Business Blog Content Writers Take Second Place

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“When your market clearly sees how your offering is different from that of your competition, it’s easier to influence the market and win mindshare,” says Marketing MO. “One of the key elements that many small to mid-sized companies overlook is how they provide value at the highest level.”

As freelance blog content writers, the way I see it, our job is to convey that value message to online searchers. That’s assuming, however, our business owner or professional practitioner clients have defined how they deliver value to their customers.  In other words, I see content writing as the second stage in the process, not the first.

My message to corporate and professional clients is simple: Your blog is just ONE piece of the general strategizing you do with your ‘team” – your web designer, marketing consultant, managers, and employees. And, while we blog writers can often serve as “quarterbacks” and help our clients assemble the team of Subject Matter Experts in various areas such as Search Engine Optimization, reputation management, public relations, graphic design, web design, and CRM) our main focus needs to be on writing blog posts using all that intelligence.

Marketing MO lists three ways to deliver value to customers:

  1. Operational excellence – delivering lowest price in the market by producing more volume at a lower cost
  2. Product (or service) leadership – staying one step ahead of the market through innovation and quality
  3. Customer intimacy – knowing the target customers' changing needs and delivering correct solutions over time


“You can provide the best offering, the cheapest offering, or the most comprehensive offering, but you can’t provide all three,” cautions Marketing MO.

Some might disagree.  In any event, honing the strategy must precede honing the message. As a professional blog writer in Indianapolis, I want to come in second place in the marketing sequence.
 

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Shoot For Engaging vs. Catchy in Business Blog Content Writing

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The point Ryan Tapak of SunAmerica wanted to convey to us members of the Financial Planning Association was this: “Research shows that spending is highest early in retirement and declines with age.” In fact, Tapak had catchy names for each of three age groups of retired people when it comes to spending needs:

  • Go-Go  (ages 55-64)
  •  Slo-Go (Age 65-74 )
  •  No Go (Age 75 and up )


Cute, even memorable, I thought. He’d given us a sort of “memory hook”. Since business blog content writers like me are always searching for novel ways to present information to online readers, memory hooks are “a good thing” (as Martha Stewart would say).

But for me, the real impact of those categories didn’t hit me until Tapak described the way his parents, his grandma, and his great-grandma are carrying on their lives.

Mom and Dad, both recently retired, are having a good Go-Go time.  Mom almost never cooks; she and dad eat out between activities –they’re busy with clubs, exercise sessions, and trips. They have two cars, and, they’re spending money at a rapid clip, making up for lost time.

Tapak’s widowed grandma leads a quieter, Slo-Go life, playing cards and tending her garden, eating the majority of her meals at home. Grandma cautions the kids not to buy her clothing for Christmas – she’s got too many things in her closet already.

Great Grandma is hardly ever persuaded to leave the house.  She tells Ryan it’s too cold/ too hot/ too wet/ to drive anywhere; she’s content to remain at home watching her shows on TV. She’s the prototype for the No Go phase of life.


The experience I had with Ryan Tapak’s presentation at the Financial Planning Association illustrates a point about putting power into business blogs: It pays to use close-ups for emotional connection and impact. It’s the details –that stimulate emotional responses in readers.

 In fact, as I explain to Say It For You freelance blog writers, blog posts have a distinct advantage over more static traditional website copy precisely because of that close-up effect. And the “closer up” the focus, (and that goes for business-to-business blog writing every bit as much as B-to-C), the greater the impact.

Shoot for engaging vs. catchy every time.  Get up close and personal by introducing real people into the content of your business blog!
 

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Business BlogHeadlines to Turn Heads

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Possibly, there is one area in which your content is letting you down, suggests fellow blogger Chris Garrett of socialmediaexaminer.com, referring to the need to make business blog headlines more compelling.

The standard headline, Garrett explains, tends to fall into one of five categories:

  • News
  • Goals
  • Problems
  • How-to’s
  • Pure entertainment


But, to really get readers to stick around and read the blog post itself, he says, we need to hit readers’ emotional hot buttons.

That’s good advice, I believe, for both business owners and for us Indianapolis blog content writers. It’s passion, I’ve found, that cements the connection between our Say It For You clients and their potential clients and customers.

