Word of Mouth Marketing Success Series
It’s been a busy week around here, discussing the ways you can get word of mouth marketing to work for your business. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the series and were able to pick up some ideas on how you can leverage the power of word of mouth to market your products and services. Below is a recap in case you missed any of the articles throughout the week.
Getting Word of Mouth Marketing to Work For You
If you want advertising that has a guaranteed return on investment, and the highest conversion rate going, you’ll want to check out our first part in the series which introduces you to some limitations of traditional marketing vs. the power word of mouth offers
Three Pillars for Word of Mouth Success
We will continued our discussion of the power of word of mouth marketing with this follow up article which outlines the foundation any word of mouth campaign needs to be successful.
Building Buzz by Being Buzz Worthy
Getting your customers to talk about you is not your goal with word of mouth marketing – you want them absolutely buzzing about you and what you do! Here we lay out some ideas and strategies to help you get the buzz going about your business.
Social Networks, Influencers, and Word of Mouth
What role do social networks and influencers play in your word of mouth marketing campaign? This article discusses the importance of social networks and how to find the influencers to kick your word of mouth marketing into high gear.
Successful Viral and Word of Mouth Marketing is all About Emotions
The final part in our series was a guest post which looked at how a viral message spreads, and what emotions are necessary to evoke a viral response to your content.
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Successful Viral and Word of Mouth Marketing is All About Emotions
The following guest post from Thomas Sharpton of smbZen.com is part five in our series on Getting Word of Mouth Marketing to Work for You. Be sure to check out part one, part two, part three and part four to get caught up!
As though it were some new dance craze, everyone wants their content to ‘go viral.’
And it makes sense; viral marketing has proven to be the most explosive, cost-effective means of building brand awareness.
If I find something interesting and believe you will too, I will naturally share it with you via the myriad communication channels available on the Internet.
When it comes right down to it, viral marketing is really just a form of word-of-mouth, or referral, marketing. As such, knowledge of the factors that make word of mouth marketing effective can enhance our ability to successfully implement viral marketing campaigns.
Five Elements to Word of Mouth Marketing
According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, word of mouth marketing “leverages interpersonal communication between individuals to drive product awareness and growth.” Most word of mouth marketing campaigns consider five elements:
- Educating people about your products and services
- Identifying people most likely to share their opinions
- Providing tools that make it easier to share information
- Studying how, where, and when opinions are being shared
- Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and neutrals
Viral Marketing and Emotion
This list can serve as a useful viral marketing strategy guide. Educating individuals and providing sharing tools are certainly necessary to obtain viral distribution, and responding to feedback and identifying proper metrics can facilitate success.
However, one crucial and proven aspect of word of mouth marketing is missing from this traditional list: emotional resonance.
In “Why pass on viral messages? Because they connect emotionally,” researchers from the Kelly School of Business demonstrate that consumers are compelled to share experiences that resonate with them on an emotional level.
When we are presented with something emotionally moving, whether it be humorous, inspiring, or fear inducing, we are enticed to share the experience, more so than the content, with others. Successful viral distribution thus depends on providing the target audience with both an emotional experience wrapped up in marketing content and the means to share that experience within their social network.
Matching Emotion with Brand
But as is the nature (and often the goal) of marketing, content that elicits an emotional response will serve to tie that emotion to the company’s brand. As a result, determining which emotional response to evoke in association with a brand is a big decision rife with consequences.
Fortunately, the aforementioned researchers provide insight in this regard. For example, joy and humor are best suited towards companies with irreverent or fun brands or those looking to revitalize their image, while sadness is best used in cases of disaster or in response to social situations that seek short-term remedies such as natural disasters. Anger, on the other hand, are best used to express injustice and a call to action that involves a long-term commitment.
Right Message, Right Emotion, Right Way
With theses findings in hand, you can maximize the viral capacity of your marketing content and increase its distribution across social networks. However, don’t forget along the way that successful viral marketing campaigns are more than just making the customer feel a certain way. Viral messages need the right message, the right emotions, and the right sharing tools.
Arpan Jhaveri and Thomas Sharpton are the founders of smbZen.com, a company that supports small business growth. You can read more of their small business advice and insight at bizjournal.smbzen.com.
