Business blogging basics
There can be many advantages to having a blog as we do here at Juniper. All of the businesses we work with are run by passionate people with lots to share, but for some writing can be daunting. With this in mind, we wanted to share some basics to get you started.
Know your audience
The first step is to decide on the purpose and target audience of your blog. Although they are all ultimately to drive growth, there are a number of approaches you could take. Maybe you want to create a community around your product, to drive discussion around a cause associated with your business or to help support your clients and community with advice. Having a central purpose and clear audience will help keep the content and tone of your articles focused and if your audience knows you have consistently interesting content it’ll give them a reason to keep coming back, which ultimately draws them to your services.
Content is key
The golden rule - do not waffle! You’re asking someone to give up their valuable time to read what you’ve written so make it count. One tip is to distill your article into 4-5 key messages - write these down as short one sentence bullet points and use them as the start point. Imagine you have a word limit on the article, scrutinise each sentence and think about what you would cut out if you weren’t able to include everything. What would be vital in getting your message across and what could you cut out with little impact. The other important thing to note here is ensuring your content is inline with your brand values and philosophy. For example, if your business is all about supporting and helping parents managing challenging situations like one of our clients Rest Assured, then writing in a supportive, non-judgemental tone is critical in engaging your followers.
Borrow good ideas from others
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Now, we’re not suggesting you should ever copy content but it’s a good idea to look out for other blogs that you like or are popular and see what you can learn from them. You could have a flick through competitor posts or brands you admire and see what they are doing and then think about how it might apply to your business. Perhaps they have good use of imagery, have a tone or writing style that you like or are great at attention grabbing headlines. It’s worth investing time in ensuring you remain relevant and interesting.
Get your blog out to the world!
There is zero point in writing articles if you don’t promote them and share them with your audience. Decide where the anchor is going to be for your blog - one obvious place is your own website but some industries have high profile forums such as Medium which are often used as the repository for content because they reach a wide audience. You might also want to think about reposting to other industry blogs and including a link back to your blog or setting up a mailing list to regularly update subscribers with new material.
Have a ‘proper’ plan
There’s nothing worse than posting a couple of blogs and then…nothing. If you want your customers to keep taking notice you need to make sure you give them regular useful content. You don’t need to have anything too fancy - a simple spreadsheet with content ideas, your target audience for each piece, the channels you plan to use to publish it and of course the deadlines you’re working towards - will do. Remember a blog is not essential and it’s not right for every business and it can be more damaging to have something poorly maintained as it can look unprofessional, so don’t just start one because you think you have to!
Most importantly - get feedback from the people that matter
As you might with your products and services make sure you get feedback on what you’re writing to check it’s relevant so that you can make adjustments if needed. You could look at any data you collect on your articles and see if you can spot commonalities in the most successful posts. Alternatively ask your audience directly - although they might be a good first check point, resist the urge to just ask your partner or best friend they’re likely to be biased. Maybe you could seek out genuine customers in your social networks or perhaps you have strong relationships with some clients or customers that can offer honest input.
Which brings me to my final point - let us know what you think of this article and our blog! Get in touch if you have any thoughts. Also don’t forget, if your blog needs a facelift or you if fancy giving one a go but feel stuck we’re happy to pitch in with some advice!
