Ten Things to Know about Writing a Blog

Our small business clients often seek advice on how to write blogs.  Many small businesses are told that blogs are essential to one’s website but are unsure how to develop an effective blog strategy.  Without guidance, many don’t know where to start.  This blog outlines the key elements of writing a blog, but to make it more useful to you, we created an eBook which you can download for easy reference. Click here for our eBook “Writing Blogs: 10 Things to Know.”

 Why Write Blogs?

Let’s assume that your website does a good job of presenting your products or services clearly and in a compelling way. Your blog represents the updated content that demonstrates your company’s expertise.  As fresh content, a blog signals to Google that you have something new, which helps with rankings and search results. In other words, it improves your website SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and website traffic.  In short, a blog serves as further testimony that your company or organization is an expert in the field your target customer is seeking information about. So, the simple answer is to write a blog that speaks to your target customers and drives them to your website.

What Should I Write About?

Blogs’ subject matter should directly relate to your company's core competency.  In all effective marketing, your brand positioning should inform your blog content. Ask yourself:  how is your company uniquely different, what is your core expertise, who is your target audience, and what are their informational needs or desires?

Our eBook outlines specific ideas of how you can more easily create content… and it’s not by relying on AI, to give you a hint.

What is the ideal length of a blog?

This is the perennial question for bloggers. The answers span a wide range. Check out our eBook for some specific guidance.

How Should I Title the Blog?

Blog titles, just like book titles, are essential.  Why? The obvious: it’s the first content that your potential reader sees.  Google also captures the title as the primary headline, or H1, to drive search engine ranking. 

So, your title should be catchy and include the researched focus keyword.  Here is an article you may find helpful: “How to Write Catchy Headlines and Blog Titles Your Readers Can’t Resist.”

What are the Guidelines for Blog Copy?

There are two overarching guidelines for blog copy best practices.

First, the rules of good writing prevail. 

Second, unless you are targeting a specialized audience, most readers today follow the acronym TL: DR – Too Long: Didn’t Read. That’s a shorthand notation added by an editor indicating that a passage appears too long to invest the time. Let’s dig into both ‘rules.’

The guidelines of good writing, which you likely covered in high school English class, apply to blog writing.  Good writing is essential for readers and search engines.  SEO plugins such as the Yoast evaluate a blog post or web page's readability, measuring those principles your English teacher taught you.

Check out our eBook for specific direction on writing and formatting a blog.

OK, how much do you think I should know about SEO?

While SEO seems intimidating to many, there are a few things you need to maximize the discoverability of your blogs.  Remember, my suggestions above advise on best practices for making a blog more Google-friendly, including improving readability.  In our eBook, we suggest explicit measures that will boost SEO.

What about the tone of your blog?

While businesses and organizations have different personas, a friendly tone is often the way to go. Make sure to write as though you are talking to a colleague. Being clever and engaging goes a long way in securing followers who want to read your blog. While I suggest using Chat GPT to a limited extent, original content is paramount.  Your content should reflect the expertise that your company or organization owns! However, the tone must be appropriate for your audience and subject matter.

Where Should You Promote Your Blog?

The publication of a blog represents a marketing opportunity. This is the time to leverage your marketing channels—email, newsletters, social media, pop-ups - to alert your customers and prospects that there’s a new reason to visit your website. It’s the true and tried formula:  tap your marketing channels with a tease about your new content and drive them to your website to read it. Website visits yield more impressions, and more interaction on your website generates more conversions. All good for business. 

Any final suggestions?

Yes, subscribe to Grammarly.  It’s the best software I have ever used. There is a free version, but its writing guidance and grammatical corrections add enormous value to any writing. 

Reach out to us if you’d like to discuss your marketing strategy. Hyphen3 can help you with blogs and a lot more.

Consulting During a Pandemic

One might wonder: what does a marketing consultant do during a global pandemic?  Businesses and non-profits of all sizes are taking a crash course in creatively adapting to our ‘new’ world. Surprises that threaten these entities are around every corner.  So how does a consultant stay relevant in these challenging times? Here’s my approach.

