A business blog isn’t just your very own press reel, but it’s also a great place to convert leads. The basic element of a business blog is to keep consumers and customers informed. You will be posting articles about upcoming updates to your products and or services. The closer you get to launch days, the more detail you will be giving out, which will resonate with customers who want to know more.
This invaluable platform from which you should springboard everything is the most visible strategy for your brand identity. Something that so many small business owners don’t get a handle on, is how they could shape and mold their brand image however they liked, just through the median of the written word. The most successful business blogs do require some sort of plan. A full-scale blogging strategy will be as complex as any of your business operations.
Know your purpose
Before you start blogging for your business, you must have several reasons for why you are writing and publishing posts. What is your reasoning for having a business blog? What kind of content do you want to publish? What is your hope regarding the reception and return of the blog?
All such questions must be answered so you have a strategy which is coherent and above all, with plenty of direction. The sad truth is, many business blogs fizzle out and fade away. In the beginning, business owners see the benefit of blogging as they receive a readership and thus, a following. But over time, they fail to update their methods, keep up with the marketing strategies of the day and they stop seeing a return of any kind. As you can imagine, this means that it’s simply no longer worth putting in the time and effort into their blog posts. They stop writing and eventually, they are back to square one.
Make sure you have a specific purpose as to why you’re writing posts and why you have a blog. Is it for educational and or informational purposes? Do you intend to use your blog as a way to communicate with the press or consumers? Are you trying to become an industry thought leader?
Know your audience
Inherent with knowing your purpose, is knowing your audience. What kind of person will most likely read blogs? Will it be a young professional? Maybe it’s someone who works in your industry. It could just be the general consumer, looking to know more about who you are. Writing for your audience will do two things.
- It will garner and keep a loyal readership. People who like your content and relate to what you’re saying will always see you as one of their media consumption resources.
- You will bore out a niche and become a source of information and highly respected views, as you focus and specialize in one particular area and or subject.
What are your objectives?
The next steps will involve setting out clear blogging objectives. What days and or times will you want to post? How often will you be writing content? What kind of content will you cover? Setting realistic goals at this point will involve knowing your capacity for writing and how much spare time you have to write such content.
A clear objective plan will look something like this.
| Narrative | Month and quantity | Aim |
| Introduce new product | January, 3 posts | Make consumers comfortable with new design, features and style of usage. |
| Share update of product | February, 2 posts | Show customers what has changed and why. Explain how feedback was taken on board. |
| Explore changes in industry | March, 3 posts | Take a look at how the industry has changed, citing new standards, material choices, design ideas, functions and lifestyle integration, etc. |
A plan such as this will illuminate the types of posts you will need to make and why. This allows you to essentially write posts that explain key ideas that you have and or, are experiencing in your industry. This allows you to educate customers and also, give them food for thought with an inside look at the challenges you face day to day, throughout your business.
SEO needs to become integrated
Your blog isn’t just a newsreel, it’s not just a platform from which to spread your ideas, it’s a way to attract customers, clients, businesses and investors. But you can only do so if you work with a Digital Marketing Agency with great inbound marketing strategies. This form of SEO is very powerful for business blogs because you’re attracting readers from different websites to your blog. The first thing they will do is attract visitors with keywords, social media sharing, SEO AdWords as well as displaying your content on various medians. The next step is to convert the visitors, using forms where they can give you their email addresses and basic information. Calls-to-action is made in the content and specifically on landing pages.
When a visitor becomes a lead, now the real fun begins. Your blog posts will be sent to them via email marketing, giving your posts signals and a detailed workflow plan so you send out emails when you have the highest chance of the highest click rate. When they have become customers, you will then use events, social media and smart content to feed them more of what they want. This keeps customers coming back for more as you gradually expand your blog content.
Unique content should be exclusive
When you are about to launch a product, this is when your blog becomes invaluable. It’s a source of exclusive information that journalists will flock to and investors will want to read over, during their morning breakfast. So why is this?
A product launch is always going to be somewhat secretive. You don’t want to give everything away, but it’s okay to give little snippets of information to the public. Why do this through media outlets, when you have your own blog as the better platform? Writing content that has hints of what to expect, is a great way to increase organic traffic. You want to be featured on major news platforms like Google News, Yahoo News and BBC News. however, you want to make sure that the bulk of the information is kept on your website and media outlets are told to not give everything away if you’re working with them, regarding a marketing partnership.
Exclusive content is a brilliant way to funnel visitors to your blog, and give anyone a reason to read your posts. So what kind of information should you include, for a new product launch post?
- The key features
- How it will affect or change their lifestyle
- What kinds of variations you will likely see in future, i.e. large, small and varying sizes
- And most importantly for many people, the price.
A writing schedule
For many small business owners, their business is their baby. It’s quite smart to hire an SEO company to write blog posts for you, but you may also want to write them yourself. A combination of the two methods is perhaps the best way forward. But when should you write your blog posts?
The prevailing attitude for many business owners is to blog either during business hours or at night. When you have an idea or are in the thick of the action, you could spend 20-30 minutes writing a post in detail. You have the knowledge right in front of you as you’re working on improvements and finalizing things.
During the night is when around 48% of business owners feel most comfortable writing. This is because it’s after-hours and you have time to sit down with your dinner and organize your thoughts in a calming environment. But whether you’re writing during, before or after work, stick to the schedule. You will need to make it a routine by getting in the habit of putting your ideas down onto a blank screen and explaining your thought process to customers.
Performing customer interviews!
Blogs are fun, quirky and serious places for you to share your views. Many business blogs will publish interviews they do with journalists. But what if you could be interviewed by customers?
This is a new phenomenon that aspiring CEOs should be engaging in. You select a customer who has a history of buying your products and or services. You then ask them to make a list of questions you will answer for them. Hold this interview over a conference call software such as Zoom or Skype.
Upload the video onto your blog along with a written transcript. Not only will this show customers you are directly listening to them, but that they can be part of your content. It’s a fantastic public relations move which doesn’t cost you anything and allows you to spread across social media with a purpose.
What a great time to be a business owner, with a flourishing business blog. There is no shortage of ideas for posts and you can involve customers in your content process. Be sure that you have a viable strategy with a coherent plan so your blog doesn’t fade away as all too commonly, small business blogs do.