Blogging? I can’t begin to tell you what a difference it can make to your business.
If you’re thinking, “nah, I don’t see the point in doing it” or, “I could do it, but I’m not good at writing stuff”, then it’s time to scroll down. What’s in here will help you heaps.
Why join the blogosphere?
Market research indicates that blogging can make a staggering difference to your business. Read that: to your profits.
Did you know? 67% of B2B marketers using blogs generate 67% more leads (source: Business2Community).
Other reasons include:
- pleasing Google and other SEO engines (more blog posts, more indexed links)
- establishing yourself as the expert in your niche
- building trust with your audience
- create more content for your social media profiles
- ultimately create more leads
Can you see the benefits of blogging?
Now stop right there. Writing articles as a romantic will do you no good. No-no-no…
Which takes us to our next touch point…
Blogging for profit: how businesses should use blogging for growth
Start with the beginning: meet your crew
Who buys from you? Why? How often? What solutions are they looking for? What do they like? What don’t they like? Are they married? …is it relevant?
Your blogging strategy starts with deciding who you want to target (also known as your target audience). Since you’re in business already, you should know by know who your main clients are.
So go ahead and create a ‘Target Audience Document’. Add in all the relevant traits of your buyer persona.
Tip: To make it easy for you, think about a real life regular customer. What are they like? Write down their traits – that’s your ideal client!
[ctt template=”7″ link=”UR6fc” via=”no” ]Think about a real life regular customer. What are they like? Write down their traits – that’s your ideal client![/ctt]
Knowing your audience is not enough!
Before blogging for business, you should sort out a few other things, such as:
- Your main keywords. Think about the search terms your target audience might use online. Create a list of keywords – this can be the start of your content strategy.
- How often you will post. It would be great to be able to post something every day. Unfortunately, that’s way out of reach for most business owners. So keep your schedule to a minimum at first (at least once a week) until you figure out how much time you can dedicate to blogging for business.
- What goals you want to achieve. Going back to my note about romanticism – you need to know why you’re blogging for business. Set short and long term goals, like “growing my email list to 500 people in two months” or “becoming a trusted brand” or “getting X leads in Y months”.
Discover other 5 things you should know about your business
What would your audience like to know?
Now that you know the basics of your blogging strategy, it’s time to discuss topics.
Best way to blog for business? Plan ahead.
Choose a handful of topics you can write about. Then add them to a blogging calendar. Keep in mind the frequency with which you want to post.
Tip: It’s always best to write blog posts for your business blog at least a month in advance. This gives you plenty of time to juggle with content should anything else arise.
What could you write about, you ask?
- topics your target audience might be interested in
- things your customers always ask you about
- things your suppliers say about their products
- interviews with suppliers
- client case studies
- research industry related statistics/news
Obviously, the list goes on. I promise, as you sit down to think about potential topics, I’m sure you will come up at least with 5-10 to start with. From there on, train your ear to “identify” client requests as potential blog posts – you’ll have enough content to last you for months.
You might also like: 5 Effective ways to instantly increase your sales
Sprinkle that with some nice visuals
We, people, are marvellous creatures. We can create the most amazing, mind blowing things with patience and passion. We also have the almost magical power to get bored in less than 2 seconds.
Seriously. It’s like we’re kids – out attention span is becoming so, so short!
Taking that as a fact, how can you make sure that your audience will actually read your content?
- Adding visual elements throughout your post can help. Use images (free stock images are great to start with), graphics, illustrations or other forms of visual content to aid with readers’ attention span.
- You can also create content in other formats: some people prefer watching a video; others would rather just listen to an audio file while they’re driving.
Follow the red thread
Personally, I’m a sucker for good stories. If a brand gives me a good story line, I tell you, I’m all in.
I’m not the only one. Being social creatures, people love stories. Bedtime stories, fairy tales… even a newspaper press release can make for a good story.
How can you link this to your blogging strategy?
- Use anecdotes or stories from your personal life to create connections between what you want to say and how you are saying it
- Use a second person voice to allow readers to visualise themselves acting out your solutions as you offer them
- Use case studies or interviews with industry experts – start by outlining the background of your case study or interview: what triggered the events?
- Don’t be afraid to talk about why you started your business or about the challenges you faced down the road. That’s your story and that’s what makes your business one of a kind.
Always tell readers what to do next
Ok, so I found your article online, I read it and I loved it.
Now what…?
Don’t leave me empty handed! What should I do next? Just leave?
I guess that’s my way of telling you that you need to have a clear call to action at the end of each article you write. Decide what you want people to do next, and ask them to do it.
Even if your point is not to sell something, you can request other actions such as: reading another article, visiting your e-commerce section (if relevant), subscribing to your newsletter or contacting you.
Let others know about it!
Sharing is caring, so once you posted your article on your website, make sure you share it on social media. To do that, you will also need to create a social media sharing strategy – but that’s an entirely different topic.
Use your social media channels as a megaphone to promote your brand!
Another way to promote your content is to contact other bloggers and ask to be featured on their websites. Again, you will need a strategy to do this as well – I’ll probably talk about it in a future post.
Thinking about using social media for business? Then read this: 3 social media security dangers and how to protect yourself from them
So… what should a blogging plan look like for you?
Like any other plan you have for your business growth, blogging should seamlessly fit in your general business management strategy. How you can do that, how often you should blog and what topics you should choose – that’s what we can decide together after a 1:1 meeting.
Let’s get in touch now.