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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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Teaching While You’re Learning

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Friend and writing coach Myra Levine, who often contributes guest posts to this Say It For You blog, had the most interesting thing to say in a recent newsletter:  “I’ll teach YOU what a fabulous writing instructor is teaching ME,” she promised. Explaining that she’s taking an online course with her own writing guru, Sands Hall, Myra offers: I’ll help you be ready sooner than I was!” 

For a new study in Applied Cognitive Psychology, researchers led by Aloysius Wei Lun Koh set out to test their theory that teaching improves the teacher’s learning because it compels the teacher to retrieve what they’ve previously studied.  The work of learning by teaching is also known as the Protege Effect.

As applied to content marketing, one aspect of  the teaching-while-you’re learning concept is expressed by Lissa Delbrosse in Quora: “Teaching others necessitates anticipating questions and objections, which can assist you in identifying gaps in your own understanding.” I know this was particularly true for me in the early days of Say It For You (we’re now in our eighteenth year of content writing). As I was learning the ABCs of blogging, I would pass along insights I had gained that could be of use to readers.

As just one example, I’d attended a mini-seminar about trade show marketing called “Making Event Participation Work For Your Business”.  “Don’t sit behind a table. The table becomes a barrier,” Kathleen Haley had pointed out.  “Make it easy and inviting for customers to come inside your booth, away from the flow of trade show traffic.  Inside, you can talk to them, find out their needs, and share ideas with them”

“You want your blog to function like a great trade show booth,” I taught my readers. “The customer needs to come inside the booth (meaning click on to your website). Once you have customers inside your website, you get the chance to find out more about them and help them find out more about you.”

In another instance of teaching while learning, leafing through Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine, I’d come upon a feature story about country music stars and the songs that made them famous.  “Unlike on the coasts, where soloists write their own material, the author explained, in Nashville it’s the writers who feed the stars”. “It’s called co-writing”, she explains.  Now, isn’t that exactly true, I thought, about the way in which a business uses a ghost writer to bring its message and tell its story to as many customers and clients as possible using the power of the Internet?

Eighteen years later, teaching while I’m learning is still what content writing is all about for me!

 

 

 

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Creating Customer-Friendly Content

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I always enjoy Todd Hunt’s wry observations in Hunt’s Headlines.  This month’s issue featured a photo of a sign posted on a vending machine: “Price levels on this machine reflect the cash price, which is 10¢ lower than the retail price….Credit card purchases will reflect the full retail price.” Hunt’s comment: “Rather than admit there is a “10-cent surcharge for credit cards”, they say you get a 10-cent discount for cash…”

 Price increases tend to be unpopular, and you always run the risk of customers deciding that they don’t find enough value in your services to justify the higher cost, Spring Insight authors admit.  In their case, in order to soften the blow, they made sure to highlight the additional services their clients could look forward to receiving with the higher prices. “After reading the email and seeing a clear list of the additional value accompanying the higher prices, all our clients elected to continue utilizing our services,” the owners now report.

“Breaking bad news to customers is not an easy task,” Susan Berkley admits in zenbusiness.com. To do this in a compassionate and professional manner, she advises, “Give as much information as you can about the who, what, when, where, and why,” Take charge, outlining a specific plan of action that you and your company will take, and what actions you recommend customers take.

As is true of newspapers, business blog content writing can balance feature stories with news. In general, the word “news”, when it comes to blog marketing, can mean two entirely different things.  The first type centers around you and your company or practice, with the second type of news relating to your community, your city, your country, even worldwide events. If, as blog writers, we can go right to the heart of any possible customer fears or concerns, addressing negative assumption questions (before they’ve been asked!)  we have the potential to breed understanding and trust.

Todd Hunt’s vending machine story is a perfect example of breeding misunderstanding and distrust. Sure, as a business or professional practice grows and changes, there are probably going to be negative publicity and  instances of customer dissatisfaction. As content marketers, our job is to help our clients get “out in front” of those negatives — and quickly. “A swift response demonstrates your brand’s commitment and shows you value stakeholder concerns and feedback,” SmartComment.com advises.

One very important function corporate blog posts can serve is damage control. When customers’ complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with “in front of other people” (in blog posts), it gives the “apology” more weight.  Creating customer-friendly content may involve “letting the client tell his story,” which then gives you the chance to offer useful information to other readers and to explain any changes in policy that resulted from a negative situation.

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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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Nice Try. Do it Again.

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(image by Mike Hindle)

I invited friend and writing colleague Myra Levine to contribute a guest blog post for the enjoyment of  our Say It For You readers (and my own, of course!)  …

 

 

We were reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Mrs. Painter pointed out that when the author wrote dialect, he wrote the way his characters spoke.

“When you write dialogue,” she said, “the reader
wants authenticity, not perfect grammar.”

Naturally, I wrote my next assignment (Discuss three ways in which Dickens develops the theme of self-sacrifice) as a conversation between two semi-literate high school students.  Mrs. Painter handed it back to me with these words in big red letters:

Nice try. Do it again.

I didn’t mind. The smile on her face was a drug. I had entertained her. And the freedom to ignore comma rules? Intoxicating. The smartest thing I did was tell everybody my new life goal—to write novels. It’s harder to give up on a goal you’ve made so public. Enthusiasm comes and goes; pride is eternal.

But writing a good novel turned out to be HARD. I spent ten summers taking writing classes at the University of Iowa to learn what I hadn’t been taught in high school and college creative writing classes.

Inspiration turned out to be everywhere. The germ of the idea that turned into my first novel came from a bunch of gossipy mom friends. The idea for my second novel came from a health scare. It turned out to be no big deal, but the thought How do you raise your kids after you’re dead stayed with me.

Whatever you do for a living might give you inspiration. Think John Grisham. Or you might be one of those “What if…” writers, like Stephen King. Going through a terrible breakup? Get your psychic revenge by writing a murder mystery. I slip people who annoy me into my novels. No lawsuits yet.

And you know more than you think you do. When I had my first hip replacement, I was surprised to learn that you don’t hold a cane on the side of your bad leg. (If you test this, have someone nearby to catch you when you tip over.) It occurred to me that someone could catch a suspect who’s faking a limp when he holds his cane on the wrong side.

What have you learned in your years as a ________ that would make a character feel real? What personal demons could you turn into inspiration? And what did you never learn in English Class that you can ignore… or hire someone else to fix? Think about it.

 

      Myra Levine is a novelist, memoirist, and writing coach. Her free online writing seminars on Eventbrite have attracted over 2,000 writers from all over the world. She publishes as M. E. Levine on Amazon.com & Audible.com.

Find her at www.MyraLevine.com

 

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