Take a look at who’s commenting on your posts, subscribing to your blog, liking you on Facebook, and following you on Twitter. Are they existing customers or prospects that you’ve told about your blog? If so, congratulations. You seem to know what your customers want from your blog. If not, chances are that your customers looked at your blog and wondered why you asked them to read it.
You’re confusing your current, and potential, client base. When they went to check out the blog you set up for your small business, they didn’t expect to see a post about how you trained your cat to use the toilet. Or worse, a plumber’s blog filled with tips about social media and blogging.
They expected to find information that helped them decide whether they should trust your company, how your product/service would help them help solve an issue in their life, and why they should do business with you instead of your competitors.
Answer Your Customer’s Questions Before They Ask Them
If I were to come to your small business and follow you around for two days, I would leave with enough post ideas to keep your blog’s editorial calendar full for an entire year. Even better, these posts would be exactly what your customers want to read.
Luckily, you don’t have to hire me to come up with these ideas for you. You already know what they are. They’re the hundreds of questions that customers ask you over and over again every single day.
You know the answers to these questions inside and out because you’ve heard them so many times before. Make a list of these questions. Each one should be the title to a post you’ve written on your blog that answers that question.
Filling your blog with this type of post will help you rank higher in search engine results, demonstrate your knowledge on the subject building up your authority, and drive well-informed prospects to your small business.
Share How Existing Customers are Using Your Product/Service
Once you’ve answered all of their questions about your product/service, the next thing that many potential customers will struggle with is how they’ll be able to use it to solve their issue or make their life better.
Traditional online marketing has focused on white papers and case studies to help spark the imagination, but blogs can transform these methods into something much more powerful. Blogs allow you to take these generic, clinical tools and craft a narrative around them to tell a story that will resonate with your readers.
How many times have you listened to someone tell you how they’re using some product or service, and then thought what a great idea it was? You probably said something like, “I’d never thought of using [blank] to do that.”
Write posts that show how your existing customers are using your product/service in a way that makes your readers say this. Combine these with testimonials and watch your conversion rates sour.
Give Them a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Your Small Business
One of the reasons your small business needs a blog is that it gives it personality. There are many ways to accomplish this that have nothing to do with your love for cats. One of the most effective is to let customers see what it’s like to do business with you before they actually do business with you.
Walk potential customers through the process starting from when they first walk through your door to when they’re making their next purchase with you.
- What do they need to bring with them?
- Who will they talk to purchase, pay for, or return your product/service?
- What happens if they’re not happy with their purchase?
- When is the best time for them to come?
Your blog should be like a practice run for them. Highlight your employees on your blog (make sure to get their permission first) so they can put faces to the experience. Instead of the accounting department sending them invoices each month, they’ll meet Mary who will be sending out those invoices.
Don’t Worry About Your Competitors
You could write posts comparing your product/service to your competitors, but I wouldn’t advise spending too much time doing so. If you’re doing the suggestions above then you’re already demonstrating how you’re different from your competitors.
If your competitors have websites, it’s not likely that they’re doing these suggestions. The truth is that very few small businesses are using their blogs effectively because they have no clue how to do so. Think about it. How many small business blogs have you seen that take these suggestions to heart?
Will you be one of the rare exceptions, or will you join the crowds of small business owners claiming blogs don’t work?
Are you using your blog to answer the most commonly asked questions by your customers? To what types of posts are your customers the most responsive? How are you attracting potential customers to your blog?
Photo Credit: iStockphoto/StockPhoto4U
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This article written by Brad Harmon
Brad's Big Feet Marketing helps people on a limited budget enlarge their online footprint using blogging & social media. His other blog, Marketplace Christianity, examines faith's role in how we earn and spend money. He'd love to connect on Twitter and Facebook.
Brad has written 32 awesome post(s) for this site.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Solid post Brad written with such an easy to read style.
“Answer Your Customer’s Questions Before They Ask Them”
That has to be your number one thing to do, and as you say we know, or should know, what those questions are.
