In this new digital age where there is fragmentation of media, marketers have to find creative and effective ways to communicate with their audience. Blogs offer such an amazing advantage. Blogs help you to understand and target YOUR audience and reach the people who actually care and appreciate your product and services/information. Blogs also act as a magnet, attracting new customers to your brand. Additionally, they help to create a relationship with customers as rapport can easily be fostered online depending on the type of content that is posted on the platform.
The three points listed below are very important when creating an effective blog:
1. Brainstorm and decide what your content strategy is; Understand your audience
Why do you want to create a blog in the first place?
Do you want to increase sales?
To have a better relationship with customers?
Build brand awareness?
Who are you creating content for?
What does your audience want?
What are their psychographics?
Who are their influencers etc.……
These are some specific and pertinent questions that you can begin to ask yourself when creating your content strategy. Once you have answered these questions, you will begin to focus on and create SMART content. Depending on the needs of your customers and your goals and if your blogs seemingly coming from the inside out, you will be seen as a trustworthy brand, a brand that customers can rely on to addresses their specific interests.
2. Plan your Content
Although social media seems to be informal, nothing happens haphazardly. You have to ensure that you are deliberately planning content for your audience. It takes a deliberate approach to plan content based on the different buyer profiles that you have created for your company. Plan and make sure that what you create is aligned with your goals and objectives as a brand/company or aligned with your current social media goals. You can also download apps such as Hoot Suite, for example to help schedule your content so that you can be on top of your game and communicate a message to your audience in an effective way.
3. Create a budget for your blog.
Paid ads do get a lot of traffic. Yes, you have your pool of followers but, sometimes it is advantageous to pay. A paid advertisement on social media can create more traffic to your blog site as you can target a specific audience, whether they are existing or potential customers. Also, depending on the type of content that you will post, you will have to pay for various skills and talents such as photography, makeup, acting or videography. SMART allocation of time and money must be spent on your blog so that you can effectively reach your target group.
Blog, but blog SMART.