Aull Or Nothing

September 16, 2010

Does Your Company Blog Have Personality?

Filed under: Web Content Development — by Diane Aull @ 10:44 am

Does your business have a “corporate” blog? If so, please tell me it doesn’t sound like one I just ran across.

Here’s the headline for their top story (I swear I’m not making this up): How Employee Time & Attendance Systems Help Facilitate Regulatory Compliance.

Seriously, now, how many of you would even bother to keep reading after that? If you ask me, any blog that contains the phrase “Facilitate Regulatory Compliance” should be taken offline by the Buzzword Police, immediately.

The whole point of a blog is not to push out more bullet-pointed, deadly-dull “business speak.” That’s what PowerPoint is for. Nope, blogging is supposed to be business-casual. It’s where companies can take off the proverbial jacket, loosen the proverbial tie and have a relaxed conversation with customers, prospects and even the occasional competitor.

Look, I know it’s hard to come up with good blog material. This is especially true in the B2B market, which — and I say this with all the love in my heart, speaking as a B2B copywriter myself — is well-known as a bastion of deadly dull writing.

One thing I learned early on in my writing career is that many copywriters and web conversion experts tend to divide audiences into four general types. By keeping in mind each of the four groups and including specific elements designed to appeal to them, writers and designers render their creations potentially more relevant to more people… which, in theory, should help make them more effective.

What occurred to me is that personality typing can also be helpful when you’re trying to come up with The Big Idea for your next blog post or two. Turns out, there are almost as many methods of personality grouping as there are copywriters, but here’s one I’ve found useful:

  1. Amiables: They appreciate the friendly, personal touch and are usually quick to make a decision. They value credible opinions and honesty. To appeal to Amiables, write a blog post that expresses why your solution is the best. So, for instance, perhaps you could blog Q&A format interviews with internal subject matter experts or industry gurus to discuss specific problems facing your customers and explain why, in their view, your product or service is a good choice. (Just be sure to maintain a conversational tone and ditch the jargon!) Amiables may also appreciate feeling they have a personal relationship with the company, so don’t forget to include features such as a “meet our staff” series.
  2. Analyticals: These folks are pretty much the opposite of the Amiables. They want facts, evidence and logic. Detail-oriented and organized, their decision-making style is methodical and disciplined. To appeal to Analyticals, write blog posts explaining the nitty-gritty of how your offering solves particular problems. They’re the Joe Fridays of the world: “Just the facts, m’am.” Statistics, ROI calculations and analyses of survey results could be just the sorts of things they’re looking for. Show them you’re an industry expert who grasps the details, tells the truth and offers superior value.
  3. Expressives: These people are big-picture, free-spirited and creative. Relationship-oriented, they want to take some time to get to know you before they make a choice. Like the Amiables, they appreciate the personal touch. Expressives like to be part of a group, so let them know who else is using your product or service. Testimonials and case histories could work well for them. Don’t forget to include a bit of “personal interest” to help them relate to the companies and people involved. They may also respond well to incentives making it worth their while to share your content with their contact circle (as long as they think your content is worthy of being shared, that is) — for instance, a prize drawing where they earn entries by tweeting your blog post to their followers.
  4. Assertives: These folks enjoy challenges, are goal oriented and like feeling in charge. They decide quickly, and want to implement their decision right away. To appeal to them, help them uncover what your solution can do for them. If you offer several products or services, or if your offering includes multiple options, you could write a post explaining the pros and cons of various alternatives, and invite them to decide which is right for them. Be clear, direct and to-the-point to get their attention. They’re competitive and motivated, so you could find success with a demonstration of how your solution will help them beat their competitors or overcome the odds in some way.

There’s no reason for blog posts, even in the B2B world, to labor under the weight of bland, boring business-speak. Engaging content is effective content. Perhaps some of these suggestions can spark some ideas for you to employ in your blog.

