So the basic idea behind HelloFresh from what I can tell is that you subscribe and they send recipes and ingredients to your door every week.
I’m a fan of eating at home. I like knowing what goes into my food as much as I can.
And I like making my own food. I think it can taste better; not all the time, but when you practice you get better.
And it can be fun to experiment with new recipes. I’ve been a fan of All Recipes for a while. If my wife and I are ever looking for something new to make we look there.
But I can see HelloFresh being unique in this space. They share recipes and send you the ingredients. That’s big especially if you’re busy and can’t cut out time each week to visit the grocery store. And if you’re like me it usually means a few trips after you forget a few ingredients.
So that’s HelloFresh – today I’m going to look at their blogging strategy.
1. Open In New Tab, Different Look Blog
When I go to review these blogs I do it a little bit differently than a normal blog visitor.
I usually start on the company’s homepage and look for the blog link in the navigation. HelloFresh has the blog link in the footer, which I think is usually the right place for it.
The reason that is the right place is that most people visiting your homepage and other main pages on your site are probably not interested in your blog. It kind of works in the other direction.
A new visitor might discover a blog post via search or social. From there they might read other posts and from there the goal is to get them to your homepage and other pages.
With that in mind I wanted to touch on the HelloFresh blog. I think it looks great. The content takes the stage as it should. There is a link in the top navigation to get back to the main homepage. That probably works pretty good, but usually I like a blog that melds pretty well with the main site so it’s easy for people to visit other pages if they want. And when they do, a similar design keeps them comfortable as they dive deeper into the site.
2. How To Series
The first two posts I see on the blog are how to posts. It looks a series and potentially a new series.
How to posts generally work great across just about all industries. People are looking for information and if you can help them do something you’ll go a long way to earning their trust.
The two current on the HelloFresh blog would be great for wannabe cooks like myself. How to slice a mango and how to cook a steak. I read through them and I’m sure other fans of the site would too.
Posts like this are obviously in the HelloFresh wheelhouse. It doesn’t directly relate to what they’re doing, but that’s just fine. It’s a general tip, but still relevant and it attracts the right audience.
And they’re using categories and tags with the posts, which is great. I would add this into a How To category so readers could dive into all the How To posts.
3. Recipes
This one seems obvious, but HelloFresh shares a few recipes with blog posts. You might think that some companies would not want to share this type of information. After all, that’s part of what HelloFresh is selling.
But I’m happy to see that they’re sharing some of their recipes. We kind of live in a freemium world where to gain an audience and build a business you often need to give away some value in the form of information to earn trust and earn business.
So HelloFresh can share recipes, provide value and earn trust and earn business. If the recipes HelloFresh shares with people are great they’ll want to come back for more and that includes the full service they offer.
It can work for your business too.
4. Discussing Ingredients
I wanted to touch on this post that HelloFresh did on kale. I thought it was a cool idea for a post.
First, kale seems to have been a very polarizing ingredient or food for a few years. Some people love it and love the nutrients it provides. Others absolutely hate the idea of consuming kale. They don’t like the taste.
I happen to like it. I often add it to the steamed vegetables. I think it adds a different texture and you know it’s good for you.
There is a lot going for this post. I guess for a second major point we can highlight the fact that HelloFresh added some interesting tidbits about kale like the fact that there are 50 different varieties. That’s interesting information. For curious people like me that it’s something worth clicking on a post to read. For guys like Cliff Clavin on Cheers those are the tidbits they live for.
If there is a polarizing topic in your industry it will probably make for a good post that people read. And if you can add interesting tidbits and information to it the post will be valuable for a long time.
5. Visual Tips
The web seems to be getting more visual with both images and video. Just with a quick look at the HelloFresh blog you’ll see that they are very much about using different images including photos and graphics.
Here is one example when they share a tip about keeping avocados fresh. Great tip by the way.
Visuals are wonderful for a blog. They seem to make posts generally more shareable on social media especially sites like Facebook and Pinterest.
Don’t forget about text, though. It’s still valuable to add text even if you take the text on the image and add it to the post. The same with transcriptions for videos.
Final Thought
HelloFresh has a great blog. They post multiple times per month. I don’t think they have a set schedule, but they’re posting regularly and the blog is up-to-date so that’s great to see.
They’re doing some great things and hopefully we’ve touched on a few things you can use as inspiration for your own business blog.