It’s a good question, but maybe we should ask a more basic question first.
Do you think you need to talk to your customers?
Yeah, I thought so. If you’re in business, you already know it’s a good idea to talk your customers so you can communicate with them on what’s going on with your business, what’s new in your product line and what services you have to offer. You also know it’s a good idea to listen to customers to hear what they need and want, giving you the opportunity to serve them better and help your enterprise grow. But you don’t always have the opportunity to lean across the counter and talk to your customers face-to-face. You never have the opportunity to talk to all of them face-to-face in an ongoing manner.
A blog is another communications channel to reach your customers, tell them what’s going on at your business and start a conversation with them. It’s not the only communications channel you have, but it’s becoming an increasingly important one.
A blog is also important for keeping your website lively and interesting. It’s our job to give you a well- designed and informative website, and that’s great when customers are looking to place an order and know what they want. But they may not know what new product you’re offering that fills another need, a need they’re looking to fill with another vendor. Keeping customers and potential customers coming back to your website can be a vital part of customer retention.
Don’t write a blog for an algorithm
A regularly updated website is also vital for retention of high search ranks. Search engines love websites that continually have fresh content. Without it, you can see your rankings drop. Yet as important as Search Engine Optimization is, here’s a key piece of advice: Don’t write a blog aimed at a search engine.
Why would you want to write an important, personal communication to a machine? Do you even know what interests an algorithm? Algorithms are not your audience. People are. Google and other companies that run online searches regularly rewrite their mysterious algorithms to weed out content aimed to scam search engines. They’re getting much better at finding blogs and content that are meant to connect with people. While there are techniques that can help your SEO ranking, abuse any of those techniques and your ranking on search engines will drop well off the screen.
Write naturally to your client’s interests, and people will notice. So will the algorithms.
So who has the time to write blogs?
Well, we do if you don’t.
The biggest problem you can face with a blog is finding the time to write it on a regular schedule. If you have the affinity to write one, schedule a time to write at least one a month. If you don’t have the time or are just not comfortable writing a blog, then let us know. We can write one for you, along with articles and other content to keep your website fresh and noticed.
Yet we’re still going to need your help. It’s going to take a partnership with you. You know your business, the ins and outs of your operations, the advantages of your products and services, the trends in your industry. You need to share that information with us if we’re going to write an informed, interesting blog for you. We don’t need you to write a first draft of a blog. Just sends us emails with short tips on what’s going on with your company, what problem a client had that you helped solve, who’s been promoted, or whatever else that’s happening that impacts your business and your customers.
B2B vs. B2C blogs
Whether you’re running a business that deals with general consumers or one that primarily supplies or services other businesses, a blog in part needs to make some personal contact with your customers. Yet the type of information you share and discuss can very be different. With a business to consumer relation, you’re dealing with customers who may know they need your product but may not know that much about it. A customer may not fully understand the inner workings of a stove. He just knows his just isn’t working anymore and he needs a new one. Your blog can help educate the customer about stoves, point out the advantages of one kind over another, and show how the customer can find a stove that fits his needs.
In a business-to-business operation, however, you’re likely dealing with a well-informed customer. If your business is a parts supplier to the auto industry, you’re not going to have a customer call you up to see if you have a doohickey that fits in about a 3/4-inch round hole. She’s going to call you with precise specifications on size, design and material for a part — and can you deliver it by Friday. She is not going to ask you if you meet ISO quality standards. She already knows.
While the basic purpose for communicating with your customers is the same, to educate them about your product and services, and make them interested in what you do, their level of knowledge and familiarity with the specifics of your product or service could be much higher. If you use us as a ghostwriter for your blog, you need to keep us well informed so we can write informatively about your business without talking down to your customer.
How to keep us informed for your blog
We want to make it easy for you to keep us abreast of the goings on at your business so we can write informative and timely blogs, press releases and information articles. You can use the form at the link below or in each email newsletter we send out to send us quick updates. They may be as simple as the promotion of a staff member or as involved as the details of a new location, and anything in between.
Use the form to keep us informed. Include contact info for the best person who can provide us additional details. Keeping us in the loop helps us keep your website fresh, up-to-date and interesting to current and potential customers – and to all those mysterious algorithms feeding Internet search engines.
