Business Blogs Help Readers Put Theory Into Practice

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“Colleagues tell me that stories and examples work best in helping students understand how to put theory into practice,” says Elizabeth Natalle in “Teaching Interpersonal Communication”. So, for every concept Natalle teaches in class, she gives an example in the form of a scenario or story. For variety, she sometimes has groups of students analyze a case study.

We blog content writers would do well to follow Natalle’s example, harnessing the power of storytelling to bring out the points we’re trying to make in our posts. And we should do it for the same reason: stories and examples help readers understand the information we offer and relate to what we’re saying.

If one secret of successful business blog writing is, in fact, telling stories, the trick to finding story ideas may be, as Malcolm Gladwell says in What the Dog Saw, “to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell.” In fact, a big, big part of providing business blogging assistance to my Say It For You clients is helping them formulate stories.  Those stories have the power to forge an emotional connection between them and their potential customers.

The setting of a business’ story refers to where it is (where the plant, the distribution area or the professional practice is actually located). The setting also includes the backdrop of the market and the industry or field in which that business or practice operates.

The history of the company or practice makes up the “plot” or story line. The story unfolds as the owners and employees answer questions such as “What do we do?” “How?” “Why?” What does ‘success’ look like to us?” “What values do we stand for?”

I call it the training benefit. Whether owners are doing their own blog content writing or working with a freelance blog writer like me, in the process of verbalizing positive aspects of their own business, helping readers relate to them and trust them, leaders are constantly providing themselves with training about how to tell their own story!

Elizabeth Natalle is on to something: For interpersonal communication (and that’s exactly what blogging for business is designed to be), nothing beats a good story!

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Does Your Blog Express Expertise?

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“An expert is someone that knows their stuff better than anyone else in their field,” says Jorgen Sunberg of undercoverrecruiter.com.

And just why is Sunberg’s definition so important for us Indiana freelance blog content writers? That’s simple: “Everyone wants to buy from or work with the person who has the reputation, credibility, and knowledge of an expert,” asserts Sunberg. (Of course, that’s exactly the result we’re aiming for on behalf of our business owner and professional practitioner clients!)

“Being an expert means you’re competent to deliver value to your clients, whatever you do,” adds Dr. Mani. “If you’re a doctor, you treat patients better. If you’re a writer, you deliver top class work. Being an expert means you’re respected by your peers and that you’re qualified to teach others,” says Mani in entrepreneurs-journey.com.

According to meeting management expert Larissa Schultz, quoted in the latest issue of Speaker Magazine, two of the top three reasons planners hire one professional speaker over another are:

  1. The speaker’s content matches the conference’s needs.
  2. The speaker is an industry expert on a specific topic.

Your company blog offers the perfect platform for you to showcase your expertise in your field, while offering expert advice and information to readers who are looking for exactly that kind of advice and information!

Business bloggers can take comfort from Corbett Barr, a big believer in relative expertise.  “For most purposes,” he explains, “you don’t need to be the world’s foremost expert, just knowing enough or good enough to accomplish your goals… If you’re a two or three on the scale, you’re expert enough to help people who are ones or twos.  In fact,” he adds, “you might be better suited than a ten to helping beginners because you’re closer to their level”.

Besides the opportunity to help more customers and clients, Angie Hicks of Angie’s List points out another aspect of being a “content expert”: “It’s a relatively low-cost supplement to paid advertising.”

Perceived expertise and authority plays a role in Google rankings as well, I teach newbie business bloggers. If Google determines you’re a subject-specific authority, your rankings will improve. How extensive is your website’s footprint across the Web? What type of user experience does your website deliver?  The answers to these questions are factors in search engine rankings of any site.

Does your blog make readers want to buy from or work with you?

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Matching the Typeface with the Type in Blogging for Business

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Concepts discussed at the most recent Financial Planning Association meeting were the inspiration for this week’s Say It For You blog posts. 

One presenter at the meeting made the wry observation that the size of the font on the Wall Street Journal headline announcing a drop in the market earlier this year exactly matched the size of the headline font back in 2008, when the drop was many times more severe. The presenter’s point? Big, bold type in journalism makes the information appear important and has the power to make to raise disproportionate concern in readers.

While blogging for business is different in many ways from news reporting, I couldn’t help reflecting that we blog content writers can use typeface and bolding to draw readers’ special attention to parts of the message in each of our posts.

