So Who’s Counting in Your Content Marketing Blog?

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This past Easter alone, infoplease.com informs us, Americans managed to consume some 90,000,000 chocolate bunnies. If, by this point in time, you’re thinking “Who cares?, Just try this fact on for size: 76% of those chocoholic citizens expressed the opinion that the bunny’s ears should be eaten first.

As is more than evident from social media and referral sites, people are unfailingly interested in who-else-is-doing-whatever-it-is-your-company-is-recommending-I-do. Blog readers in particular look at what others are doing when making an online purchase of a product or service. To put it another way, consumers are influenced by references.

Of course, when I’m doing corporate blogging training, I advise business owners and professionals to use statistics for three other reasons as well:

1. Attention-grabbing

2. Mythbusting (statistics help prove the reality versus the widely held misperceptions about your product or service)

3. Demonstrating the extent of a problem leads into showing readers ways you can help solve it

Online marketing executive Tom Pick agrees, saying that “the careful use of numbers is one valuable method for maximizing communication while conserving space. To my list of reasons why using numbers in SEO marketing blogs is a very good idea, Pick adds the following:

 4.Numbers add precision. Words like “some,” “many,” “most” and “few” give us only a vague sense of quantity.

5. Numbers are shorthand. Numbers can convey a great deal of information with minimal verbiage.

6. Numbers are compelling. The precision of numbers adds weight to an argument or claim

So who’s counting in your content marketing blog? Are you??

 

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Business Blogs – Both Exploratory and Confirmatory

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Always on the lookout for ways to improve our blog content marketing efforts on behalf of Say It For You clients, I regularly attend monthly luncheon meetings of the Indianapolis AMA .

At our table this month, the conversation turned to telephone surveys.  Fellow member Tim Ittenback (of the marketing research firm SMARI) used terms I hadn’t heard before, referring to questions asked of homeowners who answered the calls. Closed-ended questions, with consumers answering yes or no or ranking something on a 1-5 scale, for example, are “confirmatory”. Open-ended questions, where consumers respond in their own words, are “exploratory”.

I’m reminded of a favorite quote from Shawn O'Donaghue of the Central Indiana Women's Business Center: "Successful business owners understand that the product or service they are selling is the answer to someone's problem."

In creating content for SEO marketing blogs, we need to keep in mind that people are online searching for answers to questions they have and for solutions for dilemmas they're facing. But even if those searchers haven’t specifically formulated their question, I suggest to newbie Indianapolis blog content writers, you can do that for them by presenting a question in the blog post itself!

Now that I think about it, I realize the blog questions can be either confirmatory or exploratory, and could even take the form of a survey or quiz. Unlike marketing research firms, business owners or professional practitioners are not out to gather consumer data; they want to engage their blog readers and show that they understand the dilemmas those readers are facing.

“Suffering from eye strain after long hours in front of the computer? Is the opener for a LensCrafters™ advertorial, for example.

 “Did you know that 9 out of ten of your blog readers don’t get past the first line of your posts?” asks Problogger, explaining that the intent of that line is to have shock value and to “put a finger on the need we’ll be addressing.”

An Indianapolis Woman Magazine article a few years ago, contained a quiz, offering different options, multiple-choice style, for home buyers:

Your dream location is to live….

A. Downtown, in or near a big city
B. Close to the beach or in a rural area.
C. Doesn’t really matter if it’s in close proximity to others.

What you’re looking forward to the most about your home is…

A. Less cleaning. Your last place was too big.
B. Decorating. You can’t wait to get your hands on a paintbrush.
C. Meeting the new neighbors around you.

Business blog post questions can be confirmatory or exploratory – the purpose is to be engaging!

 

 

 


 

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Calls to Action are Not Eye-Opening in Business Blogs

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It’s eye-opening, the blog content marketing tips one can pick up at one’s eye doctor’s’ waiting room!  A LensCrafters™ advertorial titled “Computer-Related Vision Problems Are On the Rise”  in the AAA Magazine caught my attention, triggering the uncomfortable thought: that all of us freelance blog content writers spend far too many of our waking hours in front of computer screens.