References
1. http://womma.org/wom101/
2. Why pass on viral messages? Because they connect emotionally, Business Horizons (2007) 50, 291–304
Photo Credit: alexander yee [spy cam]
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Social Networks, Influencers, and Word of Mouth
This is part four in our series on Getting Word of Mouth Marketing to Work for You. Be sure to check out part one, part two, and part three to get caught up!
Word of mouth marketing is by nature a social activity. Its no wonder then that it lends itself so well to the social networks we form.
Whether it be physical or virtual networks, business or for pleasure, understanding the dynamics of the social network is imperative to word of mouth success.
Blending Networks
The lines between online networks and offline networks are fairly ambiguous. Day to day interactions continue as online conversations and vice versa. Your focus cannot be on one or the other, but needs to encompass both.
Online Networks
- Forums
- Review sites
- Social networks – Twitter, Facebook, etc
- Blogs
- Fan sites
Physical Networks
- In person, face to face
- Clubs
- Community organizations
- More commonly, informal communication by peer groups
These are the places your conversations are taking place, and it should be the goal of the word of mouth marketer to engage these groups to talk about what you are doing.
Setting the Stage for Conversation
You can use the same techniques we discussed yesterday to build buzz with the groups, but only after you’ve taken the time to:
Listen:
- Engaging them in open, unfiltered conversation
- Promptly and honestly responding to their concerns
- Valuing customer opinion, whether it is positive, negative, or neutral
Engage the community:
- Identify the influencers
- Educate people about your products
- Make your product/message easily shareable
- Manage buzz blockers, in this case listen to the conversations and engage the supporters, answer the detractors, and convert the neutrals.
Once you’ve listened, your focus shifts to engaging them and specifically engaging the key influencer’s of the group.
The Role of the Influencer
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association defines an influencer as:
“A person who has a greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace.”
10% of consumers influence the other 90% of buyers. You want to connect with those 10% – the influencers.
How do you Find the Influencers?
Influencers usually rise to the top of any discussion, they stick out, that’s why people listen to what they say and do what they do.
Some are well known on a large scale, but influencers exists in the smallest of networks too. Think about your groups of friends – who’s the leader? That’s an influecner to your peer group as much as any celebrity or expert.
Online and off you will need to really listen to your customers, think about trends, and identify who they are following and in what networking format.
What do you Want Them to Do?
You want to create a relationship between the influencer, yourself, or your products in the hopes they talk about you. They are not there to promote for you, your product will promote itself and they will talk about it naturally with their groups and “followers”.
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The larger scale of the influencer the bigger you’re going to have to go to get their attention.
Audi recently gave Guy Kawasaki a new R8 sports car to drive for a few weeks in hopes he would blog about it. They knew he was an influencer, and one with exceptional reach in online social networks.
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Approach your influencers with a value exchange. What are they getting, and what do you hope to get in return? Guy got a free car for a couple days, and that was enough value to get him to talk about it on his blog. If Audi had of offered him a $500 rebate on the car, do you think he would have talked about it?
Remember
The same rules apply with influencers as with any word of mouth marketing, you’ll want to be sure you are implementing the 3 pillars of success we talked about in part 1 of this series.
Have great content – Make it shareable – Call to Action
Managing the Conversation
As you engage the social networks, and make contacts and relationships with the groups influencers you will need to manage the conversation. How do you manage the conversation? The same way you deal with negative buzz:
- Listen to the conversations and engage the supporters, answer the detractors, and convert the neutrals.
- Remember, negative conversations can be a big learning opportunity. If negativity comes from a consumer who has yet to try your product or service, see if you can get it in their hands. If they’ve tried you and just don’t like you, drill into the “why”. Possibly they aren’t representative of your target market, or maybe you have a flaw in your product of delivery model. Both can be learned from and approved upon as you move forward.
Putting it all Together
Social networks are a blend of online and offline communication. This communication is happening naturally, and thus lends itself well to word of mouth marketing.
Your job is to find the social networks your consumers live in, listen to the conversations they are having, and then engage them in talking about your products and services by using the techniques we discussed in building the buzz.
Your focus in the social networks should be around finding the key influencers, that 10% who influence the group, and getting them interacting with what you are selling.
Influencers are your business partners. Approach them not as a person there to promote you, but as someone you want on your side to help you spread the word.