1.     Stay patient.

2.     Take advantage of online resources to bolster your knowledge, especially in the ever-evolving digital sphere.

3.     Expand experience by taking on small businesses and non-profits who need your help…gratis.

So now, five months into my COVID-19 endeavor, I thought I would share some take-aways.

First of all, what is true in this disrupted period applies to every day for small businesses. It’s all about Brand, Customers and Strategy. Taking time to define your brand, understand your current and potential customers, and strategizing how to engage those customers in a relevant way pays dividends. It doesn’t take too much time. Just some thoughtful consideration and planning.

Even during the ongoing lock-down, I soon learned that what seems like a straightforward assignment for small businesses in the process of reinvention turns out to be, well…not so easy. 

Small businesses are generally overwhelmed by the challenge of marketing their service. Strapped for resources, these businesses are often stymied by not knowing where to start. Even with a consultant mapping the way, it’s hard not to fall back on old habits, and just do what you need to do at that very moment.  My advice:  Keep it simple. Try a few things…focus on what’s important.

I start with a few suggestions.

Focus on your brand and its tone and manner.  It is helpful to have a clearly articulated brand style guide that does just that – guides your brand usage and clearly defines what sets your product/service apart.  One way of fully establishing the brand lexicon is to apply the guiding principles to one channel.

One of my clients decided to razor focus on Instagram. Every post was created to resonate with the brand voice. From a previous hodgepodge of posts, for this client Instagram became its brand ‘board’. With focus -- doing one thing at a time -- the company leadership gained the confidence that they have nailed “the brand” expression. A keen understanding of one’s band and audience combined with an ample library of visually engaging images and crisp writing made the assignment achievable.

Second, think about your potential customers and where you can find them.  Social media should be tapped, but keep what’s involved to a minimum, and achievable.  If it’s a B2B brand, drill down on LinkedIn and make sure that the profile is updated, you have reached out to connections, and you blog and post every so often.  For more consumer-facing brands where imagery is what rules -- such as a designer, restaurant, or cultural brand -- Instagram, first, should be the focus. Facebook, second. Add posts, some stories and maximize the effort with a well-conceived hashtag strategy and influencer outreach plan. Use Creator Studio so you can schedule and batch your posts. Plus, access some of the online tools that can help you master the art and science of Instagram.

 A word of caution however: social media should not be the center of your marketing universe. At the end of the day, your marketing efforts should drive potential customers to your website to learn more about your brand. Every effort should be made to capture prospects’ email addresses. You want to ‘own’ the ‘warm’ prospective customers (and their email addresses) -- the ultimate asset for any business. 

Finally, your website should reflect your brand. Worst case it can be simple, with a few pages. You may be surprised how a clear and clean vision of your product/service can make a website update possible -- without months of laborious work. I have resources that make the process relatively easy, and not at all costly.

 Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out to me.  I am home, doing well, and looking to keep busy.

Publish or Perish: Content Marketing Takes Precedence

The 21st century has put marketing on its head. It goes without saying that the Internet has been the great disruptor. Mass media was once the all-powerful channel for brand building. Today, advertising – and its delivery of interruptive messages to an audience consuming media -- has taken a back seat. Content marketing is in the forefront. And with this transformation, a whole new set of requirements for marketers.

Media fragmentation and the un-intermediated relationship with consumers (i.e., via the web) give brands the opportunity to connect and build value directly with prospects and customers. The 19th century phase from academia, “Publish or Perish,” should be the guiding principal for brands. Content is the digital currency that fosters discovery, augments consideration, facilitates purchase decision and drives customer acquisition and loyalty.

The importance of content marketing is true for all marketers, whether B2C or B2B.  The 2016 Content Preferences Report found that a majority of buyers of business products relied on content to research their buying decisions. And, similar to most audiences, these buyers want shorter, interactive content that educates rather than sells.[1]

As consultants to big and small companies, Hyphen advises our clients about the content that they should create that is…differentiated and authentic to the brand…customized for the brand’s target…engaging and story-telling… and is aligned with available resources. So that translates into working with our clients to steward content.

