Whisper it From Your Corporate Blog – I am Different!

You must learn how to differentiate yourself, advises friend and online marketing consultant Phil Steele, stressing that it’s not good enough for a small business owner to claim “better service”, since everyone says this.

Steele’s specifically referring to having an effective website, but we blog content writers can continually enhance the process of differentiating by providing fresh, new content in a company’s SEO marketing blog.  How does that accomplish differentiation in the mind of readers?  Blog content is the ideal vehicle for further explanation, more details, updates, stories, and for expressing owners’ beliefs about what’s most important to them in serving clients and customers.

In “Shout It From the Rooftops”, Phil Steele has hit on the most important point of all, which is that before any marketing message can be formulated about the competitive advantage any business has, business owner themselves need to arrive at an understanding of what those  competitive advantages are! Freelance business blog writers can be of greatest service to their business owner clients by helping them do just that.

"Around here," (business owners must ask themselves), "do we…

• Do things faster?
• Do things at a lower cost?
• Do things with fewer errors?
• Provide a more engaging experience? (How?)

When I offer corporate blogging help to business owners and employees, though, I caution against crossing the fine line between exercising “bragging rights” and bragging. Even when corporate blog content is focused on the competitive advantages your business has, it has to be about THEM, not about you and your business. In fact, during corporate blogging training sessions I explain, you can “shout it from the rooftops”, to use Steele’s metaphor, but until your content is centered around the needs of the readers, they’re simply not going to “hear”!

“Once these competitive differentiators are defined,” Steele goes on to say, “you’ll need to package and promote them in a distinctive way that lets website visitors not only know that you can solve their problem, but you have a competitive edge over those who offer similar products or services.”

The beautiful thing, I would add, about the frequent providing of new content in blogging for business, is you won’t need to shout – you can “whisper” your sharply defined differentiator message, getting the message across over time.