You last step is to manage the conversations, while drawing upon some of the buzz building techniques to keep it headed in the right direction.
Up Next:
Elements in a Successful Word of Mouth Campaign
- Social media’s role – Getting viral
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Photo Credit: sml!
Building Buzz by Being Buzz Worthy
This is part three in our series on Getting Word of Mouth Marketing to Work for You. Be sure to check out part one, and part two to get caught up!
To realize the true potential word of marketing can have for your business it’s important to not have consumers just talking about you.
You want them literally buzzing about your products and services!
To Buzz Is Natural…
Humans are programed to share information, to connect and communicate with each other. We do so for a variety of reasons, from self serving “bragging” to seeking advice or gossiping its all part of the interactions we do everyday to maintain our social network.
This natural communication is good news from the perspective of a word of mouth campaign. To get consumers to talk about your product, really all you need to do is give them a reason to and then spur them along to do what they are going to do already – talk.
…And You’ll Give Them Something to Buzz About
Your job when building buzz is to accelerate natural communication. Play into the fact that your market will be talking anyway, so they may as well be talking about you! Knowing what makes you buzz worthy, and playing into that will help you start their conversations and keep them buzzing.
The intention of today’s discussion is not to tell you step by step what to do in order to build buzz for your specific product, but to get you thinking about the elements that go into creating buzz and then applying them to your unique situation.
Where do Your Customers Live? What do They Value?
The first order of business when building buzz is to figure out where your customers live – where do they converse. This will shape how you approach them to get them talking about you. Are they talking face to face, or in forums on the internet. Writing reviews online, or in emails to friends. Are they doing all of these things simultaneously? Find out where and how they are communicating and only then can you shape those communications.
Next, what do they value? Does your target market value peer approval, or is there an element of being an outsider they identify with. Nothing will kill buzz quicker than getting this wrong.
How to Start the Conversation
Have a stellar product. Provide top notch service.
It all starts with this, no easy way around it. If somebody else does what you do better than you – I’m talking about them, not you.
Get In Their Hands and Heads
If your product and services rock, you can’t afford not to give it away for free. Get what you do in front of them. Get them to use it, experience, and love it.
In order to stimulate buzz you have to get your products and services in the hands of your users. First hand experience is much stronger than explaining benefits, and translates better to further communication on their part.
Giving it away also eliminates the biggest barrier between you and the customer – cost. Lowering the cost can work in some instances to get them trying your product, but free is still the best price of all. If nothing else they will talk about how cool it was they got something for nothing.
Reward Customers for Talking About You
Build in a referral reward system; make it worth their while to talk about you. Make this reward big enough to get their attention. Discounts, more free products, what ever the incentive may be the key here is to reward their “good” performance. Good performance in this case is spreading the word about what you are doing. Not only are we motivated by getting more free stuff, or discounts, it lets the consumer know it is okay for them to share with their friends about you.
The bigger you go with this the more buzz you will generate. Think about this – which am I more likely to talk about 1) Getting a 5% rebate from the car dealership by referring 10 friends to check out their cars or 2) Getting a FREE car if I refer 10 people who end up buying!
The reward referral system needs to make good financial sense, so think it through. But, in the example above if I make 500% more by selling 10 cars and giving one away for free, then it’s time to start giving away cars.
Use Social Proof Techniques
Once you’ve got the product out there, you should begin to use social proof techniques to bolster the message. Simply put social proof means that people are more likely to do, and continue to do, what they see other people doing. So by the sheer fact that consumers are using what you provide, having positive interactions, and talking about you will get others to do the same. If you drive by a restaurant that is packed and next door is an empty restaurant – which one do you determine to have better food?
You can use the social proof phenomenon to your advantage by publicizing as much as possible that people dig what you do. Testimonials, positive reviews, lines out your front door will all serve as social proof that you rock – use it!
What are the Buzz Blockers?
Once you’ve got your product and service to your market. They love what you are doing, and they are engaged in talking about it and referring you to others, your focus shifts to keeping the conversation going. The following are the most common buzz blockers, and understanding the drivers of each will go a long way in helping you overcome them.
Typically buzz blockers include consumer distractions, forgetfulness, negative buzz, and time lapse. Let’s look at each.
