Trigger events.

When blogging we’re not doing it just because. There is always the goal of increasing sales (or decreasing costs) when blogging. Maybe it’s best to say we’re just trying to maximise profit.

As business bloggers there really is no other reason to blog.

After reading a great article on Inc.com I realized that trigger events are necessary in blog posts. Having a trigger events gets people to pay attention and take action. I figure that using trigger events in your blogging is an art, but here are some tips on how you can use trigger events to get more profit as a result of your blogging efforts.

Trigger Events for Blogging

In the article – Cold-Calling Trick: 16 Ways to Start a Conversation – trigger events are discussed on the context of cold calls.

For example, suppose you’re selling an inventory control system. Here are two possible ways to begin the conversation:

1. “I’m calling because I’m selling a great inventory control system that can save you money.”

2. “I’m calling because I understand that you just announced a new product line–and since that usually increases inventory costs, you may be looking to for a way to reduce those costs.”

The second example is more likely to result in a conversation because it relates what you’re selling to what’s called a trigger event, a change in the way that a potential customer operates its business.

Pretty interesting right?

What you’re trying to do in selling is figure out a change that’s happened at a company. You’re looking for ways your company can improve the lives of your customers. If your customers are business executives you need to focus on change that is happening in their business lives and figure out if you can help. If your customer is someone that owns a house then you need to focus on events that bring about pain or inconvenience.

Read the article above for some great examples with businesses.

Here are three more examples you can use in your blogging efforts.

The Sink is Clogged

I like to use Joe’s Plumbing as an example on this blog. Joe is looking to find more customers for his service. He realizes that a trigger event for people that makes them take action is realizing that their sinks are clogged. Joe writes an article about how to unclog the sink and offers his services for more in-depth plumbing needs.

The great thing about blogging is that the customers are looking for the information online. They discover Joe’s trigger-based content and hire him when the time comes to fix more in-depth plumbing issues.

Maybe Joe can even come up with some product that unclogs drains. He could expand his services.

Three Straight Quarters of Stagnant Sales

For a business consultant this could be a great opportunity to write a blog post about consulting services that improve stagnant business. Every company goes through changes. Great companies need to adapt to changing marketplaces. The product and service we sell today might not be what we sell tomorrow.

A consultant could write an article about how to handle this change. and then share their services on how they have helped companies through transitional periods.

A Blog With No Posts for Three Months

There are so many blogs out there with no posts for months or even years. The person that owns the blog knows they want to keep it up to date, but for whatever reason they aren’t able to publish content.

They go online looking for help and try to find tips about how to blog or how to find help for the blog.

See what I did there? :)