Blogging strategy is something every business is curious when they make the decision to blog.
The first thing Ghost Blog Writers will do with any business that needs a blog is to develop a strategy for the posts. Research is done to determine where the business stands amongst its competition as well as researching it’s target audience. It actually helps to narrow down the target audience to one single, very described person. This helps with creating the blog posts and also helps the business in general.
After this initial research is done, a strategy for the posts is formed making sure to leave room for constant experimentation giving bloggers at the company or with Ghost Blog Writers the ability to try new things and to test what the audience likes.
Creating a strategy is something any person or business can do. Here are the simples steps that have worked for Ghost Blog Writers.
How to Form a Business Blogging Strategy
These are five steps that have worked for Ghost Blog Writers. It’s helped bring millions of page views to blogs and dollars to businesses. It’s a simple business practice that has been used for years by businesses to form strategy for just about anything. There is nothing secret about it. You just have to put in the time to learn a little bit before jumping into blogging.
1. Company Background
The first step Ghost Blog Writers likes to do is to learn a bit about the company itself. If you’re doing the strategy development for your company you can start asking questions. If you can, ask the CEO questions about the company, its history, and its direction. Next, go to employees around the company. Look at each department. Make sure to talk to people in each department. This is where you can start to learn about the unique areas of the company. You can usually figure out what the company has that is unique and different from the competition. That’s an important discovery and really helps your blogging strategy.
When you know what your company does different you can highlight that in blog posts.
2. Customer Research
Targeting the right customer is extremely important for any business. For blogging, it’s necessary to know the specific person you are writing for. Get this target customer down to a specific person and think about that person when you write posts. Think about what interests them. Think about what makes their lives difficult and determine how you can solve those problems with your blog posts.
Get this description of the customer down to a very specific profile. For example: “Sandra is a 42-year old mother. She has two boys, ages 12 and 10. She works as a school teacher in a suburb of Atlanta. Her husband is the manager of a restaurant. He works long hours each night, but makes sure to be home at least two full days each week to spend time with Sandra and the boys. Outside of work, Sandra enjoys reading, watching Grey’s Anatomy and spending time with her boys. She even plays Matchbox Cars with them.”
Get descriptive. This is the most important part of developing a blogging strategy.
3. Competitor Research
After researching your own company and your company’s target customer, the next step is to research your competition. Ask the leaders in your business for the top 3 to 5 competitors. Look on their websites and determine what makes them unique. See how they represent their business. Look for ways your business is different from all of them. Look for reasons that a customer would purchase from your company instead of the others.
When I did this research for Country Music Life I realized it was possible to put focus on new country songs and new country music. Other sites offered reviews of new songs and albums, but it wasn’t a highlight. I knew I couldn’t compete by hunting down news stories, but I figured I could provide a unique voice and a unique experience for people that want to discover new country songs.
4. Blogging Strategy
Once you have a good idea of where your company stands amongst competitors and what your customer needs, the blogging strategy comes pretty easy. The previous two steps should help you determine where the gaps are in the blogging needs of your customers. Look to solve actual problems. If your customer is Sandra from the above example. Think about ways you can make her life easy. Think about the pain points in her life like dealing with a busy schedule or finding new things to do with her husband and kids. Write about the things that make her life better and more enjoyable.
Those are the kinds of things people respond to. And do it with emotion. People respond to emotion. Buying is an emotional experience. Focus on emotion in your blogging strategy. Come up with five blogging formats – lists, interviews, etc. – and set a schedule of when you’re going to publish each kind. And do this consistently to make sure your blog doesn’t become empty.
5. Experimentation and Testing
This is a step bloggers typically don’t mention, but most bloggers do it anyway. Leave room to test new things with your blogging. Read a lot of blogs and if you come across a list of some kind or a post that’s unique, try it on your own blog.
Always experiment with new styles. Always test new ways to reach your audience.
Summary
Those are the five steps Ghost Blog Writers uses every time to form blogging strategies for businesses:
- Company Background
- Customer Research
- Competitor Research
- Blogging Strategy
- Experimentation and Testing
Work on these four areas and you’ll be ready to start blogging. The entire process might take a day or maybe a week, but that little time will be worth it. Just put in a little time and then jump into blogging. Get started right away and you’ll be building a community on your blog in no time and your inbound marketing will have begun.
Sample Blogging Strategy: Country Music Artist Blogging Strategy
Research image courtesy of Nicola since 1972