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Blogging One Ear Per Stalk

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Corn plants have the innate ability to grow more than one ear per stalk, James Fung, CEO of the Indiana Crop Improvement Association, guest at our morning networking meeting, explained. But years of research and experimentation have taught farmers that it is better to allow each plant to dedicate all its resources to producing one really good ear of corn, instead of wasting water and nutrients to produce multiple, less viable ones, Fung revealed.

As a lifelong city dweller, I realized, I hadn’t devoted much thought to the agricultural genealogy of my produce purchases. But, from my perspective as a blog content writer, the “one-ear” concept really resonated. In fact, the one-ear-per-stalk idea is remarkably in tune with a content writing principle we embrace at Say It For You – The Power of One. Deliver one message per post, we tell newbie content writers. Focused on one thing, your post has greater impact. Direct each blog post to just one segment of your client’s readership.

In a sense, focusing readers’ attention is the whole point of blog content writing. Fellow marketer Jeff Goins agrees: “The simple reason a lot of blogs struggle to succeed is a lack of focus.” That focus consists of three elements, Goins adds – the subject, the theme, and the objective. “Focus is the feature of effective writing that answers the question ‘So what?’”,

Just as each corn plant should be allowed to dedicate all its resources to producing a single, quality result (as opposed to quantities of results), no blog – and certainly no blog post – can be all things to all people. Each post must be targeted towards the specific type of customers your clients want and those most likely to want to do business with them.  The appeals, as well as the way they are presented, can be chosen specifically for that existing or potential customer – the words you choose, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, even the title of each blog entry – must focus on the ONE.

The marketing takeaway coming straight from the Indiana cornfields? Blog one ear per stalk!

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Find a Focus in Each Blog Post – So They Can

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focus in blog“Sometimes a writer can go on and on for pages with examples that prove a point…only she hasn’t quite figured out what that point is,” a writing guide from Vanderbilt.edu so aptly points out. I thought about that he other day as I attended what started out to be a fascinating talk on how smart watches and tablets are being used to collect data for predicting illnesses.

Only problem – the speaker began to ramble, “getting into the weeds” and going far over the allotted time. The result – people lost interest and some even stood up to leave. Our presenter had obviously never read the book Brain Rules, in which educator Wilbert McKeachie demonstrates that “typically, attention increases from the beginning of the lecture to ten minutes into the lecture and decreases after that point.”

In a sense, focus is the point in blog content writing. At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the Power of One, which means one message per post, with a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, geared towards one narrowly defined target audience.

Of course, in blog marketing, one purpose of the content is moving visitors along the spectrum from scanner to reader, to customer/client. One technique salespeople are taught is adding an “Oh, by the way…” to describe an add-on service or product that can go along with the primary purchase. In blog marketing, there are ways to do that kind of “oh-by-the-way” without losing focus: provide a link to a landing page, or simply tell readers to watch for information on that related concept, product, or service in your next blog post.

“The simple reason a lot of blogs struggle to succeed,” writes Jeff Goins, “is a lack of focus.”
Focus consists of three elements, Goins adds – the subject, the theme (specific angle), and the objective. “Focus is the feature of effective writing that answers the question ‘So what?’”, Academic Writing explains.”By establishing a clear focus, students can craft their writing into a coherent, unified whole.”

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