Corporate Business Solutions helps business owners implement marketing techniques that are critical in growing their business, and can help with the popular tactic of blogging. Blogging is a long-term, on-going marketing strategy that supplements and grounds other marketing campaigns over the life of a small business. It takes time to develop a reputation as an authority in your area of expertise and even longer to develop the loyal following that triggers purchasing. Visualize the arena in which you would like to establish your small business as a market leader and trusted authority; then brainstorm a variety of topics that would showcase that expertise.
These blogging tips can help small business owners improve their blogs:
- Skip the sales approach – The surest way to develop trust and long-term loyalty is a selfless and generous approach that shows authentic interest and consideration for the needs of the reader. Focus on blog topics that help your audience in some specific, actionable way. Blogging is not an opportunity to sell yourself or make constant pitches to your customer base to drive sales. Blogging serves as a way to develop a personality and conversation with your market that allows them to explore their relationship with you without the pressure of purchasing.
- Listen – Take time to consider what your audience is talking about in the social media arena. Aim to identify their needs because you want to help them, not because you want to sell to them.
- Offer a useful solution – Once you have identified what your readers are asking for, develop a response that answers their question or solves their problems. Generously share tips and tricks, suggestions or experiences solely for the purpose of providing help.
2. Quality is key – Your small business blog is not an area in your marketing strategy where you can skimp. In a world where content is virtually endless, readers demand captivating, high quality content that consistently respects their expectation for purposeful writing.
- High quality images – Many bloggers make the mistake of treating blog images as placeholders instead of storytellers. In the sea of available content, readers are visually drawn to the most captivating images. Use high resolution, appropriately composed images that highlight your writing and work collaboratively to deliver relevant information to your audience.
- Proof –Be sure to implement editing and review processes and outsource writing if it is not a best fit within your team. Poor grammar and sentence structure can frustrate readers and send the wrong message about your attention to detail.
- Useful topics – Regularly check your editorial calendar to be sure your topics are truly useful and relevant.
3. Engage your readers – Every blog post should have a very specific “call to action” for your reader. If your blog post is properly meeting a need to a question your audience is asking, the call to action should provide specific steps to achieving that resolution on their own.
- Submissions – Ask your audience to engage by submitting a story or image that relates to your blog post. Ask them a specific question that you’d like them to answer in the comments or take a poll. Bring them into the conversation.
- How to’s – Readers are instantly drawn to a step-by-step guide to answering their question. Use images and numbered steps to clearly demonstrate how they can apply this newly learned skill with relative ease.
- Resource links – Include related links that propel readers to similar content on your blog. Encourage them to read more than just one post by planting seeds to other resources on your website.
To learn more and / or to schedule your complimentary appointment with the experts at Corporate Business Solutions, call us at 877-357-9366.