How To Grow Your Startup Business With a Blog
“The best way to sell something: don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect and trust of those who might buy.” — Rand Fishkin, CEO and Founder, SEOmoz
How does an startup or small business earn the respect, trust, and awareness that Rand Fishkin is referring to?
You could obtain awareness by spending a lot of money on advertising and hiring a PR agency. But it is risky and probably will not deliver you the respect or trust you need in order to nurture customers and ultimately grow your business.
Today’s successful businesses are relying more on establishing social communications to build that trust with potential and ideal customers.
How?
They are building their awareness and trust via their own blog.
One of the easiest ways to raise awareness about your business is to create and maintain your own blog.
Imagine having your own free media channel and marketing platform. Best of all, it is the most efficient way to get visitors to your retail location or website.
Let’s start with the benefits of your own blog;
1) Attracts potential customers
2) Interact and inform your potential customers about your product
3) Grow inbound links and more relevant website traffic
4) Another chance for your website to be indexed and found by search engines
5) Establish your brand, build trust, and establish credibility
6) Combines the informational elements of your website, newsletter, and forums
7) Builds sales
8) Start building your email list- the best way to directly reach your audience
Blogging also benefits your business by taking the visitor through the sales funnel.
It starts by getting your potential customer to your front door.
Great content on the blog will attract visitors who will become return visitors. Eventually, seeing the value of the information you provide, they will become subscribers.
Loyal subscribers are your end goal.
They become advocates of your company, products or services, and the source of new revenue and clients.
Blogs also get shared on social networks. The sharing of your blog posts increases your audience and attracts potential clients you might never reach.
At Sozial Monster, we post to LinkedIn, LinkedIn Groups, LinkedIn Pulse, Facebook Groups, Google + communities, Twitter, Branded.me, Imzy and Medium.
3 Secrets to Attracting Traffic used by the Most Successful Bloggers
1) Write articles that accomplish at least one or more of the following five objectives; entertain, add value, persuade, educate, or convert. Start building your email list from day your start your blog. Here is a simple content marketing strategy for your business.
2) Help your audience solve a problem. Keep your focus on helping, rather than selling. Target people who have an issue or problem you or your product/ service can address in an emphatic manner.
3) Write for your audience and not for yourself. It is not about you or your problems they want to read about. Help them with their issues, concerns and pain points and you will have a loyal following.
Successful startups use their blog to cover topics people care to learn more about. Your company’s blog is not for hard selling or other PR announcements.
Will it be easy? No.
These Actions are Required to Run A Successful Business Blog:
a) Patience, on your part, is crucial. No blog is instantly successful.
b) It takes some time to research ideas and write insightful content.
c) Commit to publishing new articles a couple times a month.
The more quality articles posted on your blog will, over time, generate more leads and more customers. Your potential customers are waiting to hear from you!
CONCLUSION
To create a successful business, you will need to build up trust and confidence with your audience. Add value by educating and helping your audience and the sales and loyal customers will come.
Tactics that works well for one business might not be effective for another, so it’s important to take the time to develop your plan — and to be ready to pivot if necessary. It may seem daunting, but in the long run, it’ll help you improve engagement, keep your customers happy, and drive your leads and sales.
For more knowledge on how to utilize your own blog see Why it is Essential Companies have a Business Blog.
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About The Author
Scott Johnson is the Co-Founder of Sozial Monster. You can connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.
