How Pros Use Blogs to Drive Traffic
and Dominate Digital Marketing
Congratulations!
You have a powerful business idea. And now, equipped with a brilliant website and a fresh-and-blooming web presence, you’re ready to launch your first digital marketing campaign.
You’re on your way! Now, to cook up some successful blog posts.
You know you need to start by creating great content and aiming it at your perfect customer. But this is all new. Maybe even a little scary. Maybe more than a little scary!
But with a simple recipe of four “key” ingredients, you can cook up web content your best prospective customers will welcome… and start them looking to you for solutions to the problems your business was built to solve.
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1. Focus – On The Customer
One of the biggest mistakes digital marketing rookies make is leading with themselves – wanting to tell their own story. To prove they know their stuff. It’s understandable. Everybody writes what they know, right?
But your customer would rather you start with her.
The best blog articles – the ones prospects devour – start with a laser focus on the customer and her needs. What problem does she face? What does she worry about? You’re a little nervous about creating effective web content… what makes your customer nervous?
Start by focusing on that. Sharpen your web copy down to an exploration of one big problem – from the customer’s viewpoint – that you want to discuss. One that you know your business can tackle better than anyone. You’ll have many other articles to explore other topics.
2. With Feeling
You’re going to want to appeal to your customer’s emotions. Face it: emotions drive the lion’s share of customers’ buying decisions. You’ll need to supply facts, too, to support the buying desire you’ll create… but that’s a bit later.
Before you make your case with facts, bring comfort to your prospective client emotionally.
Is he worried? Bring him comfort. In trouble… even in pain? Bring relief. A great tone for a blog article is to make clear that you “get” the customer’s problem, that you understand it’s a thorny one, but, hey. You’ve got this. Help is on the way.
You absolutely must appeal to your customer’s emotions before launching into your sales pitch, or into a lengthy dissertation about your business, your experience, and so forth. Remember the old expression, which is likely on the top of your customer’s mind: “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.”
3. Tell A Story
A good story has a beginning, a middle, and a (happy!) ending. And a great blog article often includes such a story. Stories can be your best tools for "hooking" readers into your most successful blog posts.
Find a brief “case study” from one of your customers’ successes. Or even a testimonial (letting one of your customers tell his own story).
The beginning: “Wow, what a problem we faced!” The middle: “Luckily, we got smart, and used proven business solutions to tackle the problem” (and note: these solutions, of course, will be the ones in which your business is THE expert).
And the happy ending? “We doubled our sales,” or “We eliminated a major cost center” … whatever happy ending you’re in the business to deliver.
Stories – especially testimonials – read like proof to your prospective customer. That's why the most successful blog posts contain great stories.
4. Offer To Help
You want to build a tight list of prospects who would be perfect customers for your business. You don’t want to try to sell your Biggest Brightest Expensive Widget to someone reading your blog for the first time, though. Start by offering to help. Help them get a start on solving the problem on which you’ve focused your article’s exploration.
Write a brief report, like “The First Questions You Should Be Asking.” If you can, create an e-book the customer can download (or hire it done: professional writers who specialize in digital marketing can create an e-book your prospects will LOVE).
Maybe you want to offer a free consultation. Maybe even a free hour of your services. Whatever makes sense!
Whatever you decide, know that an effective digital marketing campaign usually has as one of its primary goals the creation and cultivation of a list of perfect prospects… and those perfect prospects will happily sign up to be on your list if you offer to help them before you try to sell them.
THE BOTTOM LINE...
Successful blog posts – pieces that focus on the customer first, put her at ease, prove the point through compelling stories, and offer real help with the problems customers face the most – are not impossible to create. In fact, with the right recipe, you can whip up articles that lead to delicious digital marketing success.