Consumer Distraction
Consumers are bombarded daily with messages from businesses who want their money. While it may seem interesting for a while to try something new, or branch out, when faced with sensory overload consumers will retreat to what they know.
They Forget
That’s right, sometimes consumers will just plain forget about you and what you are doing. They are busy people, with busy lives, and you may not be at the top of the mind. Not because you’ve got an inferior product, it just slips their mind.
Negative Buzz
Some people will be bad mouthing you, it’s just going to happen. Negative buzz can spread, studies show not quite as quick as positive buzz, but it can stunt your campaign.
Time Lapse
Eventually you will be faced with the reality that for your product or service the buzz has run its course. This could be due to shifting priorities and values of your target market, or due to a more natural shift from “new and exciting” to “tried and true”. Also over time the consumer will run out of people to tell. In their social circles there will no longer be the opportunity to spread the word.
Keeping the Momentum Up – Overcoming the Buzz Blockers
Momentum will have a lot to do with you. Are you following up with customers, asking them how they are liking what you are doing, reminding them about your services, and monitoring/tweaking your referral and reward program? You should be. Building buzz, and keeping the momentum is not a “set it and forget it” endeavor. Remind your customers why you rock, and why they should be talking about you in the first place. Let social proof “prove” your case.
What to do About Negative Buzz
Any negative buzz you receive should be looked at as an opportunity. If negativity comes from a consumer who has yet to try your product or service, see if you can get it in their hands. If they’ve tried you and just don’t like you, drill into the “why”. Possibly they aren’t representative of your target market, or maybe you have a flaw in your product of delivery model. Both can be learned from and approved upon as you move forward – making you more efficient and buzz worthy.
You’ll also want to use this as an opportunity to reinforce the positive buzz you are getting. Negative buzz should account for a small percentage of the total conversation, make sure they happy customers know that, or the laws of social proof will work against you.
Putting it all Together
In order for buzz to work you’ll need to get to the places your target market does its talking, and we’ll talk more about specific strategies to infiltrate those conversations in follow up’s to this series.
From there you’ll let your stellar product, or exceptional service start the buzz ball rolling by getting it in the hands of your consumers. They need to feel it, experience it, and love it before they can talk about it and recommend it to their friends.
Once they begin to talk you’ll build in systems to reward them for doing this, understanding the bigger the reward the more they will talk and the louder the buzz will be.
Lastly, as this cycle plays out you’ll be monitoring the buzz and doing your best to overcome the buzz blockers by reinforcing your message, tweaking your reward programs, and using social proof to your advantages.
The goal in getting buzz about your products and services is to use what humans do naturally, communicate, to work for spreading the word about what you’re selling. You are only spurring those conversations by encouraging them to talk about and recommend you.
Up Next:
Elements in a Successful Word of Mouth Campaign
• Understanding social networks
• Using the influencer
• Social media’s role
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Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk
Three Pillars for Word of Mouth Success
This is part two in our series on Getting Word of Mouth Marketing to Work for You. Be sure to check out part one and get caught up!
We started the conversation yesterday on how powerful and cost effective word of mouth marketing can be.
Today we want to look at what goes into a successful word of mouth marketing campaign, what factors you’ll need to be successful, and then we’ll discuss the elements you can implement to make word of mouth work for you.
What is the Goal of Word of Mouth Marketing?
Simply put, your goal with any word of mouth marketing campaign is to get conversations started and shared about your product or service within your target consumer market.
Everything you do from a word of mouth marketing perspective needs to support that goal. Plain and simple.
You want consumers talking about your product, sharing their experiences, and selling for you in the course of their everyday conversations.
Once you understand this, the only other questions become:
1) Why are they having the conversation?
2) How and where are the conversations taking place?
Answering those two questions, with the goal in mind you want the conversation to be about you, sets your entire word of mouth plan into action.
Three Pillars for Word of Mouth Success
The first question was 1) Why are the consumers having the conversation? The answer is due to at least one of the following three pillars. The most successful word of mouth campaigns will strike on all three of the below.
Content
Your content is the key to your message, and will be the foundation on which word of mouth is spread. Without killer content, you’re sunk.
What do we mean by content? Content is what you produce, what you sell, what you want people to buy. Awesome products, services, and delivery methods will get people talking.
