While the benefits of blogging are numerous, content strategy will be necessary to create blog posts that are truly effective. Blogging simply for the sake of blogging or creating blog posts in the blind are two sure ways to confuse potential customers. Frequent blogging a great way to communicate directly with your target audience. The benefits range from instructional, to educational to even providing specialized information. We still come across several businesses where blogging is not used and often times this represents a missed opportunity. We understand that writing unique and compelling content on a consistent basis is not easy. It takes careful thought and planning and often a dedicated resource is either not available or too expensive. However from our experience we have seen the advantages of blogging and we strongly recommend it to many of our clients. It’s worth the investment in time or even hiring an experienced writer to do the job well. However blogging without a content strategy in place will not achieve nearly the same success.
Blogging and content strategy go hand in hand and one without the other may prove to be a fruitless experiment.
Content strategy is where you determine what types of content will be created and how such content will be used. Not only is subject matter a high priority, but also what types of assets such as photography if any will be incorporated. The content strategy will be unique to every business and should be tailored to the brand and business objectives. What content would be most influential and what type of content does your customer want to read about most? A professional writer will take a step back and dive deeper into understanding the target audience and specific needs. The businesses that take the time to study and analyze the demographic information of their customer base is definitely ahead of the game! This may sound complicated but it’s worth the investment in time.
There are a variety of tools available for performing such target audience analysis. In the B2B market you can even start preliminary work by creating a simple spreadsheet to track the demographic information of each and every client your business has acquired over the last 6 months. Other firms may choose to segment further and focus on a specific industry or review only the largest clients. Reviewing the data carefully and discovering what each client has in common may bring about some unexpected results. Consider where your company found these customers, or how these customers found your business. Take a deep dive into the data and look for patterns or similarities. Often times the similarities will jump right off the page and other times it takes a bit more work. Where the customer base is large it will take a more rigorous approach of going through the various data points with a fine tooth-comb. Regardless of complexity, the analysis is worth the extra work and will help determine key similarities that should be considered during the creation of content strategy. This strategy may then be blended with creativity to establish an effective strategy for communicating directly with potential customers.
It’s interesting to note that demographic information alone will not be sufficient to secure a deep understanding of your primary and secondary target audience. It’s important to understand your customer’s needs and intentions.
Understanding your customer’s frame of mind and where your customer is at in the purchase cycle will also impact content strategy.
Different customers are often at different stages within the purchase cycle. So when it comes to creating strong blog posts you really need to understand these various stages so that you are able to communicate effectively to each customer within each stage. It’s hard enough to pull a customer to your website, so when they arrive make certain your business takes full advantage of each and every opportunity. Because a lost opportunity, is one that will likely never return. Know what types of information your customers are looking for. More importantly, what types of information will influence customers to conversion or purchase. These are just a few of the basic questions an expert marketer will take the time to learn about. And such answers are required if you are looking to establish a content strategy that will lead to producing winning blog posts for your business.