Building a blog is a lot like building a house or a commercial building. What you build and how you build it says a lot about how you are as a business person. Naturally, using great materials and taking the time to ensure everything is tight and well designed leads to your work being sought after. Building something shoddy means you’re going to have some skinny kids.
Don’t Have a Lazy Blog
You’ve likely dealt with subcontractors who like to take multiple-hour lunch breaks, and can never seem to get everything they need with a single trip to the hardware store. Your blog can be just like those guys, or it can be like the consummate professionals you want to work with. If you want your blog to both express that you offer a premium service and get people to contact you, there are three things your blog has to do:
Offer Interesting Content
Some people think a blog is a place to stand there and shout like a used car salesman who’s had too much coffee. You can do that, but ultimately you’ll be better served by taking a softer approach to your selling. Write your blog posts from a perspective of, “I’ll help you better understand more,” and your readers will come to respect you as an expert in your field. Who do you think they’ll want to go to when they have a project? This will attract a lot of work. Just steer clear of too much technical detail, and remember to always write about your customers, not yourself.
Ask for What You Want
There are two things your marketing needs to ask for: contact information for your e-mail list, and the sale. Some people need to be told to buy, or at the very least fill out a form asking for you to contact them. Otherwise, they might hem and haw forever, while their dream home or business remains just a dream.
Make and Test Offers
Pay careful attention to what you’re offering. When you give something such as a discount, a free estimate, an ebook about how to get what they want from a contracting company or an “extra” of some sort, see who actually responds to it. Different offers will attract different people. The more kinds of offers and the more ways you offer them, the better. Test an offer’s wording, its look, and where you offer it. Test constantly.
Blog Post Written by Taylor Vowell
Taylor Vowell is a certified inbound marketing specialist with a background in graphic design and website development. www.tmrdirect.com