You own a business and you’re willing to blog but what on earth do you blog about?
Not every business is created equal in terms of ‘blogability’. For some companies it’s a lot easier to gain followers and a loyal readership simply because what they sell or do is easy to write about. This might include businesses who sell books, mobiles, laptops, travel vacations, clothes, digital services, and so on.
Before we get into a proper discussion, let’s get one thing straight – you do not need to blog every day. This is especially true if you are B2B focused. Many of your clients will be running fast-paced businesses of their own and you can guarantee that they probably won’t have time to sit back and read one of your blog posts every day. One a week should be fine. And if you can’t commit to that, one every two weeks will do. Just think – even if you wrote once a fortnight, you’d have about 25 posts in a year. That’s not bad for a company that doesn’t rely wholly on content marketing to generate business leads.
So, how do you maintain a blog when your subject matter is less chatty than most subjects allow, and if your customers, in general, are panicked business men or women with little time to spend on lengthy posts?
Here’s how you do it:
1. Establish a target audience
2. Have a lot to say. If you don’t, be prepared to do research/case studies
3. Make it engaging and funny
Establish a target audience
This is a MUST. If you do not think about who you are writing for, how will you generate business leads?
For example, at Xanthos we tend to focus on writing blog posts directed at the B2B sector. While we do design and develop websites for clients outside this sector, our specialty and the area where we see the greatest turnover, is still B2B. For this reason, we prefer not to irritate our B2B readership. We want them to find ALL content useful so that they keep checking back in.
Have a lot to say. If you don’t, be prepared to do research/case studies
So, you source label printing machines do you? Think there’s nothing to blog about? Wrong. Here are a few suggestions (you can adapt these to almost any industry):
- Industry events/tradeshow you’ve been to or are preparing for
- Case studies on clients that have purchased your machine and a discussion on how they are using it
- A blog post on products that showcase labels your machines can make
- Comparison posts – compare other machines to your machines OR compare labels made by other machines with labels made by your machines
- Artistically taken pictures of the machines – not every post has to be heavy with writing. Sometimes picture posts are even more engaging
- A history of label printing machines – perhaps broken up into different posts. This will surely establish your credibility in the field – the more it appears you know, the more respect you will likely garner
- Address commonly asked questions or a question asked by a specific client
- Post content about related topics – if your machines are made in China and there are riots near the factory that assembles them, talk about this
Think about how YOU stay on top of latest industry trends. Surely if you’re a business like a label printing machine manufacturer you’ve got to stay on top of things in order to know which machine to next start pushing?
Also, think about all the problems that you have with the product yourself. For example: disposing of it, recycling it, etc. These are questions you could answer for your customers before they even have to ask them.
See? Even the most apparently ‘unbloggable’ subject can be blogged about.
Make it engaging and funny
Regardless of the industry you work in, if you can make something funny or engaging in some way, you’re bound to hold someone’s attention a little longer.
Just because your client is a high profile business man does not mean he does not have a sense of humour. What he wants to know is this: your business knows what it’s doing and will get him the best, the cheapest, the longest lasting (whatever it is) widget or service there is.
He doesn’t care how you go about doing this, but if you can make the read more entertaining than his morning slog through the Wall Street Journal, you’re probably improving his mood and increasing the chance of a future business deal.
Being funny and engaging does not define you as unprofessional. In the sage words of copywriter and blogger Honor Clement-Hayes, ‘if you go for boring content dressed up in jargon and a mock-professional tone of voice, no one will ever read it. The key is to establish a recognisable personality and to get followers who don’t usually care about scrap metal. Then you’re building a base of potential customers who actually wouldn’t DREAM of going anywhere else if the need does arise. Comedy is the only way’.
