Archive for December, 2014
The 5 C’s of a Successful Business Blog
As a small business owner, blogging can play a key role in your marketing strategy. As mentioned in my prior post, How to Use Blogging to Build the Know, Like and Trust Factor For Your Business, blogging allows you to build those key factors that can allow you to have an advantage in the marketplace.
In order for your blog to be successful, you need to follow the 5 C’s of Blogging:
- Content- The first and most important part of your blog is your content. You should decide on the main topic for your blog (i.e. business, gardening, etc.) and then decide up to three sub-categories for your topic (i.e. business- marketing, leadership, productivity; gardening- fruits, vegetable, flowers; etc.).Once the topic and sub-categories have been decided, then the next thing is deciding whether you are going to come up with original content or content that you curate. In order to show your expertise in your particular area, having original content is very important. That is how you showcase what you know and show your knowledge in your area. However, coming up with original content consistently can be a difficult task, so sometimes it helps to curate other people’s content. Use what they have posted about your area or expertise and write a response or a differing opinion to the original article, or just reposting what they have written also works too. As long as the content is relevant and will resonate with your audience then using other people’s content is fine. The biggest thing when it comes to curating content is giving credit to the original source of content, your goal is not and nor should it ever be to take their content as your own, so always give credit where credit is due. This is especially important when it comes to copyright infringement, you do not want to plagiarize, so be sure to site where your content is coming from.
- Community- Your blog posts should be targeting a specific community. Your goal in blogging is not just to add value by informing your readers, but to also create followers which become your community. Having a community of people who are like-minded and enjoy your content can do wonders for your business. When you create a community, you create loyal followers who can become loyal customers, so knowing that you are creating a community for your blog is also helpful.
- Conversations- You want your blog posts to create conversations. The great thing about blogs compared to articles online is the fact that blogs allow people to converse about the particular topic that you have posted. You want to create conversations around your topic, so it is not a one-way street, but a two-way conversation with the writer of the blog and the audience. The ability to have a conversation, adds another level of connection with you and your audience, so make sure that your blog posts create a level of conversation around your industry or topic.
- Consistency- I believe there is a Blog grave yard, so many people have good intentions to start a blog, but couldn’t or didn’t keep up with blogging consistently, so their blog died! When you make the decision to start a blog for your business, you have to be consistent with posting on the blog. You have to decide what makes sense for your business. If you are able to blog weekly that’s great, if you can only blog bi-weekly that’s fine too, the least amount of commitment would be blogging once a month. Of course there are benefits to blogging more frequently especially when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and people finding your content online, but you want to take on a frequency that will be able to fit into your business. Blogging on a daily basis is not viable for the average business so you have to figure out what frequency works best for your business.
- Convert- As a small business owner, one of your blogging goals should be to convert your followers to customers. By sharing your content with your readers people start to view you as knowledgable or an expert in your field. Once they have that level of trust in your knowledge and your blog talks about solutions, if they are in the market for what your company offers, they will naturally see you as a solution and become a customer, which ultimately is what you want. Having strong call-to-actions (i.e. click here, sign-up now, learn more, etc.) on your blog helps with converting people to your website pages, or sales pages for your product or service.
Are you currently blogging for your business? If so, what other C’s do you think are an important part of blogging?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )How to Use Blogging to Build the Know, Like, and Trust Factor for Your Business
As an entrepreneur or small business owner, standing out from your competition is really important. Creating a unique statement that tells why you’re different is good, but as we know, people really like to buy from people they know, like, and trust, and a simple statement as to why you are good, may not be enough.
A great way to establish the know, like and trust factor is by blogging. Blogging is a great marketing strategy because if you consistently blog and promote your blog posts you will build an audience who will begin to know, like and trust you based on the content that you publish.
So let’s break down the way you can use a blog in order to establish the know, like, and trust factor and grow your business:
KNOW
Your blogging goal as an entrepreneur or small business owner is to become known as an expert in your field. People like to buy from people who are knowledgeable, helpful, and show that they care. Through your blog you can become known for providing valuable tips, tools, and techniques in your industry. If you consistently put out good content on your blog and that content is shared, this will help you to grow your “Know” factor.
LIKE
Another blogging goal is for people to get to like you. Your tone, writing style, and the content you provide on your blog should help with the like factor. Keep in mind your goal is not to be liked by everyone, but to be liked by your ideal target audience. When you know who you are talking to, and what their needs are, then you will be better able to create content that resonate with your target audience. Therefore, they will end up liking your content, and therefore, liking you.
TRUST
And lastly, your blogging goal is to build trust with your audience. This is a big one because people may buy from people that they don’t know that well, and may even buy from people they don’t always like, but they have to have a level of trust in you, your company, or your service in order to buy from you, so building the trust factor is really important. You can build trust with your audience by practicing what you preach, by doing what you say you are going to do, by being professional, by being reliable and consistent. When you show up on your blog consistently and provide good information, you are helping to build the “Trust” factor with your audience.
There are many factors why you should consider blogging in your marketing strategy and growing the know, like, and trust factor is just one reason why entrepreneurs and small business owners should be considering blogging. Are you currently blogging for your business? If so, do you feel blogging helps to build the know, like, and trust factor for your business? Share your opinion in the comments below.
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Marketing Essentials by Nadine Mullings 