Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Content Marketers Answer the $64,000 Question…

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Pathway to Profits

What does it mean to write content that “engages” readers? What the heck is engaging content? According to a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute, this is the #1 challenge for people charged with creating content that markets businesses.

These questions are asked and answered by a distinguished group of contributors to the Content Marketing Institute’s blog and you can read the post here: What Does Engaging Content Mean?

I contributed my take: your content must create an emotional impact in the brains of readers if you hope to influence them to take any sort of action.

Here’s a summary of the ideas, in case you’re in a hurry:

Make sure content is relevant to your audience and helps them with an issue they have right now.
Give your audience something that they can’t find anywhere else.
Be entertaining, educational or both.
Tell the audience a story.
Invite the viewer to engage with you further by adding a call to action. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog writing, content marketing tips, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, persuasion, Writing for the Web

Content Marketing with Blogs: What Do You Believe?

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content

Here’s a key element for writing content that inspires clients to take action:

What does your business believe in? More importantly, as an important part of your business, what do you believe is most important for your clients? What’s your true purpose?

This is not a philosophical question, although it is grounded in profound human needs and values. This is a marketing question. You need to know why you care, and you need to communicate that to customers in your content marketing and blogs.

This question makes sense because people don’t buy from companies, they do business with people. They don’t care about your products so much as what they will do for them. Clients want to connect with values that count.

And, in a culture with an overabundance of choice, with many companies and products doing the same things, customers will always choose to do business with someone who cares about them, their world, the world, and values.

More good advice from VelocityPartners, UK. They’ve just released their B2B Marketing Manifesto, and while this is key to professionals charged with marketing in the business world, it is especially crucial to entrepreneurs, solo professionals, and small businesses… anyone writing content marketing materials.

Think about it: why should people care what you have to say in your blog unless they can identify with your values? …Unless you express to them what you really care about and why?

It doesn’t matter if you’re “green,” dedicated to a charity or not. For myself, I am passionate about saving professionals time, energy and money because I believe that content marketing with blogs should be easy and effective for everybody, not just big companies.

Here’s an excerpt from the B2B Manifesto, the second imperative for content marketing:

2. Expose your beliefs

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, beliefs, blog content, blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, persuasion triggers, why clients buy, Writing for the Web

Content Marketing Blues: the Battle for Attention

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing

Content marketing with blogs isn’t as easy as it used to be. But like you, I can complain all I want to. It doesn’t matter.

The good news is there are more people going online to read things they need to know, to solve the problems they have.

The bad news is there are more blogs, more competition for attention.

What do you need to do to win the battle for attention and survive the WIIFM flter?

Doug Kessler and the boys over at VelocityPartnersUK ask this question in the B2B Manifesto. (You can get your copy here.) And they answer it. For example, they suggest 5 imperatives for B2B marketers. I think this is essential advice for anyone using a blog for business, not just B2B marketers.

Here’s an excerpt and my interpretation of what this means for my own business:

1. Get a World View:

Before you can sell a product or service, you need to sell a world view.

But very few marketers spend any time at all clarifying their world view.

What is a world view and why is it so important? Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog marketing, blog writing, business blogs, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Patsi Krakoff, Writing for the Web

Writing Web Content: 5 Simple Steps for Results

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content, Writing Great Copy

Organize, simplify and get better results from your Web writing by asking 5 important questions:

What is the problem (pain, predicament)?
Why hasn’t this problem been solved?
What is possible?
What is different now?
What should your readers do now?

As you compose your copy, you should write out several sentences to answer each question. This will keep you on task, and lead your readers through to action. I suppose it depends on what you’re writing, but I can’t think of many web pages, blog posts, articles where these 5 questions wouldn’t be appropriate.

I’ve been re-reading Maria Velosa’s Web Copy that Sells this week. Her blueprint for creating simple copy that works to market your products and services is clear. There’s a reason it’s organized this way.

Psychologically, we’re hard wired to sit up and pay attention to problems. This is why it’s a good idea to lead off with your headline and first paragraph addressing readers’ problems and pain. Negative emotions are strong enough to wake us up and get us to read the rest of the story.

There are two things you must realize about this seemingly obvious and simple question:

People who are in your target audience may not realize they have a problem (or how bad it can get). It may seem surprising, but often people are in denial, are ignoring the bad stuff, and are overly optimistic.
People need to know you fully understand their pain AND CARE before they will read anything you have to say about it

Write a few sentences out about the problem. You want your readers to say, Read More→

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, converting readers to clients, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

The B2B Manifesto: Trust Building Comes First

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, E-Books, On Writing Better, Writing for the Web

How good is your “trust-building?” I just read this term in a new digital release: The B2B Manifesto, just published by Velocity Partners in the UK.

Think about it. Before you can convert readers to clients, before you can get them to download your digital information and build your list, you’ve got to build trust.

The B2B Manifesto: 5 Imperatives and 6 Staples for Winning the Battle for Attention: page 19:

“You need to leverage trust-builders into each step of the (buying) journey:

case studies
awards
data
testimonials
analyst support
proof points”

I don’t think enough of you do a good job of trust building. Maybe you’ve not been properly taught or missed class that day? As for myself, I’ve never thought about “trust-building” as a defined goal, I’ve just always assumed I was doing it every step of the way. But am I? Maybe not as well as I could. Are you? Read More→

Tags : blog content, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, converting readers to clients, list building, Online Marketing, social proof, trust building, writing on the web

Writing Better Content: An Emotional Pathway

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web

Writing quality content that markets your products and services online follows a logical progression, but it also follows an emotional pathway. You must engage the brains of your readers… as well as their hearts.