What techniques can be used for tugging at heartstrings?  Truth be told, some of copyblogger.com’s Brian Clark’s headline templates are a tad too “sales-ey” for my taste:

  • The “Give Me (short time period) and I’ll Give You (blank)” promises a strong benefit to be had by readers within a very short period.

  • The “If You Don’t (blank) Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later” plays on the fact that readers don’t like feeling excluded..:


Two others on Clark’s list of headline suggestions are more to my liking:   

  • Do You Recognize the (number) Early Warning Signs of (blank)?

  • Do You Make These Mistakes?


Putting things readers care about in jeopardy in an SEO marketing blog gives you the chance to demonstrate that you have the solution. By assuring searchers they’re not the only ones to find themselves in this predicament, you can show them you've solved these precise problems for customers and clients many times before.

Are headlines one area in which your content is letting you down?

 

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In Business Blogging, Open Strong. Leave the White Noise to the Sidebar

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“When it’s your turn to speak, start with a bang, not the white noise of housekeeping,” Laurie Guest, CSP advises emerging public speakers. Opening strong, she adds, means being purposeful about your opening, with no definitions, quotes from famous people, three-point textbook approaches, or “Nice to be here… yada, yada, yada”.  

At Say It For You, I offer similar advice to emerging blog content writers. In fact, a big part of successful blog content writing involves getting the “pow opening line” right. In SEO-conscious marketing blogs, of course, it may be the keyword phrases in the title that start the job of getting the blog found.  Once the visitor has actually landed, though, it takes a great opener to fan that flicker of interest into a flame.

Sometimes starting your speech with a quote is okay, Guest concedes, particularly if that quote is not familiar to most in the audience. (Notice that’s the very technique I used to open this blog post!). But, if you “curate” someone else’s material, be sure not only to attribute it to the source, but to put your own spin on it.  After all, it’s you and your ideas they came to hear, she reminds aspiring speakers.

Consultant Brian Walter has something to say about openers as well. In order to powerfully position what you do and what your company does (Walter’s referring to elevator-speech business introductions), you must start with a WOW that creates surprise and interest, he cautions.

Calls to action may be inserted at various points throughout a business blog post, but the white noise of your blog’s “housekeeping duties” is best omitted from the text of the post itself. The list of CTA options can include readers contacting you via phone or email, subscribing to a newsletter or to an RSS feed of the blog itself.  The sidebar can connect readers to your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media accounts, and allow them to take advantage of some special offering or to download a white paper or booklet.

Within the blog post itself, however, it’s key to focus on one message. Attempting to cover too much ground in a single blog post, we strain readers’ attention span.

Open – and close – strong, leaving the white noise housekeeping to your blog page’s sidebar.
 

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Getting Up Close and Personal in Your Business Blog

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One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional bloggers is that we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  That’s the reason I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”. I think people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

 I was reminded of that “power of the personal” the other day while sitting in the Willow Lake Starbucks.  On the wall were three big chalkboards introducing the baristas who worked there.

Mallory:
Been with Starbucks since: September, 2010
Favorite drink:  Iced vanilla bean coconut
On my day off I like to: run, read, and write.

Eight other baristas were introduced in similar fashion on the chalkboard.

“Have you ever felt a personal connection with a blogger who you’ve never met and have no real reason to feel connection with? You read their blog day after day and in time come to feel like you know them—as if their blog posts are almost written as private messages to you? That personal connection can bring a blog to life,” says Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.

Personal doesn’t necessarily mean over-casual or informal.  In fact, for us freelance blog content writers, getting the tone exactly right for a new client is the big challenge. Crystal Gouldey of AWeber Communications names five different “tones” to consider when planning a blog:

  • The formal, professional tone
  • The casual tone
  • The professional-but-friendly tone
  • The sales pitch tone
  • The friendly sales pitch tone


Consistency is important. “It will be very confusing for subscribers if you talk to them one way and the next week you talk to them in a different way,” Gouldey says.

When it comes to blog content writing, I believe, there’s a very special purpose to be served by using first person pronouns and keeping it conversational in tone – even for very serious topics.  The blog is the place for readers to connect with the people behind the business or practice. Using first and second person pronouns helps keep the blog conversational rather than either academic-sounding or sales-ey.

Even if the blog is for a doctor or a funeral director rather than for a barista, there’s room, I believe, for getting up close and personal!
 

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