon is to introduce a bullet-pointed list, and, back in July, this Say It For You blog discussed this and two other ways writers can make use of the colon, including in two-part titles and to set the stage for dramatic reveals or punch lines.Today’s focus in on the semi-colon….

In the “Unsung Punctuation” section of Writer’s Digest, Ryan Van Cleave comes out “in support of the semicolon”. Which is “stronger than a comma, but less final than a period, offering a middle ground that creates balance and nuance.”. The semi-colon, he claims can:

  • connect ideas
  • untangle complexity
  • elevate your prose

But “mastering the balance” isn’t all that easy, Van Cleave cautions; the key is to use the semi-colon only when clauses are closely related in meaning. Don’t force the issue, but use the semi-colon sparingly to preserve its effectiveness, he advises. “Overuse can make writing feel formal or stilted.” Important to remember is that semicolons don’t pair with conjunction like “and” or “but”.

But, wait! Aren’t blog posts supposed to be easy to read and informal in tone? Do content marketers need to go back to high school English class?  Perhaps. According to author Joanne Adams, pay attention to proper spelling and grammar, and “people who read your writing will know, without a sliver of doubt, that you are somebody who really knows their $h*t”. Point of fact, Laura Mondragon writes, the semicolon does a job no other punctuation can do, and is often more “polite” than a period or exclamation point. “I got your email; I haven’t finished the project yet.” gets the point across simply and effectively.

 

I like Caitlin Berve‘s example of the way content “flow” is enhanced with a semi-colon: “He not only worries he will never return to the castle in the mist; he worries he won’t even remember the palace exists.” Yes, the clauses before and after the semi-color could be separate sentences, but a period would take away from the way the two halves fit together, she explains.

At Say It For You, while we aim for different levels of content readability depending on the target audience for each client’s business or professional practice, we believe that using proper grammar and punctuation, without “dumbing down” the material, shows respect for readers’ intellect – and for their time.

And, if the semi-colon can help “elevate” our content by connecting ideas and untangling complexity, bring it on!

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In Creating Content, Have What She’s Having

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As I was greeting former colleagues and friends at the summer meeting of our Financial Planning Association, I couldn’t help but notice the T-shirt one of the chapter officers had on under his sports coat — “You had me at EBTDA”,  the caption read.  

(Knowing that the topic of the day was going to be preparing one’s business or professional practice for sale, I recognized the acronym – Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization – a financial term measuring a company’s performance and ability to pay back debt).

From the vantage point of my present occupation in content marketing, I was fascinated by how easily that acronym called to mind the Rene Zellweger line from the movie “Jerry McGuire”.  Interestingly, there’s a study about that, done at Cornell University, suggesting that the memorability of quotes can be explained by science. Although lines in a movie might become popular because of an unusually effective delivery by an actor, the scientists identified six qualities that make quotes “stick in our minds:

  • distinctive words
  • simple syntax
  • shortness
  • generality (so many people can relate to the words)
  • present tense
  • labial sounds – M, P, B,V

(While “You had me at hello” is short, simple, and “general”, the quote is in past, not present, tense, and uses no labials. It does use alliteration – “had” and “hello” both begin with the H sound, and Tom Cruise’s delivery was tear-jerkingly romantic.)

Other quotes flagged in the Cornell study include:

  • “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
  • “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
  • “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
  • “I’ll have what she’s having.”

In terms of creating online content, Wix.com names six title structures that have proven highly effective:

  • Using numbers (“12 things that….)
  • Using superlatives (Greatest….. Ultimate guide to….)
  • Questions (Why does…..)
  • How-tos
  • The big reveal (Secrets I learned…..)
  • Bracketed descriptors (Tips for Planning Content [FreeTemplates])

The quote “I’ll have what she’s having” (from “When Harry Met Sally” is one we often cite when training business blog content writers: link the products and services offered by your client to prevalent trends. Consumers want to do what “everyone is doing” and to “have what she’s having”.

In creating marketing content, show ’em how to “have what she’s having”!

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Yes, I Do Want to Hop on a Call — After You’ve Read My Blog Post

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Your colleague asks you a reasonable question.  You could take five minutes to write a cogent reply, but instead you say “Let’s hop on a call”.  What you’re really saying, Wes Kao opines in Entrepreneur Magazine, is that “I don’t want to do the work of clarifying my own thinking”. (It’ll be easier, you reason, to think out loud.) The problem isn’t calls, Kao explains; it’s defaulting to calls. When you draft a written reply and your audience takes time to read it and consider the content, everyone is in a better position to move forward, he emphasizes. By writing, Sarah K. Peck agrees,” you’re giving information that is helpful, documented, repeatable, and shareable”. In Rob’s Notes, the reviewer’s “take” is that Kao “encourages readers to invest in thinking and in crafting responses.”

As head of a content marketing team, I found this discussion in Entrepreneur especially interesting. At Say It For You, I’m always talking about the “training benefit” of blogging and content creation in general. While our business purpose is to present our clients as subject matter experts, a “side effect” for the business owners and practitioners themselves comes about in the process of conversing with us!  In essence, a blog is about giving readers information that is “helpful, documented, repeatable, and shareable”. The planning and exploratory conversations between owner and writer are, in effect, “training” entrepreneurs to better understand their own core business principles and practices

One very practical aspect of that “training” benefit accruing to entrepreneurs as they engage with their ghost writers has to do with the competition. Although one aspect of creating content about a business is comparing their products and services to others’, we “coach” our clients to emphasize the positive rather than “knocking” their competitor.  Rather than creating content about what the competition is doing “wrong”, we teach, the content needs to demonstrate what you value and the way you like to deliver your services.

And, for the very reason that Wes Kao encourages thoughtful written responses to workplace questions that arise, the process of creating content that will be “documented” and shareable, the process of owner/”ghost” collaboration results in productive self-examination and “training”.

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