Unless you know why your product is superior, or what makes your service special, you will never be able get your consumers to sell it for you.
Think for a moment – when was the last time you were excitedly telling a friend about an average product? It doesn’t happen, and it won’t happen for you. Know what makes you special, what sets you apart, and what your consumers will tell their friends about what you do.
Shareability
Maybe I just made that word up, but the point is how easy it is to share your content, and your message, will partially determine your success with word of mouth marketing.
There are numerous ways in which something can be shared. Verbal, face to face conversations. Physically giving your content to another person. Emailing, or digital dissemination. All are ways in which we share, or converse.
But why would a consumer share your product or service?
- It tells a story they can relate too
- Illicit a feeling or emotion
- The benefit or experience one would gain is obvious
- There is a shared understanding of it’s importance (and importance could be any utility it provides, whether it be functional, emotional, humor, or practicality)
Tell me a story that I will feel good retelling. Have a product that hits an emotional chord with me. Sell me a benefit, or an experience. Those are going to be easy for me to share.
Call to Action
The final pillar to a successful word of mouth campaign is a call to action for your consumer. What do you want them to do?
In this case it’s spread the word, and many times it can be as easy as asking them to. Most successful word of mouth happens due to the consumers being told it’s “okay to share” in one form or another.
Don’t let your marketing efforts fall flat because your consumer doesn’t know they are supposed to be spreading the word! We’ll touch on some specific ways you can “ask” them to spread the word in upcoming parts to this series. For now just understand that without a call to action for the consumer, you risk the chance of them not knowing what their next step should be.
Putting it All Together
Once you understand the goal of word of mouth marketing is to get your consumers talking about you, and you understand why those conversations are happening, the final piece in getting this to work for you is to look at how and where those conversations are taking place.
You want your word of mouth campaign to infiltrate where the consumers live, and be communicated in a manner that they want to hear. This is where the rubber hits the road – and is the next part in our series…
Up Next:
Elements in a Successful Word of Mouth Campaign
- Understanding social networks
- Using the influencer
- Social media’s role
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Photo Credit: Lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels!!
Getting Word of Mouth to Work for You
The world of advertising can be tough – really tough.
Finding the right medium, sending the right message, and using the right channels are only half the battle. Getting your target market to actually see your advertising, and then take action based upon it, is the other half.
Take into account your advertising budget is getting pinched, and the pressure is high in ensuring your advertising dollars are realizing a positive return on investment (ROI), you don’t have the economic luxury of trying new things out to see what works.
Consider This
- Only 18% of TV advertisements generate a positive ROI
- 84% of B2B campaigns resulted in lower sales
- Only 14% of consumers trust ads
- 69% of consumers are “interested” in ad blocking technology
Pretty depressing data if you are trying to get your products and services in front of your target market!
What’s the Alternative?
There is one form of advertising that has always worked, and will continue to work, and has nearly a guaranteed positive ROI. It’s the most trusted form of advertising out there, has no shelf life, and will always be well received by your market – so what is it?
Word Of Mouth!
That’s right, possibly the most perfect form of marketing your products and services is through word of mouth.
If you’re not sure how powerful word of mouth can be, take a look at these statistics:
- 2/3 of the United States Economy is driven by word of mouth
- 10% of consumers influence the purchasing decisions of the other 90%
- 91% of consumers are “likely” to buy off of a recommendation
- 92% of consumers “prefer” a word of mouth recommendation
Looking Ahead
First off, those numbers should get you a little excited about the power word of mouth marketing has.
Couple those statistics with an advertising campaign that cost virtually nothing, and you have a real solution to your advertising concerns – money, effectiveness, uninterested consumers, ad blind target market.
Next Steps
Okay, you’re sold on word of mouth marketing, but now what? Where do you start? Well, you’re in luck.
This week we’ll be running a series of posts aimed at getting your word of mouth marketing campaign underway.
From how to build your own campaign, to generating buzz, and integrating social media we’ll get word of mouth marketing working for you and your business.
Be sure to check out the other articles from our “Getting Word of Mouth to Work for You” series!
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Photo Credit: B Tal
Five Critical Skills That Entrepreneurs Need
What are the five critical skills entrepreneurs need in order to be successful?