Our work spans a broad scope of content creation: creating meaningful social media content strategies and its implementation that doesn’t strain resources; conceptualizing lead magnets such as eBooks and white papers; designing a template and content blocs for a monthly newsletter; directing an achievable blog strategy; advising on video; facilitating webinars; and more. Of course, the content must fit into the overall marketing strategy. 

Facilitating the “Publish’ part of the directive, and helping our clients become publishers with a purpose is the best part of being a marketer in 2018.  Feel free to contact us to find out more.

[1] https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/research/2016-content-preferences-survey-b2b-buyers-value-content-that-offers-data-and-analysis

For Customer Acquisition, Content is King

Whether in politics or in business, it’s hard to ignore the impact of Facebook today.  Leaving politics aside, the social media giant’s active users surpassed 2 billion in June 2017 and its targeting capabilities are beyond belief as showcased in 60 Minutes' episode about the Trump campaign's use of Facebook. The conclusion: in addition to political campaigns, companies of all sizes need to understand how to leverage Facebook (and the other social channels) to reach and engage potential customers.

As consultants to small and medium-sized companies, one of the top questions that we field from our clients is how they should incorporate social media into their marketing plan. They seek our direction on:

• How many resources should they devote to creating content?
• What is the expected return of their investment in social media creation?
• Which platforms are worthwhile for their product or service?
• How should they leverage Facebook to find and convert customers?

The last is usually the most pressing question. With a focus on Facebook and its sophisticated targeting capabilities, here’s how we start the social media discussion:

There are no magic bullets when it comes to Facebook marketing, especially with limited advertising budgets. Setting up a business page and expecting that you can run a campaign that will find your audience by identifying prospective customers’ interests and motivating them to take some action is unrealistic.  Without a well-thought-out digital content plan, the odds of motivating qualified prospects to visit your website, sign up for an e-newsletter or buy your product from a Facebook ad is unlikely. Capturing attention of likely buyers who have never interacted with your product is challenging.

Jon Loomer, one of the top experts on Facebook marketing, provides insightful direction on how to leverage Facebook to drive potential customers down the sales funnel. Yes, I am referring to the sales funnel that was introduced in Marketing 101 – the customer conversion process from awareness, at the top, to interest, evaluation, purchase and, to the ultimate, at the bottom of the funnel, of re-purchase and brand loyalty. Transforming prospects to repeat buyers via social media starts with content.  Not advertising. 

Based on extensive market testing, Loomer identifies eight ways to target – and convert – prospective customers on Facebook, creating a ranking from most to least effective. In my summary below, the value of creating relevant content becomes clear.

Five of the top six most effective targeting techniques on Facebook involve advertising to prospects who have already interacted with your brand by consuming your content. No surprise, the #1 content platform is your website. No better way to ‘warm’ potential customers to your brand then to drive them to your website for information. The more time spent on your site, the better a prospect. The more often the visits, the better a prospect. Your website visitors are the most qualified target to reach and convert while on they are on Facebook.  That’s another good reason to have a blog and employ strong SEO.

The second most effective source of customer on Facebook: your own custom database. This is the database of emails (and more) which the brand owns -- they are customers, e-newsletter subscribers, consumers who have expressed an interest in your product/service. By definition, these names represent warm leads, or better yet, previous buyers. With our clients, we emphasize the importance of aggregating their own email list. A company’s email database is a brand’s most enduring marketing asset.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth effective ways to convert customers targets those who have interacted with content on your Facebook page. Advertise to those who have engaged with a post, watched a short-form video, interacted with an immersive Canvas ad or last, and least, have followed your page. Developing a content plan that populates your Facebook page with engaging content yields results that will help you target potential customers.

