This isn’t a PSA, it’s a BSA. So business owners, listen up for how to create the best blogs.
Business Service Announcement: Stop using your blog for promoting your own goods and services.
Why? It’s driving people away and ruining your level of trustworthiness with consumers.
The best blogs don’t sell to customers; rather, they significantly contribute to business growth by building rapport, trust, and brand loyalty with customers.
Read on to learn how to nurture your relationship with readers and not have them running for the hills from blatant sales promos.
What the Best Blogs Are Not
The best blogs on the internet have one thing in common: the main purpose is not to immediately sell a product. Before we get to what the best blogs are, let’s talk about what blogs are not.
The Best Blogs Are Not Sales Opportunities
Blogs are a part of the sales funnel, but they are at the very top of the sales funnel. This means that many of your potential content-consumers are cold leads and it’s your job to start warming them up to your brand. Get your readers interested in the topic, entertain them, and build trust with them by becoming a reliable source for information — not another product commercial.
Blogs can be a great source of website traffic and that traffic can turn into customers. But you have to give them a reason to stay without selling to them. A Kentico Software study showed that even just signing off your blog post with a sales pitch brings your credibility level down by 29%.
Your Blog Is Not Your Company Newsfeed
Since blogs are a top-of-funnel strategy, readers searching for a source of information or entertainment are not invested in your company — yet.
You may be really excited about your company successes, recent hires, and product launches but readers seek out the best blogs that provide information relevant to their own lives. Leave your company news to the press releases.
Product Announcements Belong Elsewhere
According to a HubSpot survey, only 4% of consumers said they read blogs to learn about brands or products. The odds that a reader is coming to your blog to learn about what products or services you offer are quite low, so don’t waste the space or opportunity.
The Best Blogs Are Not All About You
Overall, readers are not looking to be pitched at and are not ready to be fully immersed with what your brand is all about. They need to build trust and form a relationship with you first.
Rather, save your brand messaging for your website, your email nurturing, and your social media profiles.
What the Best Blogs Are
If you want to make the most out of your blog content, your blog should be about enriching readers’ lives. HubSpot found that 33% of readers read blogs to learn something new, 20% to be entertained, and 12% for news related to their industry.
The Best Blogs Provide Wisdom
Your blog should provide knowledge, wisdom, or insights that you can offer to make a reader’s life happier, job easier, and relationships more stable.
The best blogs put the readers’ needs first. Do some market research and find out what your readers are looking to learn about. You can then position your blog as a useful resource to answer their most difficult questions and deepest curiosities. Over time, you’ll earn the implicit trust of your audience as the go-to resource for your particular solution, which will extend to product sales.
Your Blog Can Be A Source of Entertainment
Some of the best blogs don’t just provide educational or informative content. Rather, they serve as a source of entertainment to readers.
Is your brand funny? Trendy? Do you have a strong meme game?
Use your brand personality in your blog to serve as a source of fun and entertainment for your readers.
A great example of an entertaining blog is PrettyLitter’s. Cornell wrote content for PrettyLitter for more than 3 years. Our goal was to position PrettyLitter as an authority in cat health, but also a source of feel-good, entertaining content that simply put a smile on readers’ faces.
You Can Provide Relevant & Informative News
Your blog could be about the latest news and breakthroughs in your industry and how they could impact your audience.
A great example of a news-focused blog that provides value to readers is the SUBTA blog. SUBTA — the Subscription Trade Association — is a resource and professional development platform for subscription businesses and owners. Their blog provides timely news and information on industry trends and insights.
Position your brand as an expert in the field by showing that you are in-the-know and on top of industry trends. Your readers will be more likely to trust you and your brand and in turn, more likely to trust your product or service.
The Best Blogs Are For The Reader
The bottom line is that the best blogs have the readers’ best interest in mind. Notice I didn’t say “customer.” Mental shift, anyone?
The best blogs build trust with readers by making it easy to find answers to their questions, making them laugh, or teaching them something new.
Copywriting vs. Blog Writing
So when is an appropriate time for sales and promoting your products? The right places for this include your product descriptions, website pages, emails, sales pages, social media ads, and publicity material. This kind of writing is called copywriting and it’s very different from content creation.
A blog, on the other hand, is a great place to become a thought leader in your industry. It’s not a great place for sales. In fact, using your blog for sales can feel like a betrayal to your audience because consumers have come to expect value from blogs, not promotions.
This doesn’t mean that your blog can’t provide value to your business. Your blog can still contribute to brand growth by presenting opportunities for people to join your email address, offering content upgrades and lead magnets, or asking readers to engage with and share your content with others.
According to Demand Gen Report, “six out of ten buyers [reported] seeing the value of blog posts at the start of their purchase journey.”
Use your blog as a relationship-building tool. Nurture the relationship by putting readers first and welcoming them into your brand culture.
It’s Like Dating
Imagine you’re set up on a blind date. You’re already apprehensive, unsure of what’s about to befall you. Will you be met by an attractive, witty, intelligent creature who charms the pants off of you? Or will you be met by an egotistical, shallow creep who’s only concerned with what you can offer for the taking?
When you use your blog to promote your product or service, you become that egotistical, shallow taker. Ergo, all those negative, slimy feelings you have when you think of such a person become part of your own brand identity in the eyes of the people who you want to impress most.
That’s completely counterproductive to the purpose of marketing and content creation.
When you use your blog to help others, add value to someone else’s life, provide information, and otherwise do selfless good deeds, your brand ends up basking in the warm, fuzzy glow of adoration and gratitude.
Very productive.
Think of your blog as your dating profile. It’s not about sales. It’s about molding your reputation, building attraction, and establishing long-term relationships that will be mutually beneficial.
Have questions? Comment below or email Cornell. We’ll help you sort out your most effective marketing strategy.
