Go Ahead, Get a Blog
How to Use Your Company’s Blog in a Strategic and Meaningful Way
Most marketing experts will tell you that you need to be blogging. That’s because blogging has become one of the most popular ways to promote and grow your business.
In the past, to reach mass audiences, companies would have to pay for expensive advertising or work with a publicist to help them get featured in newspapers and magazines. But today, companies can use their blogs to distribute information at no cost except for time.
While blogging can be an effective marketing strategy, too often companies fail to write blogs that properly engage their target audience. Plus, too often they give up on the strategy after a few months because of the time commitment. Rather than waste your time or give up altogether, let’s talk about how you can use your company’s blog to effectively market your business and yourself.
A blog, by definition, is an online journal. It’s an opportunity for you to write whenever you want about whatever you want. However, if your blog is for the purpose of driving traffic to your company’s website or storefront, it should not be used as a personal journal but rather as a marketing tool.
Focus on writing about things that are meaningful to your customers. To do this, first pick a theme that is related to your business. For example, if you sell maternity products, dedicate your blog to discussing all the aches and joys of pregnancy. If you sell strollers and accessories, use your blog to discuss how moms and babies can enjoy the great outdoors together. If you sell high-end children’s clothes, dedicate your blog to writing about celebrity children and fashion. Remember, products you sell are sidebars to your blog, not the main focus. Having a theme will help you generate interesting, informative and educational editorial content that will keep your readers engaged. If you give readers a reason to come back, they will. Plus, one benefit of writing about a focused topic is that you become the expert on that topic. Your readers will turn to you when they are looking for information on that topic.
Now that your blog has a focus, you will want to engage and interact with your target audience as much as possible. To do this, consider hiring one of your loyal customers to write a weekly post about motherhood. Another idea to engage your customers is to feature or spotlight one each month. You can do this easily putting together a simple Q&A form for them to fill out. Further, consider holding a regularly scheduled contest or giveaway on your blog so your customers know to come back to enter each week. The goal is to engage and build lasting relationships with customers. Anything you can do to get them involved and actively participating in your blog is a win for you.
Just as location is everything when it comes to buying real estate, information is everything when it comes to doing business online. The more content you put out for the world to see, the more likely the Google bots – and therefore customers – will find you.
When writing your posts, be sure to use keywords that are important to your business so you can boost your SEO. Think of what keywords people type in Google to find your company. If you’re stumped for keywords, use WordTracker keyword suggestion tool (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com). Always include your best keywords in the headline and first paragraph of your posts.
Another good way to build traffic on highly searched topics is to write concise headlines. Skip the fluff and write as if someone was typing that headline into Google. For example, a headline might be, “The Top Five Nursing Bra Brands.” The way it’s worded resembles what someone might type into Google. It is stronger than, “Nursing Bras Fit for a Queen.” The latter might be more catchy, but the first is Google-tastic!
A blog isn’t just about building good content; you can advertise on your blog too! Rather than pack the editorial content with great things about your company and products, instead use the sidebar space to promote the products you carry on your website. Put together a few 125x125 button ads featuring your company and products. You can even rotate the advertisements with your new promotions each week. As a side benefit, ads can also give your blog credibility as a legitimate editorial source on a specific topic. Remember, most editorial-based blogs have great advertisers too!
Many owners start a blog with the best intentions but they never see it through beyond a few months. That’s because a blog doesn’t bear fruit until you’ve been blogging for generally 3-4 months or more. Blogs are easy to give up when life gets in the way.
If you have the patience and desire to use your blog to help you market your business, then keep your eye on the prize. It takes time to get noticed in a world where blogs are plentiful. One of my clients reported that around the four month mark, traffic from her blog to her online store grew to “significant levels.” These levels grew so much that she hired a full time blog manager and writer – it has been over two years and she has never looked back on her decision to use her blog as a prime marketing tool for doing business on the Web.
The point is that sticking with a blog – and having a blog that contains educational and meaningful content – can help lead traffic to your website, give you loads of credibility as an expert, create lasting relationships with customers, and best of all, help you grow your company.
Editorial provided by Jenny Finke. Jenny is the founder of two media companies: Red Jeweled Media (www.RedJeweledMedia.com), a full service PR and marketing firm for small businesses, and The PRepared Publicist (www.ThePReparedPublicist.com), a DIY PR site for busy mom entrepreneurs.
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