According to serial entrepreneur, executive, technical innovator, and author Jerry Kaplan it’s the following:
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Skill 1: Leadership
An ability to build consensus in the face of uncertainty.
Skill 2: Communication
The ability to keep a clear and consistent message.
Skill 3: Decision Making
Or more importantly, knowing when to make a decision.
Skill 4: Being a Good Team Player
Knowing when to trust and when to delegate.
Skill 5: Ability to Telescope
To focus in on the details and then move back to the bigger picture.
Running Time:8:59
Source: http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=366
Did Jerry hit on the critical skills needed to be an entrepreneur? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?
We’ve frequently looked at traits and characteristics of small business owners on this blog (for example: here, here), and asked questions such as “Do women make better entrepreneurs?”
I was happy to stumble across a research study conducted by the SBA which lends some more data to our conversations.
Specifically the report looks a sample size of 685 small business owners, of which 349 are women owned firms, in hopes of answering the question:
Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?
While gender was shown not to affect new venture performance when preferences, motivation, and expectations were controlled for, the differences observed among men’s and women’s new business ventures include the following:
• Men had more business experience prior to opening the business and higher expectations.
• Women entrepreneurs had a larger average household size.
• The educational backgrounds of male and female entrepreneurs were similar.
• Women were less likely than men to purchase their business.
• Women were more likely to have positive revenues
• Men were more likely to own an employer firm.
• Female owners were more likely to prefer low risk/return businesses.
• Men spent slightly more time on their new ventures than women.
• Male owners were more likely to start a business to make money, had higher expectations for their business, and did more research to identify business opportunities.
• Male entrepreneurs were more likely to found technologically intensive businesses, businesses that lose their competitive advantage more quickly, and businesses that have a less geographically localized customer base.
• Male owners spent more effort searching for business opportunities and this held up when other factors were controlled for.
What do you think? Are these findings consistent with what you’ve experienced?
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If you are interested in reading the entire 65 page report, you can find it here: Male and female entrepreneurs.pdf
Photo Credit: Smoke Da Life
55 Post and Topic Ideas for Your Business Blog
By now you should be aware of the benefits to having a blog for your business, and seen first hand the traffic you can receive through your blog posts.
The idea of starting a blog, generating lots of buzz and traffic to your website, and converting some of that traffic into leads and sales is probably pretty exciting.
But the big question remains – what do you blog about?
I’ve put together a simple list of 55 topics and blog post ideas to get you started. If you aim to post 3-4 times a week, these ideas will give you 4 months worth of posts…by that point you’ll have the hang of it, and putting out great content will become second nature.
Tips Before We Get Started
There are a couple things you’ll want to keep in mind when you begin blogging for your business:
- Everything you write will be read by the people you write about. Your employees, customers, would be customers, suppliers and peers will see what you put in print – just remember that.
- Don’t give up a competitive advantage in your blog post. Your competitors are reading what you are writing too.
- Don’t fear showing a personal side. That’s what draws people to blogs. We want to know the humans behind the business
- However, keep a business perspective in mind. Everything you blog about either reinforces or deteriorates your image and company brand.
- Think about what value you are giving your audience before thinking about what your audience can give you.
General Business Topics
- How did you get started?
- How did you choose your name?
- What is your business tag line, and what does it mean to the business?
- What’s your company mission statement – how was it formed?
- Biggest lessons learned in your business
- Biggest rewards in your line of business
- Goals – do you have some for the biz?
- How did you go about setting your biz goals?
- What’s going well in your business?
- What are the areas you are working on improving?
Products and Services
- Promote the benefits of your products
- Talk about new products and services in the pipeline
- What special deals do you have upcoming
- What’s on sale? Why?
- Highlight a product/service of the week/month
- How did you create your product or develop your service?
Customers
- Highlight your best customers in a post
- Talk about a positive experience you had with a customer
- Solicit customer feedback in a post, ask their opinions
- Get testimonials and put them in a post
- What value are you creating for your customer? Explain it.
- Run a survey and get their feedback
- Blog the results of the survey
- Hold a contest where the winner gets a free product of yours or some free service
- Blog their testimonial after they fall in love with your business
- Talk about how you want to interact with your customers
Industry Topics
- What’s cool in your industry?
- What would you like to change in your industry?
