Marketing ladders have a few varying definitions or applications it seems.
A common definition would be a membership website. You’ll have a few different membership options or levels. Usually it’s about three options. There is a basic level that might be free or offer just a few benefits for a little money. The middle level, usually the preferred by the site owner, will offer more benefit for a higher fee. The final level will offer quite a few benefits, but for a much higher price.
There are different strategies for membership sites or business offering packages to prospects or retailers offering different levels or ladders or pricing to customers. Marketing ladders is a concept that provides clear cut choices to consumers. When we have choices we have the smarts to figure out the best option for us. It leads to more decisions and better decisions. In both cases businesses benefit with profit.
Today I was thinking about the concept of marketing ladders and I realized that the same ladders approach worked for blogging.
Business Blogging Ladders
People are curious by nature. We seek out information and knowledge. It seems that this curiosity has a scale for everyone. We’re all somewhere along the scale of our top curiosity. Some of us are curious about everything and we want to gain all the knowledge we possible can for our entire lives. Others enjoy the comfort of what they know and they stay in that comfort more and more as they age. Some like to know some about a lot of things and others like to know all there is about one thing.
With your blog or business blog you can tap into this curiosity to attract more people to your brand.
Multiple Blog Post Formats
Bloggers tend to get into formulas. It’s another part of human nature. We find something that works and we continue doing it and refining it because we know it works.
You’ll want to do this with your own blog, but it’s important to try new formats as well. These new formats – short posts, long posts, lists, feature stories, etc. – keep people interested. It’s a type of blogging ladder that gives readers different choices.
Most new readers will come via search and social. There are certain types of posts that bring in readers. Search has the most variety. List posts do well. How-to posts do well. Social is a little different. Lists do well, but so do feature stories. I’ve found that feature stories do really well on social media. I find it more often in sports or really in any aspect of life. You find a feature story about a former sporting great. It’s not really something people search for on Google, but once a few people read it and start passing it around it starts to do really well.
It’s important to have articles on your blog that do well for the different ways people find your posts, your blog and your brand.
Once you have readers, subscribers and clients reading your blog you’ll want to keep their interest. This means different types of posts. Lists might bring people in and get them interested, but as they grow educated about your industry (as a result of reading your blog) they’ll want more in depth articles that dig into research and statistics.
Blogging calls for multiple ladders offering different content for different customers. Even the same customer will find their tastes in posts changing over time. To really capture all that attention it’s important to vary your offering just as businesses do with marketing ladders for products and services.