Blog marketing is pretty easy if you have a marketing mind. You are going to find that many people use blogs as a diary, and many times these blogs that are used for this purpose are not intended to make them money, but simply a way to put there thoughts out there and find others that are going through the same thing. If you have never even had a blog before, the simplest thing that you can do is to start one, and just journal in it for a while. This will allow you to learn just what it takes and what it is all about to keep up a blog. When you are just your thoughts and what is on your mind, you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. You don’t even have to make your blog public if you don’t want others to read what you have to say.
That is a personal preference. However, doing this will let you see how it works. Then you can move on to trying to market a product or a service.
Using a blog to market something is cheaper than using a website. This is because there are so many free ones out there that you can use to get the word out, and they are really just as good as having a website that you pay for. There are of course some advantages to having your own URL, but for a beginner, a free one will work until you get the hang of it and want to move it all over onto your own server. The free blogs are just not that customizable. If you are not familiar with HTML, you are going to find that your blog will look like everyone else’s. But, that is ok in the beginning. You can always make changes later on once you are becoming successful.
When you have your own blog, you are in charge of the content that is posted on it. You can decide what is said, and what is not. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. Whether you want a blog that does website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make out of your home, the choice is yours. Using a blog to get the word out about whatever you want too is a great way to market and promote something.
Mistake 1: You think of ideas in a vacuum.
When you start blogging, ideas will come to you at random
times -- in the shower, on a run, while on the phone with your mom.
While the ideas may come at random moments, the ideas themselves should
never be random. Just because it's a good idea in general doesn't mean
it's a good idea for your company.
Solution: Your blog posts should all serve larger company goals.
The reason you're blogging is to grow your business, so all of your blog post ideas should help serve those growth goals. They should have natural tie-ins to issues in your industry and address specific questions and concerns your prospects have.
Need help figuring out what those goals are and how to
address them? Chat with your manager about the larger company goals,
then schedule a meeting with someone in Sales to hear what questions
they get asked most often. After both meetings, you should know which
goals you need to achieve and have some ideas on how to achieve them.
Mistake 2: Your writing is too stiff.
Writing a blog post is much different than writing a term paper --
but when bloggers first start out, they usually only have experience
with the latter. But that's not the style of writing people enjoy
reading.
Solution: Write like you talk.
It's okay to be more conversational in your writing -- in fact, we
encourage it. The more approachable your writing is, the more people
will enjoy reading it. People want to feel like they're doing business
with real people, not robots.
So loosen up your writing. Throw in contractions. Get rid of the
jargon. Make a pun or two. That's how real people talk -- and that's
what real people like to read.
Need help loosening up? Try literally talking out your blog posts using Evernote, and
then cleaning it up a bit in the editing stage. Sounds kind of
backwards, but it could help you get unstuck from boring business
babble.
Mistake 3: You think people care about you as a writer.
It sounds harsh, but it's true. When people first start out blogging,
they think that their audience will be inherently interested in
their stories and
their
interests ... but that's not the case. It's no knock against them as a
person -- it's just that when you're new, no one is interested in you
and your experiences. People care way
more about what you can teach them.
Solution: Show your personality, don't tell it.
Even though people don't really care that it's
you that's
writing the post, you can infuse parts of your personality in your
writing to make them feel more comfortable with you. How you do that is
entirely up to you. Some people like to crack jokes, some like to make
pop culture references, and others have a way with vivid descriptions.
You could do any of those things, or something entirely different.