While bolding and exclamation points can be overdone, in blog posts, I’ve found, it’s important to “exclaim”.  There are at least two reasons for this.  First, as I often stress, online searchers tend to be scanners, not readers. Punctuation, italics, and bold type are some of the ways to draw attention to the central point(s) in each post.

The second reason to use emphasis clues in blog content writing is to satisfy the “spiders”.  Search engine software indexing programs need clues to match up the content on websites and blogs with searchers’ needs. 

“Everything in proportion” is a good guideline, not only for newspaper headline typefonts, but for blog bolding and bullet points as well. Big, bold type, when used inappropriately, does in fact have the power to exaggerate or alarm.

The secret of success – match the typeface with the type of message you’re trying to convey!

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Running Money or Running the Business – Bloggers Run the Message!

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This week’s Say It For You blog posts are inspired by to concepts discussed at the most recent Financial Planning Association meeting. The PIMCO representative made a compelling statement: “At PIMCO, we have people dedicated to ‘running money’, and others dedicated to ‘running the business.’”  He went on to explain what he meant: One secret of PIMCO’s long-term success as a company lies in the fact that the people who manage the investment portfolios for clients are not expected to also “run the business” in terms of marketing, hiring, finance, advertising, etc.

Since I’m a trainer of freelance blog content writers, that statement resonated with me. Generally, I’ve found, entrepreneurs and professional practitioners don’t have a great deal of experience when it comes to writing blog posts. But, even more important is what Honkiat.com points out:”Unless you’re a writer by profession, having to write every day is unrealistic. You have a business to run.” That’s why John Jantsch of ducttapemarketing asserts that “Outsourcing content creation is an essential tactic, especially for small businesses.”

PIMCO, of course, is no small business, but a global investment giant. Unlike most of the small to midsize businesses and professional practices that make up our client list at Say It For You, PIMCO has the resources to have its own, in-house marketing and content-writing departments. The point the PIMCO rep was making is important, though. Taking care of the core functions of any business (in PIMCO’s case, “running the money”) needs to be separated from the function of customer acquisition and client communication.
 
Hearing that PIMCO presentation at the FPA meeting, I recalled the time when I was just beginning my work as a professional blogwriter in Indianapolis..Debates on the ethics of blogging for others often raged at networking meetings and seminars.  Meanwhile, of course, more and more companies were venturing into online marketing campaigns, viewing blog content writing as just another advertising and marketing function to be outsourced.

PIMCO has people dedicated to “running money” and others to “running the business”.  I like to think of our work writing blog content as “running the message”!

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Getting to Gamma in Your Business Blog

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Although retired from my 27-year long career as financial planner, I continue to attend meetings of the Financial Planning Association.  I’m devoting this week’s Say It For You blog posts to concepts discussed at the most recent FPA meeting that I think are worth the attention of us Indianapolis blog writers.

Gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet, but, when it comes to investing, the term “gamma” has a very special meaning. “When it comes to generating retirement income,“
say Paul Kaplan and David Blanchett of Morningstar Investment Management, investors spend the most time and effort on: 

  • Alpha – selecting the money manager or mutual fund
  • Beta – choosing an asset allocation (how much to allocate to stocks, how much to bonds, etc.)

However, the Morningstar authors point out, gamma can be far more important when it comes to retirement income.  Gamma, they say, “presents a way to quantify the additional value that can be achieved by an individual investor from making more intelligent financial planning decisions.”

“It is every marketer’s goal to get inside the head of a consumer,” says Alek Flekel of business2Community, because, of course, you want to figure out how to get consumers to purchase your product or service.

In the online reader’s buying decision, the “alpha” stage consists of the consumer having a need or want and searching for a way to satisfy it. In a way, readers who arrive at your business blog have already “drunk the the Kool-Aid”. They already have an interest in your topic and are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer.

The beta “stage” consists of the reader investigating what you have to offer in the category in which they’re already interested. Do you, in fact, offer the type of product or service for which they were searching?  Is the price range within their reach and in accordance with their expectations? Do they get the impression that you have experience helping consumers just like them solve problems and satisfy needs?

Gamma goes well beyond alpha and beta. Since the goal for every marketer, as Flekel reminds us, is not to sell to many one-time customer but to build a community of repeating, lifetime customers, it’s crucial that readers get a sense of your “gamma” through your business blog.

Write from your passion! The big advantage of blogs is that they’re personal. The business owners’  or practitioner’s personality and character need to be revealed.  A blog must unmistakably demonstrate to online readers that, in this business or practice, they’ve found the “real deal” Gamma factor!

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