You’re first kind of intrigue by the name, SoftWear. I know it caught me a little off at first. You don’t really hear much about the wearable industry in the tech world unless you’re discussing a startup’s cool new t-shirt or something.
But when I first saw SoftWear I thought it looked interesting. Then I started looking into what they were trying to do and it really intrigued me. Here is a company looking to come in and completely change a mature market.
The industry is wearables and clothing. It’s really anything that has to be sewn, which for a really long time has required labor. And as you know, the labor has been outsourced for the last few decades so that the US now imports most of the wearables that people purchase in this country. I mean, when the last time you saw “Made In The US” on a shirt? It does happen, but you usually have to pay a higher price.
SoftWear is looking to completely automate the process of sewing. Take out the humans and now you have computers doing all the labor that goes into the wearable manufacturing process. It should cut costs for everybody involved.
So that’s a little background. I’m sure there is much more to learn about the company, but for today I’m going to focus on their business blog and maybe include a few opportunities they have to attract the right kind of reader using that blog.
1. Company News
So looking at the SoftWear Blog you’ll find that it’s actually more of a News section. And I see this often with business blogs. It’s not always called just a Blog. Sometimes you’ll see it called News or something like that. But it’s usually the same concept – you have a feed of content usually starting with the latest item first.
But the focus on this was is highlighting times when the company is mentioned in the news. That’s definitely a good strategy and something that can be good to do with your blog or news section. It kind of allows you to brag a little bit without really bragging. You simply share news items from other locations where you are mentioned and let those publications do the talking about you.
2. Industry Stats
So SoftWear will link to articles and videos that mention them. But there was one that seemed a little different. It’s a dead link now, but the article seemed to talk about huge market for wearables and how it’s something like a $500 Billion market.
I’m not sure if that’s an annual number or what, but obviously wearables are a big industry. We all wear clothes and people all over the world wear clothes. And here in most places people have closets full of clothes, jackets, hats and all kinds of things.
It’s always good to mention stats when you’re writing your own posts. And you could take something like this and expand on it. As a company in your industry, you have a unique perspective and inside track on what’s happening. Your target clients and customers can read news about stats, but you can provide even more valuable by explaining what that stat could mean for your readers. And that’s very valuable and appealing from business blogs.
3. Focusing On The Client
From what I can tell the main client for SoftWear is anybody that wants to create some kind of fashion item that needs to be sewed. So maybe you have a fashion company looking at making shirts or jeans or whatever and they can use this technology to produce those items. Or maybe you’re a t-shirt manufacturer who sells all kinds of shirt designs to companies or something like that.
What you always want to do when you’re creating a business blog is to focus on the right client or customer. Whoever is giving you money for your product or service is your target reader. Sometimes it will be the person that influences your target client, but in nearly all cases you want to attract your target client.
And so you’ll right about things that your target client is looking for, searching for in relation to your industry. So in this case it might be answering questions about cutting production costs. Or maybe they want to know the latest trends in the fashion industry and wearables.
Maybe they’re wondering about the process for shutting down a shop overseas and how to deal with all the PR that can come along with that. There are a number of things you can focus on that will attract your target client.
4. Adding Personality In A “Boring” Industry
I don’t know if SoftWear is technically in a “boring” industry. The fashion industry is pretty cool, but I think the manufacturing side of it could be seen as boring. SoftWear isn’t really dealing with consumers as much as they’re dealing with companies that want to manufacture wearable items.
So one of the keys to working in a boring industry is to add personality to your brand. And one way to do that is with blog posts. I’ve made it a focus this year to add a little more personality to the blogs this year on GBW. I try to add more stories. I try to mention things I’m doing personally or mention people like my wife and the writers. And I added a little different type of post on Fridays that are lighter.
It’s a way to make your company more approachable. And I’m not saying that SoftWear isn’t, but the tendency in boring industries is to come off that way. I actually think SoftWear does a great job on their site. It feels like there are real people behind the brand. And you can take that even further with a business blog.
5. Consistency, Answering Questions And Giving Actionable Steps
For the final point here I’ll just add a couple things that I’ve mentioned throughout this series on Blog Analysis. Consistency is always good. That’s a little more challenging when it comes to adding mentions of your company in news and on other publications. You can’t control when they publish stories about you. But that’s where a blog can be handy. You can come out with something monthly or weekly if possible. It keeps people coming back and getting more involved with your brand.
And we find that focusing on answering questions is always a good basic blog strategy. So if you’re looking for things to write about just talk to a few of your sales folks. See what questions they’re answering over and over. Some will be more specific to your product. You can answer those questions on a blog, but focus more on the questions that come in the beginning of the sales process.
Ask your inquiries how they found out about you or what they were searching for when they realized they had an issue with something. Answering those questions with a blog post can really bring in new people and potential clients to your website.
And finally, offer some actionable steps when you’re writing posts. So if you’re commenting on a study or something give some action steps on what the reader should do with this information. And if you’re answering one of those early sales stage questions then provide an action step on what the reader can do next. People are always looking for something to do next.
Final Thought
I think SoftWear is doing something really cool. To think about a world where we don’t have to manufacture clothes with human labor is pretty cool. It could lead to so much more opportunity. Automation like this can be scary for a lot of people, but it’s always lead to more opportunity in other areas in the long run. I hope they can do well.