Should I Blog for my Business?
If you’re contemplating starting a blog for your business, the chances are you’re thinking something along these lines:
this will help me get more people to my website;
this will help me to build an email list;
this will help me rank higher on Google;
this will give me something to promote on social media, and
this will give me something to do when business is quiet.
And the first piece of good news is that any (or all) of the above reasons are perfectly valid and true.
The second piece of good news is that blogging will make you a better business woman. Since the blog writing process requires a good deal of strategic insight and empathetic and creative thinking to be successful, the process will also deliver a wealth of great experience and value to you, as you seek to drive engagement and grow your business.
The third piece of good news is that blogging will help your customers; when you’re doing a good job with your blog, you’re really engaging with the needs of your customer, thinking about and around how your business if serving those needs and actively demonstrating your willingness to do so in a (potentially very) public arena.
Well done you.
But, if you’re anything like the majority of my small business owner clients, before you take your first tentative steps into the blog writing arena, you’ll need to overcome a few general concerns about the process of blogging for business.
So, let’s skim through the fundamental concerns when it comes to blogging for your business.
Does anyone really care?
One of the first objections I encounter when trying to persuade small business owners to consider blogging for their business is: ‘but who cares what I have to say?’ If I had a penny for every time a client had said to me ‘but who would want to read it?’
Well, let me just reassure you here and now, if you have a customer - if you have ever had a customer - you have a reader for your blog.
One reader?! Is it really worth it for ONE READER?!
If I offered you ten minutes in a room face to face with a potential customer actively looking for a business like yours this morning, would you take me up on the offer in the hope of a sale? Me too. I’ve bought coffees and wasted mornings driving around Somerset for people on far less of a promise of engagement.
So, think of your blog in those terms - it’s a few minutes one to one time with a potential customer. An opportunity to present a crafted, engaging, helpful bit of insight, to introduce them to your business and a little of what you have to offer. And you don’t even have to change out of your pyjamas to deliver it right into their laps.
Don’t get me wrong, that one person certainly doesn’t care about absolutely everything that you might choose to write about. But, everyone cares about solving their problems, answering their burning questions and understanding more about the subjects they’re interested in. And you have the potential to deliver all of that value, right now.
But there are so many blogs out there already about [insert massively-over-populated blog topic here].
I know it sounds a little odd - and the opposite of what we’re always hearing - but my advice here is to go small, or go home.
Seth Godin (marketing legend and worth a Google if you’re so inclined) talks about the importance of the smallest viable audience. And that’s what you should be focussing on too.
Ok, so as a garden designer working in the Chew Valley, you’re unlikely to write the next top ranking blog post on the perfect layout for a sociable garden. One million people probably aren’t going to stumble across your post. But here’s the good news - you don’t need everyone in the world to read your article because you’re not looking for new clients in Beijing - you’re looking for clients in the Chew Valley.
You only need, let’s say, ten people in your local area who are interested in this subject to read your article, because when you carefully direct your local, smallest viable audience to your brilliant post, demonstrate your authority on the subject, show off your engaging manner and your wealth of experience, and then they discover you live next door…. well, suddenly you’re looking at a really high possibility of converting at least one of these ten readers into your next paying client.
If your article deals specifically with the trials and tribulations of gardeners in the Chew Valley (it’s very windy there) then you’ll find it far easier to write (find out more about the freedom of a tight brief here) and far easier to drum up interest over in your local area. Because the wonder of writing for a really small audience is that you can be really beautifully, masterfully specific in your advice, making it even more useful for that smallest audience, making you sound like even more of an expert to those specific people and making it even more likely that your readers will become your new clients.
How often do I need to write?
This is a bit like ‘how often should I work out at the gym?’ It depends whether you’re going for the olympic gold (all day, everyday) or if you’re just looking to feel a little healthier (once a week) or if you’re just trying to keep your spot on the bench (once a month). Sort of mixing my sports analogies there, but I’m sure you follow.
Blogging, like so much of marketing within a small business, is one of those things that tends to be high up on the list when business is slow, but slips its way down to the dirty depths of never-gonna-happen when the paid work picks up.
So, my advice, to avoid the feast or famine approach to blogging and find a meaningful, productive and measurable output, is to set out with a clear strategy, a defined target for engagement and a brutally honest awareness of how much time you have available for the job. More on how to do this here.
The business owners I know who have a regular habit of blogging, like the habitual gym-goers, are a rather successful and smug little bunch. So, it’s probably a good idea to aim to be one of them, rather than the other lot, who sit down once in a blue moon, write half a blog, forget to upload it, don’t bother with an image, go back a week later, half-heartedly finish it off, hit publish and don’t bother to tell anyone it’s there.
(By the way, these are the same people who complain to me that no-one reads their blogs… go figure.)
How long should my posts be?
For the business owners I work with, who are looking to begin blogging with a defined strategy and goal in mind, I would introduce two main types of blog that they need to use and that I like to refer to as:
Bitesize Blogs (short-form) and
Authoritative Blogs (long-form).
A combination of these two styles should provide a manageable content calendar and an engaging selection of material for your customers.
Bitesize Blogs
These are the shorter styles of blogs, which your reader will find easy to read and access the information they’re looking for. We’re talking anywhere from 50 - 850 words in length and the kind of blog structures and styles included might be:
quick fixes;
top tips;
FAQs;
simple case studies;
simple how-to guides etc.
Authoritative Pieces
These are the long form blog articles that are 1000+ words in length. These pieces look to position you as an authority on your particular subject and provide real, detailed, insightful, meaty content for your reader. They might include:
detailed case studies;
lengthy opinion pieces;
detailed reviews;
comparison pieces;
detailed how-to guides etc.
How do I come up with subjects / titles for my blogs?
Any activity that invites a new notebook into play is high up on the agenda for me - and this is definitely one of those activities.
Think about the three problems that your business solves most often for its customers. And write them down.
You might find it easier to come at this problem in reverse - think about how your business positively impact your customer’s day / life?
Or, consider how do your products or services make your customers feel? Fashionable, beautiful, confident, indulgent, savvy, generous, prepared for anything, in control…?
Here’s an example for you.
The 3 problems that my floristry business solves most often:
My mother/daughter/cousin/aunt… needs to know how much I care about her and am thinking about her today.
I want my home/workplace/village hall… to look beautiful and cared for.
I want to do something special for me.
Once you’ve got your head into this space, you can start to think about how you can create blog posts that talk around these key issues that your customers face. With a little experience, you can learn how to explode each of your 3 ‘problem areas’ into a myriad of content that stays tightly bound to the main pain points that your customers are encountering and help them to understand how your business offering can help or support them with these issues.
To get you started, try using these simple blog title templates with your customer’s 3 main problems in mind.
Why you need … to make you feel …
How … can fix …
Wondering why you you need to… to feel / fix…?
Stop feeling / being …
Top 5 Tips to stop being / feeing….
And now you just have to go ahead and put your sales cap on and start responding to or expanding on the titles, to create the main body of the blog post.
Easy.
Need more?
If you need a little more advice, check out this post on Top Tips for Business Blogs or read The Freedom of a Tight Brief here, or if you’ve got a post you need to publicise then read Spread the Word.
Need me?
If you’d like a little more tailored advice about your business blogging strategy - or your business website - then please do get in touch and let’s grab a coffee.