As for the article itself – the structure, I thought, presents a perfect template for an effective post for a business or professional practice:

The opening line, “Suffering from eye strain after long hours in front of the computer?”  That question tells the reader that the blog writer understands the issue and that the content will be dealing with the precise topic that triggered the search in the first place.

The next couple of lines establish a baseline of shared knowledge ( “You probably already know…. that a long day staring at your screen can sometimes lead to tired eyes and headaches…)

The writer then offers little-known information to add to that baseline:  “But did you know these issues could be signs of CVS?” The author uses footnotes to properly attribute information which came from the American Optometric Association. In Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I explain how to use links (the equivalent of footnotes) for curated materials that were taken from other blogs, from websites, or books.

The next few paragraphs of the article provide usable information about steps readers can take to protect their own eyes and questions readers can ask their own eye doctors about UV coating on eyewear.

Only at the very end is there a Call to Action to visit LensCrafters™ and take advantage of a special discount.

So, does that last section, in which LensCrafters™ is asking for the customer’s business, invalidate the good information provided in the piece? Not in the least. When people go online to search for information and click on different blogs or on different websites, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to do business. But as long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer.

Calls to action are not eye-opening in successful SEO marketing blogs!

 

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Putting Your Business Blog’s Most Flattering Face Forward

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“New research shows that the left side of the human face is generally more appealing to others than the right side,” psychology professors Schirillo and Blackburn found. Why? “Results suggested that posers’ left cheeks tend to exhibit a greater intensity of emotion, which observers find more aesthetically pleasing”.

That’s a fascinating finding, Huffington Post remarks, but does the study yield a practical take-away message for people who want to look their best? Yes, says Dr. Schirillo: "Practically, people should turn slightly so that they show more of their left than their right cheek when being photographed."

As a content marketer and corporate blogging trainer, I find this right-side/left-side research fascinating, too.  More important, I can find more than one practical take-away messages for us Indianapolis business blog content writers.

The Nielsen Norman Group did their own study on how users read web pages, finding that users often use an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe. First, users read horizontally across the upper part of the content. Next, they move down a bit and read across again.  Finally, users scan the left side in a vertical movement. The take-away? The title and first ”pow” sentence of blog content are of crucial importance in readers’ split-second decision to read more or “bounce”.

Exhibiting emotion in content marketing is a good thing. In fact, emotional impact is an essential ingredient in all good writing.  Brandon Royal, author of the Little Red Writing Book, comes back to that concept again and again. We need “close-ups”, he says, for emotional connection and impact.

Are you putting your business blog’s most flattering face forward?
 

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Blog Content Writers – We’ve “Arrived”!

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If you’re reading this post, I bet you thought social media had “arrived” long ago. They hadn’t, but now they have, (now that the SEC has “blessed” Facebook and Twitter and allowed investment information to be disclosed on those sites, that is)..

I must tell you: As a 27-year veteran of the compliance-top-heavy financial planning profession, now a professional ghost blogger and content marketing trainer, I got a giant chuckle out of the Wall Street Journal headline “SEC Embraces Social Media.”

In case any of my Say It For You business blog readers missed the big announcement, “…the Security and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that postingson sites such as Facebook and Twitter are just as good as press releases and company websites, as long as the companies have told investors which outlets they intend to use.”

It was obvious that the SEC watchdog people had happened upon Roger Laing’s new book “Social Media Marketing Made Easy.” Laing defines blogs as “online journals for individuals and businesses.”  “Blogs and bloggers often rival major media companies as sources of information,” Laing adds, much to the delight of all of us Indianapolis business blog writers.

Blogging for business, Laing proclaims, “lets you share knowledge and expertise to boost sales and promote your business, both directly and indirectly.”  What’s more, he explains, the blog allows you to show your value as a commercial partner.

Promoting businesses and professional practices, sharing knowledge and demonstrating value – that’s what we freelance blog content writers are out to do! (Boy, that SEC blessing has us beaming!)
 

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