- Talk about current industry news and give your reaction to it
- Do a case study
- Highlight business that compliment yours
Authority Articles
Every so often pick something related to your business that you are an expert on – this should be easy, it’s your biz right – and write an in depth article explaining it. These authoritative pieces show your audience you are an expert in your field.
Maybe it’s an issue or trend in your business or industry. Or explaining in detail all the benefits of your products and services. Remember these pieces aren’t selling the reader anything, they are making you the trusted expert when they do want to buy.
Employees
- Blog about a great thing your employees did
- Have an employee of the month and feature them in a post
- Give an employee the reigns and let them blog a “day in their life”
- Have an employee blog about a really positive customer interaction
- How to find great employees – explain how you found yours
General Topics of Interest
- Write a road report from a business related trip you take
- Do a “Day in the Life” post
- Blog about your experience blogging
- Ask somebody in your niche to guest post on a relevant topic
- Write a review about a book that relates to what you do
- Anecdotes
- Tell a story
- Respond to a blog commenter in a post
- Involved with a charitable organization? Tell us about it
- Going “Green” – let us know what that experience has been like
- Did you make the news? That’s a blog post
- Experiences with online social networking
- Experiences with face to face networking
- Look ahead – what’s there for your biz?
- Impact of news on your business – laws, regulations, etc
- Best advice about business you’ve ever received
- Best advice about business you can give
- Your inspiration
This should get you started, and give you adequate content to last a couple months. Once you get the hang of it you’ll find that blogging for your business not only drives traffic, and creates relationships, but it is personally satisfying as well.
Blog on…
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Photo Credit: otherthings
How One Blog Post Can Get Your Business Seen by 50,000 People in 7 Days
A couple of days ago I wrote a post on the importance of your business having a blog.
One of the main benefits I highlighted was the fact that a blog gives you a bridge to social media. Your blog posts can be talked about in various social media circles, and it gives you a point of reference when you are engaging your social media audience.
To illustrate the importance of getting your business into social circles, and having folks talk about it, I thought I would use an example from this blog about how effective that can be in getting traffic, and potential customers to your website.
The Story
On February 12 I wrote this post, which was a compilation of free business classes which could be found online.
The work involved in creating the post amounted to doing a handful of Google searches for free business classes in categories I thought would be of interest. Starting a business, entrepreneurship, marketing, leadership, etc.
Once I had links to the free classes, my “work” was basically done. I organized them by category, formatted the post so it was consistent with the blog, and published.
From there an automatic “Tweet” goes out to my Twitter followers. And I passed along the link for a few of my friends on StumbleUpon to check out.
Start to finish this took about 2 hours.
The Result
As of February 17 that one post has generated 34,615 visits to my blog, and is on target to generate nearly 50,000 visits in 7 days. The traffic I will get in one week is equal to about 2x what I would receive in a month.
I don’t share this information to brag. Really I was unaware it would hit such a chord with readers. I was just trying to provide something useful, and something that was on topic within my niche.
If Your Business Isn’t Blogging, You’re Missing Out
The reason I bring this up is to illustrate the importance of having a blog to drive traffic to your business website. If your business is blogging, you have the opportunity to get those same 50,000 visitors to your website in a week – all for 2 hours worth of work.
Wouldn’t you like to have your company or business website seen by that many people in such a short amount of time? And the possibility to repeat it is limited only by the content you create and publish to your blog.
Exploit the Numbers
As we’ve discussed before, business is a numbers game. And while many of the 50,000 visitors will only blow through the site, numbers will eventually work in your favor. Of the 34,615 visitors so far nearly 500 have subscribed to my RSS feed, or newsletter. That’s a little less than 1.5% of all visitors, but they are subscribing.
How would you like to generate 500 new leads each week for 2 hours of work? How would you like to build your mailing list, and have people opt-in to receive more information about you and your company?
Key Takeaway
This sort of traffic to your blog is possible and feasible for you and your business. Anybody who has been publishing blog posts and promoting them through social media will tell you it certainly happens, and it can happen over and over.
As you become more in tune with what strikes a vein within your social media circles your chances of recreating a flood of traffic only increase as you can write content pertinent to them.
All of it starts with a blog though, and hopefully this example illustrates the power of having one for your business and using it as a bridge to social media.
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