If you’re having trouble coming up with good ideas or writing compelling blog content on your own, I invite you to check out my online content writing services. You no longer have to frustrate yourself and waste your valuable time struggling to write interesting blog content. I’ll supply you with professionally written, engaging blog posts, relevant for your industry and audience, freeing you up to focus on your business and your life.

May 19, 2009

Time For A Refresher

Filed under: Copywriting Tips — by Diane Aull @ 1:34 pm

As a writer and consultant, I often remind clients they need to focus on the benefits of their product or service, not simply list the features.

Of course, as all of you, my intelligent and well-educated readers, already know, you really need to mention both. The features tell their prospects what their product does, while benefits explain why those features matter — how they’ll make the customer’s life better, easier, richer, more fun, whatever. The touchy-feely benefits let the customer know what the product will do for them, and the features support those feel-good benefit statements with objective numbers and hard facts.

What I find people don’t always “get” though, is the need to focus on the right benefits. And how to figure out what those “right” benefits are. Sometimes, what matters to your customers can change, often faster than you might think.

A Case in Point

I’m working at the moment with a company that sells business equipment and software. While their products aren’t prohibitively expensive (most are under $1,000), they can still represent a fairly large budget outlay for their target small business market. For years, their sales have been robust and growing. But recently, sales have fallen off.

Now, some of this can be explained by the current economic conditions in general. Sales are off for a lot of companies these days. But one of the benefits of this company’s products is that using the products actually saves their customers money through increased efficiency, reduced error rates and better management of expenses. In fact, most customers find their product has paid for itself and started generating positive ROI within just a few months.

If you’re a cash-strapped company, this is the kind of ongoing savings that can make a real difference to your bottom line. So why were fewer and fewer companies apparently taking advantage of the potential savings?

Well, when we went back and reviewed their website copy, it became clear.

Their copy was pretty good in one sense — focusing on benefits, supporting those benefits with features, taking the time to explain the products thoroughly and offering plenty of supporting materials so customers could feel comfortable making a purchase.

The problem was, the copy in some cases hadn’t been updated in several years, so they weren’t speaking to the present-day concerns of their small business customers. They were highlighting their products’ convenience and ease of use, when customers were more concerned with business survival. They were speaking to how their products can seamlessly grow with the customer’s business, while their customer’s businesses were, in many cases, shrinking through scary and painful layoffs and furloughs. They were touting enhanced features, while customers were focused on cutting costs.

The economy has changed. The market has changed. What customers care about has changed. So now their copy needs to change.

So we’re working on a complete rewrite of their web store copy to target the benefits that are important to their market now. The features of their products haven’t changed, but the specific benefits we associate with those features — and the language we use to express those benefits — will.

If you find your copy isn’t getting the results you think it should, or if copy that used to get results has become less effective, it might be time for a refresher. Don’t assume you know what your customers are thinking about just because you did some market research awhile back. Stop, take a look around and see what your customers are concerned about today. It may not be the same thing(s) they were concerned about just yesterday.

February 13, 2009

Optimized? Maybe…

Filed under: Web Content Development — by Diane Aull @ 2:03 pm
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Over at one of the online discussion forums I frequent, recently a member complained about problems with search engine optimization. Specifically, one of his issues was that a site that had supposedly been “SEO’d” was not generating as many inquiries as a site that had not been “optimized.”

I’m not sure he was ready to hear what I had to say… but, of course, that didn’t stop me from saying it anyway. My answer was: if a page that has supposedly been optimized isn’t converting, then it hasn’t truly been optimized. I advised him to go back and take another look at the copy on his page to see what he could do to make it more compelling, interesting and “human-friendly.”

Seems a lot of folks have some strange ideas about SEO copywriting — for instance, that it consists primarily of stuffing keywords all over the place to increase some mythical “keyword density.” Or that it needs to focus on a single phrase per page and you cannot use any similar or related phrases on that page without “diluting” something or other.

Unfortunately, some of these folks with the strange ideas are so-called professional copywriters who are peddling these misconceptions to their clients and prospects.