We stress the escalating importance of posting video. Video is the #1 currency of today’s culture. By 2019, video content will be the driving factor behind 85% of search traffic in the U.S., according to Cisco. Video on social is not just a latest trend, but is the future of social marketing. Brands who have not yet invested in video will quickly lose the attention of customers who crave engaging and entertaining video content. One way to maximize organic reach and ensure engagement on your Facebook page… create a video that’s relevant to your category. Not a video that promotes or sells… but one that informs, tells a story and conveys insights. Whole Foods might run video showing a farmer harvesting his latest crop, talking about the yield of the season.  Once a customer shows interest by viewing the video, the brand has begun the sales process… down the funnel. 

The seventh effective method of Facebook targeting harkens to the earlier days of direct mail marketing: leverage the data available in Facebook (demographics, ownership, spending, online behavior) and find Facebook users that look like your current customers. The larger your customer base, the better this targeting works.

And last and least effective, interest targeting. This low-ranking tactic underscores the premise that knowing one’s interest without having any interaction with the brand makes it a very cold call.

The take-away: If you aren’t interested in the technicality of this above list, take in the theme: the best way to identify potential customers is by providing content that is of interest to them and relevant to your brand. A comprehensive digital content plan that captures the attention of prospective customers, and best yet, their email addresses, is essential.

We are happy to discuss how we can help you build fully-fleshed out marketing plan that incorporates content and targeting that will expand your business.  Email me at beth@hyphen3.com… and keep reading our blogs.

What We Can Learn from the Trump campaign's media plan

As we approach the first anniversary of the 2016 election and contemplate the recent expose by 60 Minutes about the Trump’s campaign use of Facebook to activate sympathetic voters, this is a good time for marketers to reflect on the changing world of media. [1] Granted most marketers do not have a $70 million budget and the production engine to create 100,000 ads a day to harness Facebook with the scale of the Trump campaign. Nonetheless there are lessons that even small marketers can gain about Facebook targeting capabilities.

First, the obvious: Facebook is today’s juggernaut in mining potential buyers. A lot has changed in this century. Before the Internet and the rise of social media, direct marketers tapped into all kinds of lists that revealed possible affinities to their products – what magazines consumers subscribed to, what cars they bought, what information they filled out on warranty cards. Plus, elaborate household databases with aggregated data and models profiled lifestyles and psychographics, offering resources to discover prospective customers.

Introduce Facebook and its 2 billion global users, targeting opportunities are now on steroids. Facebook knows what you post, what posts you engage with, which pages you follow and the websites you have visited and more. Add in the overlay from data aggregators with data from financial services companies, court records, federal government documents, spending habits and transaction data from retailers and you have a powerful database to build profiles for targeting a relevant message. In the case of Trump, the targeted messages evidently swayed voters.

Second, the Trump campaign’s success on Facebook was apparently powered by RNC’s proprietary database. The lesson: leverage your internal data to ensure targeting success on Facebook. Take your own database and match it to Facebook users; meaningful targeting and messaging is greatly enhanced. This point collaborates our previous blog: one of the powerful sources of targeting is your own Data Custom Audience. In case of Trump, RNC’s database apparently revealed insightful information that fueled the messaging; a widespread interest in infrastructure among the Republican ‘Possibles’ proved to be a hot button. That insight translated into ads that grabbed some voters by the heart strings.

Third, Facebook’s dynamic and complicated platform requires expertise to manage properly. Facebook itself is a resource. 60 Minutes disclosed that Trump’s digital team received live on-site instruction. In our case at Hyphen, we too interface directly with Facebook.  Working with a client with a small budget this year, we spent hours on video conferences with Facebook, gaining additional insight on the best way to execute our campaign.  And, for many clients, we work with our partner social media expert team to go deep into social media channels to achieve our targeting objectives. So big or small, Facebook is a resource key to our clients marketing.

Let’s talk about how we can help you build your digital marketing plan.  Email us at beth@hyphen3.com… and keep reading our blogs.

Brad Parscale is the man behind the Trump campaign’s digital media efforts in 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

[1] This discussion is focused on what American marketer can learn about how to best use Facebook to influence sales… not about how Russia apparently created fake news.