Not all businesses are made for blogging.
That is to say that not all businesses will benefit by directly converting visitors into customers or leads.
Some businesses, mostly in the e-commerce world, will need to focus on something a little different when blogging. A content strategy can still be a great way for these companies to profit, but the different focus is where their blogging and content model will vary compared to others.
Blogging for Subscribers
The e-commerce world where customers directly purchase products from businesses works a little different than business-to-business world.
With e-commerce, customers are not necessarily looking to purchase products at the time of their research. And what happens in most cases with a blog is that the company creating the blog content is approaching customers that are in the research period in their buying cycle.
A customer doing a search for new dresses or new handbags is looking for information on what is new, who is wearing the new items and where they can possibly purchase the new items. This person will find some information, but they will not be ready to make a purchase usually right away when they come across a blog post, product description or other form of content.
Yet most companies are looking for the immediate sale at this point.
Rather than asking for sales on your blog post there is something else you can have to keep the visitor and their attention going forward.
An email subscription is a great way to create a conversion that leads to profit.
Instead of direct ads on your blog for your products, include an email subscription area where your first time visitors can enter their email to receive more of the content they are seeking.
Example
You write a series of blog posts about the ten hottest new dresses coming out this season. You highlight the details that will be on popular dresses and who will possibly be wearing these dresses.
The content you publish on your blog is great, but you know there is even more that you could share.
As a way to encourage email sign-ups you can let readers know that there is much more you can deliver on the topic of the upcoming dresses, but they have to sign up for your fashion emails.
Interested visitors will enter their information and you can have content prepared to send them. This content will deliver even more value and the visitor will become a happy subscriber.
At this point, you can also have the customer opted in to your regular marketing emails (they can unsubscribe at any time). In the e-commerce world, marketing emails are profitable. Email addresses are very profitable for e-commerce companies in the business-to-consumer world because the money is always in the list. It’s an old direct marketing term, but it seems to be true even today and going forward.
Summary
The goal of your blog might not be to drive direct sales.
A different approach for many e-commerce sites is to generate email sign-ups via the blog. Each email subscriber is worth a certain amount of profit. This is something businesses can track.
It is possible to implement a blogging strategy combined with an email strategy to generate profit and turn visitors into customers.
The buying conversion doesn’t happen instantly very often in the e-commerce world. Things are very competitive in industries like fashion. Companies that provide additional value through something like a full content strategy, however, can turn simple shoppers into subscribers and eventual buyers.
Blogging is about profit, but things aren’t always direct.
Look for ways to add value and guide visitors down the buying path by doing something such as gaining their email address.
Email icon courtesy of derrickkwa