What’s lost in all this? They’re so busy focusing on the “SEO” part, they’ve apparently forgotten about the “copywriting” part. Last I checked, search engine spiders still aren’t carrying credit cards. Sure, you want to write copy that the search engines will “like,” but you’ve also got to keep the needs and desires of your human visitors in mind.

Here’s the bottom line. It makes no difference what kind of copy it is, or where it’s going to be used. If the copy doesn’t inspire a good percentage of its readers to take whatever action the business owner wants them to take, then the copy has not done its job.

This can be a delicate balancing act. But that’s part of the professional copywriter’s job. I don’t mean to come across as harsh, but if someone is not capable of writing copy that focuses appropriately on a target search phrase and is compelling, persuasive and appealing to human readers, that person has no business holding themselves out as an SEO Copywriter.

Cranking out poorly-written, keyword-stuffed prose is not SEO copywriting.

July 27, 2008

The One Thing Most Website Owners Overlook When Developing Web Content

Filed under: Web Content Development — by Diane Aull @ 12:05 am

You’ve probably heard the saying, “content is king.” Of course, content isn’t the only component of website optimization, or even necessarily the most important component, but it is definitely a significant factor.

Beyond it’s influence with search engines, your content has a strong influence on your site’s human visitors. The words and images on your page make a tremendous difference in their perception of your product or service and how likely they are to buy.

Most website owners probably realize this. Which makes it all the more puzzling when so many consistently leave out what I think is the most important factor to encourage those conversions.

What do they leave out? A call to action and a link to their actual product or service.

They write wonderfully informational articles, chock full of useful advice. Fascinating stuff. Their visitors are entertained, informed, educated… but without a call to action, without a link to the applicable product or service, many visitors don’t know what to do next. They read the article, then simply click away to another site.

Don’t make this mistake with your website content. Don’t leave your site visitors hanging, wondering what to do. If you’re going to go through the trouble of writing an article for your site, be sure to include a call to action and a link to your most relevant offering.

If you need some ideas of how to incorporate appropriate calls to action and product links with your articles, I’ve included some examples in this article I wrote for Search Engine Guide.

July 13, 2008

Want to Move People? Think Action Words!

Filed under: Copywriting Tips — by Diane Aull @ 4:48 pm

When you want to power up your copy, remember verbs are your friends.

When I first started writing copy, like many new copywriters, I relied primarily on adjectives. This makes sense. It’s easy to come up with lists of favorable adjectives: comprehensive, cost-effective, delicious, rugged, economical, amazing. And adjectives are easy to use, even for a relatively inexperienced writer. Just add a handful in front of your nouns and you’re all set.

The problem with relying entirely on adjectives, though, is they’re weak. It takes a lot of them to get the point across, but use too many of them and your writing sounds over-hyped and phony.

Fortunately, as I gained experience with writing copy, I discovered the power of verbs. See, the cool thing about verbs is they get across the same ideas as all those adjectives, but they can do it in fewer words and with less of an impression of hype.

Of course, I still employ adjectives, too — it’s just that I no longer rely on them to do all the heavy lifting.

So, for example, at one time when I was writing about heavy-duty employee time clocks, I might simply have referred to them as “rugged” or “tough.” Now, I might still use those words to describe them, but I would reinforce those adjectives by also mentioning how these workhorses can “muscle through hundreds of print registrations per day.”

Or for a different nuance of meaning, I might instead say the clocks can “breeze through” all those print registrations. Notice how I can evoke an entirely different mood just by changing one verb: “muscle” to “breeze.” With the one, you get the impression these are some impressively hard-working clocks; with the other, you’d think they’re so tough they’re hardly breaking a sweat. Either one works; which I would choose would depend on the overall slant I’d chosen to take with my copy.

The point is: your choice of verbs make a huge difference. With the right verbs, you get your point across with minimal hype and maximum interest. So if you want to motivate action from your readers, I suggest you add some action to your writing.

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