By that I mean, your content should follow a sequence, touching on the following emotions:

Negative, a painful problem, a fear
Positive, relief from a problem, benefits, imagine a better future
Neutral, rational, logical, analysis of facts
Curiosity, desire, imagination
Objections, reasons why and why not
Trust: social proof, statistics, case studies, personal stories
Scarcity, urgency, fear of consequences
Call to action, clear next steps, reassurances, guarantees, security

I been reviewing basic steps for writing quality content for the web that works to get you found, get known and get clients. According to Maria Veloso in Web Copy that Sells, there are 5 simple steps that will help you write quality content that connects and engages with readers: Read More→

Tags : blog content, blog writing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Writing for the Web, writing on the web

Writing Better Web Content: Ask what? Who? Why?

By Patsi Krakoff in About Blogs, Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

The rules haven’t changed, but it’s surprising how many people start creating content to market their business on the web without regard for the basics. Many people focus on the medium, the latest shiny tool: the blog, the Twitter tweets, and Facebook updates, without regard for the basic rules of writing copy for the Web.

Content marketing isn’t a buzz word because marketing people just like new buzzes. Content marketing is a requirement for anyone doing business because it beats writing advertisements that get ignored.

Smart marketers know the rules and never forget them. Even if the Internet changes at lightning speed, the writing basics are the same.

I’ve only been writing online copy for ten years. Before that, I was a journalist and a psychologist so I learned to write differently. Writing content for the Web is different. It’s designed to deliver information in ways that engage readers to take an action, most often click to register or buy.

Every once in a while, I go back to the basics. A standard learning tool for many copywriters is Maria Veloso’s Web Copy that Sells, published in 2004. The 2nd edition is now out and I’ve been reviewing and re-reading it. Good stuff.

Here’s a recap of some really key nuggets from this book:

Before you write one word of copy, you must first:

Know your objective
Know your target audience
Know your product or service

I know this seems so common sense it’s not worth spending time on, but trust me, the time you take to write down a few notes on each of these things will be well worth it. Read More→

Tags : blog content, blog writing, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, Patsi Krakoff, Writing for the Web, writing on the web

3 Steps to Content Marketing with Blogs

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing

Do you know how to turn your blog into “The best darn marketing tool on the Planet?” Clearly not everybody is getting the best bang for their buck, but if you follow these 3 suggestions I give you in this video, you’ll learn the basics of what it takes to get found, get known, and get clients using a blog as your main marketing hub.

So many entrepreneurs and small business still struggle with knowing what to write about, how to write so it engages readers, and how blogs and social media all work together.

I’ll be teaming up again with Suzanne Bird-Harris in December for a workshop on blog writing and content marketing with blogs, but in the meantime, here are 3 steps to get you started.

Formerly known as head of iFlashVideo, Jason Anderson has branched out on his own. Here’s what he produced for me at his new company, iMotionVideo. Let me know what you think.

(Are you using video to promote your business? It’s easier than you think. One of the things I like about having a service do videos for me regularly is that it forces me to get one done monthly. I can always supplement with informal videos using my Flip video recorder, but without the deadline of having to submit a script every month, I seem to procrastinate.)

How to Edit Your Blog Writing: Wot U Can Do

By Patsi Krakoff in Content Marketing, Grammar & Common Usages, How to...Tips, On Writing Better

Some writers of content published on the Web think that substance holds more value than style, and if what you say is truly important, then readers will forgive your mistakes. Text messaging, email from phones and Twitter have all contributed to the acceptance of extremely abbreviated forms of communications.

Wot r u 2 do? When it comes to publishing content that will never disappear on the Web, you owe it to yourself and your business to make your Web writing the best it can be.

I just bought an “old” book on Amazon: Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing, by Claire Kehrwald Cook. Published in 1985, the only things out-of-date are the references to typing out a page. I thought I’d share with you here some of the good advice.

“In reviewing your work, first tighten the wording. Then make separate checks for the errors you’re prone to. [For me, this means eliminating excess words, making sure that verb and subject are in agreement, and checking your and you’re, there and their, its and it’s, etc.]
Skim your draft for opening danglers; test all subjects and verbs for agreement; trace every pronoun to its antecedent; look for unbalanced pairs and series. This process gives you the best chances of catching oversights.
Those involving faulty word order, ambiguous pronouns and lack of parallel structure can be tricky to straighten out. If you get stuck, flag the trouble spot for later attention and go on. Sometimes you’ll hit on an inspired solution after you’ve given the problem a rest.
Read More→

Tags : blog writing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, editing, grammar, writing, Writing for the Web, writing on the web

10 Conversion Tips from Brain Science

By Patsi Krakoff in Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Persuasion, Pathway to Profits

Why do people decide to buy a product online? How is it they decide to trust the information you provide, and register to download information from your blog or website? What can we learn from brain science?

This is something that intrigues me. I read a lot of research on motivation, decision making, and neuroscience to try to figure out how brain science can be applied to better content marketing.

The problem is not what you might think. We know enough about the brain and marketing today to realize people are influenced by unconscious feelings, as much as they are by logic and reasons.

Any professional who has studied content marketing and copywriting knows that you must use emotional stories to get people to take action.

The problem for content creators is that so much of what influences and persuades is unconscious and specific for each reader. Everybody’s different, and you can’t possibly address each reader’s wants and desires.

What are the unconscious reasons for people’s actions, how do their emotions affect decisions, and how can professionals apply the principles of persuasion to create content that encourages users to take action? Read More→