To Blog or Not To Blog? What a silly question!
It usually comes after, “Do I need a webpage or will my Facebook page do?” or there’s the “Do I need to be changing my website more than once per year? Or is once in the last five years okay?”
YES – YOU NEED TO BLOG IF YOU ARE HOPING TO DO BUSINESS ON THE WEB!
This is content marketing
Blogging is a way for you to communicate with your customers and get them to know more about you and your company and why they should trust you. You want to become the trusted friend/partner/contact that they will turn to when they are looking for not just products but information.
We live in the Information Age. People want to be informed before they buy. They check the internet for anything that costs more than $20 generally. If you aren’t on the internet helping them get the product knowledge and help they need, how can you be relevant to them? Why would they trust you?
Even the big businesses will work to help their target customers to trust them. Why do you need to do this? Blogging and posting articles about your industry are a better way to get your prospects to trust you. Nearly 80% of all purchases over $50 are researched online. If you are relevant and getting to your target customers, you can win them over. The reason why is that you are going to become that expert that has the right answers for their questions. It is important to be as open as possible and give both sides of an issue (if there is two sides). Don’t just give your best arguments and leave the negative side out. It will create distrust and you will not be the expert.
A customer asked me today why I write about marketing and advertising and give my information away for free, rather than charging for it. I informed him that I want people to know how I can help them and that I am willing to tell them what they need to watch out for. I have had several people become my clients because I told them about the downside of a product and how the benefits outweighed the negatives.
The other thing you must do when writing blogs and articles is that you must give the reader information that they won’t know already. Give the information away. I know of a person that believes that you should never give anything, especially your knowledge, away. He is struggling now with the new internet age. His seminars aren’t as attractive as they once were. He has missed an important change in how business is done: You need to know that people today not only do business with people they know and trust but also those that are the most informative.
Finally, a few people ask me about what to write about each week. That can be easy. If I am getting people asking me questions, I write those answers as a blog or article. If one person has that question, so will others. Be sure to use that question in your blog or article. If someone else has that same question and puts that into Google or the other search engines, your article has a higher chance of coming up first.
What to write about?
Write about what you are working on now. One famous writer lets his blog readers see what he finds out in researching for his next book. Most of what he shares isn’t about that book but is fascinating none the less. Others blog about projects that they are involved with or things happening in their lives. Building a relationship with the readers is a key to many writer’s success. If you let your readers know you more, some personal stuff, the better they will be when it comes time to spend some money on your latest book.
The other thing to do is to choose a theme for each week of the month. I have a customer (a dentist) that has a theme each week. The first week is a promotion of a person that won his monthly drawing. The second week is all about a topic related to dentistry (i.e. Why you need to have your teeth cleaned every six months). The third week is about working with other teeth issues (orthodontics, whitening, tooth loss, etc.). The fourth week is usually from the American Dental Association. There is always something that they are writing an article about. It builds their reputation by promoting the ADA article and gives great benefit to the dentist in SEO help.
The bottom line is that you need to blog and write articles often. There have been many schools (Chiropractors, Dentists, Retirement planning, and many more) that teach students about writing for a local newspaper. While that isn’t always practical today, you can still write and get in local online information sites or make a blog that does the same. You need to become the expert by writing what you are passionate about – your profession. Be open and honest in your writing and make sure to give valuable, relevant information.
Need help doing this? I can help with that.
Good writing,
Boyd Petersen
Certified Marketing Coach
801-580-3310