Small businesses have the disadvantage of nobody knowing who they are. Every small business should have a blog to help promote their names and products. It has to cater to an audience which is sceptical. They will look for any reason to write you off. This article reveals how you can make the most of blogging by implementing a few key strategies.
Look at these tactics in principle. Mould them according to your specific business needs and you’ll soon start to see results.
General and Understandable
You can’t begin to delve into a niche or overly technical subject on your blog. You need to make your posts light so anyone can understand them. Don’t assume your audience is well-educated and will understand you. Keep the language simple so everyone can understand things.
Assume your audience knows nothing about your business and get back to basics. For example, if you were selling cakes you might write a blog about how they’re great for surprise parties.
Understand your name doesn’t automatically point to what you do. Make it clear what you do and let the lay company understand your organisation. It might not bring in direct sales, but it can help spread your name. Over time, you can start delving into niche subjects because you’ll have a solid core readership.
Company Introduction
As we’ve already mentioned, people need to find out about your company and what it does. Every so often you should have some sort of company introduction. This will help new readers grasp the content of your blog and what they can expect from you. Alternatively, include an author biography at the bottom of your post detailing your company’s interest.
Most of your usual readers will skip it, but new readers will read it so they can better understand what they’re taking in.
Your goal is to build trust. Every new business is viewed with a great deal of suspicion, like a new person moving into a community. People will often pay established brands more for the same service just because they trust them more. Expose yourself to your audience and they’ll understand more.
Product Information
There’s a fine line between informing someone and trying to sell them something. As a new business, you need to sell things in your blog without sounding too promotional. On the other handle, big brands can do what they want. It’s why you see Mercedes and Nestle writing about themselves all the time and it won’t put people off. The point is you have to sell something to someone without making it seem like you’re doing so.
You need to prove you can fulfil the needs of your customers first. If your blog seems too promotional, people will turn away from it.
The way you expose your products should be in a simplified manner. If you’re selling TVs you shouldn’t jump into all the technical specifications. Tell them how these specifications will make the watching experience better. This never loses its power, but long lists of numbers gets old quickly.
From here, you can expand into posts about where to put the TV, how to make it a focal point for a room, and how to control who watches the TV at what time.
Education and Sales Preparation
Education is what your blog is here for. Informed customers are more likely to see things your way, as long as you’re telling the truth. They shouldn’t have to conduct research after visiting your site. All the information should be on your site. Make it easier for them by adding images and well-placed anchor links in your blog posts.
Let’s go back to our TV example from the above example. You could obviously add a picture of the television, but you can place links to other TVs in your range as a comparison tool. Educate them on the different options available for them and what the differences mean in a practical sense.
An educated reader is more likely to understand your sales talk and is more likely to buy something.
Promotional Off
Sales talk is for the website’s homepage. The blog is your chance to interact with your audience on a more intimate level. If you’re selling an item you shouldn’t order them to buy it. You should explain the reality of the situation without even pointing towards a sale. You’ll still get some traffic with active self-promotion. These people will be here out of curiosity, though, and for no other reason.
Successful business blogs have an appeal. What they don’t have is advertising simply because promotional posts don’t hook anyone.
Draw Connections
If your business is participating in a market with other well-known brand names, cling onto their coat tails. Compare your products to one from the big brands. It’s a psychological tactic. As soon as you mention the name of this product they’ll instantly start to imagine it and think about the benefits. When done correctly, it makes them trust your product and see the benefits more.
And by not denying the existence of these competitors, you’re building even more trust. It’s a great way to stay current as well.
To do it, you can include them as a little insert. Here’s an example, “X Product will revolutionise the way you watch TV, in the same way as the X Sony television changed the way you receive images.”
Be casual about it. Pretend like you’re talking to a friend. The biggest mistake you can make is acting as if you’re some sort of affiliate retailer.
Guest Blogs
You should always aim to write at least once a week. Publish something at roughly the same time each week so your audience knows when they should check back to your website. If you’re too busy to write something this week, ask another writer to complete something. Guest posters add a whole new flavour to your blog and provide your readers with the chance to read an opinion from someone new.
Be careful with how often you resort to this. You might find your blog loses the tone of your business if you outsource blogging too often.
Editor’s Note: My name is Sonia Jackson. I write for http://www.cool-essays.com that provides well-written and quality essays and research papers for college and university students.
