Every marketing plan is like its own recipe to concoct the perfect dish, an audience that’s ready to eat it all up. If used correctly, your blog can help make your marketing plan a killer dish.
Using your blog for marketing research
Your blog gives you a great opportunity to study what your readers are doing beyond just how many site visits you receive in a day.
A review of the analytics can help figure out what your reader’s need before they even state it. Marketing surveys are notoriously flawed because there is often a disconnect between what the person thinks they do, and what they actually do when they are not being judged. Your blog gives you the opportunity to study what your readers are doing in their own element.
Things like where ae they coming from, or what do they exit to, can shed some insight into their behaviour. What posts or pages do readers check out the most. What do they share or email the most, what do they not respond to. This can help tailor your posts to meet their needs, and answer your own question: what problems do your readers face, and how can you help?
Using your blog for marketing your ideas
Be careful, because it’s not about you, it’s about your readers. By making your posts useful and relevant to them you can lead them to trust you as a resource and have them primed to buy what you sell.
Avoid self-praising posts, show don’t tell your audience why you are useful to their lives. Think of your site traffic or online visitors as window-shoppers, if they see enough on display to entice them into the store, then they will give you their trust by opting into your mailing list, and allow you to talk to them further, pulling them into making a buy.
But remember, it’s not about you, it’s about your usefulness to your customers and audience.
Using your blog for customer service
On a podcast the other day I heard about how the Hilton concierge service once helped save the life of one man’s dog, by telling them a good vet to take the dog via Twitter.
That’s remarkable. The guy was not even a customer nor did he direct the question to the Hilton hotel, but it’s a service he will most likely never forget, and will share with his friends and family. That is a proactive marketing and customer service approach, your blog can do it too.
By reaching out to people posting questions or tweets with a solution that does not include an immediate buy, you can help them develop a good impression of your brand and some goodwill towards your business. If it’s exceptional enough perhaps they’ll spread the great experience they had, spreading the goodwill about your business, and their personal stamp of approval. That’s something no amount of advertising can buy.
Business have been built on blogging by understanding their audience. Starting your blog off with some good advice, building trust, an establishing a great reputation can take you further than any advertising campaign ever could. Blogging could be that secret ingredient to your special marketing sauce.
Image credit: Flickr-Mrs Magic
This post is part of a series that will get published on Content Marketing or Blogging, follow me via Twitter or E-mail to receive your fresh copy of helpful small business online marketing strategies.
Daisy Quaker is an internet marketing consultant, specializing in social media strategy, content marketing, e-mail marketing and internet marketing strategy, connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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