Problem is that it is oh so easy to get sidetracked and wander off on a topic that is too general or nothing to do with your business.
Like I said Brad – solid article.
My latest post … The Coolest Voice on the Internet
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Thanks, Keith. It is so easy to wander off topic, isn’t it? It’s very tempting to chase the comments rather than be patient and let our communities build around our blog. I’ve been guilty of this myself. It rarely results in bringing in customers to our business, and that’s the reason most of us starting a blog for our small business. Great observation.
Hi Brad
“Chase the comments”
Guilty as charged m’lud.
It’s easy to start counting success by the number of comments on a blog rather than… whatever it is you should be counting.
Still nice to have a few comments though. LOL
My latest post … The Coolest Voice on the Internet
Twitter: @ExtremeJohn
Excellent tips as always Brad. In regards to competitors, I don’t even know most of them in my industry anymore, with the exception of one very local competitor that literally lives on my blog and FB pages and copies just about everything we do. Talk about annoying, but it’s fun baiting them I guess
My latest post … Sneak Peek Extreme Tan and Smoothies Facebook Game
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Thanks, John. Wow. I can’t believe your competitor tries to do this. You seem like a very hard personality to try to copy – especially with all of the events, promotions, and your activity with new media. I can see how it could be frustrating to watch someone try, but I guess it’s confirmation that you’re doing something right.
Twitter: @blogaks
Hi Brad,
A very informative post once again. I feel that mixing personal matters with business is not a correct choice ( the cat for e.g.).
I would however use the cat to derive a business idea into the mind of the customer. For e.g. I would narrate the story of the business by following a cat around in my business premises and trying to observe various processes. I would make it funny enough to get notice of the customers.
One of the best PR in the world is done by an Indian company known as AMUL. It is just superb because they use soft satire on current affairs to promote their products and have been doing that before the time I was even born.
They have stuck to the message and are consistent from last 40 years or so.
I think people do get carried away and mix business with personal stuff with probably negative consequences.
Thanks for sharing.
Ashvini
My latest post … Rising suicides among school children because of pressure is worrisome
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
I’m not saying that a small business owner shouldn’t ever share a personal post, Ashvini, but they should generally have a tie back to their business or be used sparingly. I see too many small business owners using their company blog to talk about everything else but their business or they take it to the other extreme where every post is just another advertisement for their product/service. Neither is what your potential customers want to read about when they come to find out more about your business.
You’re right that small business owners should stick their message. Interject personality as a way to support that message. I’ve blogged about my cat using it as an example to teach us lessons as bloggers. The post was about bloggers though – my observations about my cat just served to support and illustrate my points.
Twitter: @randyatessites
Brad – Well written post. A question your post raises is what types of questions are best answered in blog posts and what types best answered in an FAQ section. I guess if I was to take a shot at answering my own question, it would be that big picture complicated questions are good blog post subjects, and nitty gritty questions around subjext such as ordering are for FAQ sections.
My latest post … Will There Ever Be A Social Media Privacy Backlash?
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
Thanks, Randy. That’s a great question. My answer is pretty similar to yours, but I think there’s opportunity to enhance the FAQ section with blog posts.
Questions that can be answered in one or two sentences are great candidates for FAQ only. For example, what are your hours of operations? This wouldn’t lend itself to a very good blog post; however, it’s something you could mention in one.
Other questions may be able to be used both in the FAQ section and as a blog post. For example, what is your return policy? In the FAQ policy you could list the official policy, but then link to blog posts that walk your customer through the process in more detail.
Its an interesting post, Brad. Its important to listen to our customers and clients if we want to keep our business running. Customers are also skeptical about certain things sometimes and relies on good advice from the users of the same product or advice from experts so all these shows that customer service is always the first priority of a good business.
Twitter: @Brad_Harmon
I agree with you, Micah. Testimonials are great, but you never know if those are real. That’s why I like the idea of showing interesting ways your customers are using your product/service. It comes across much more believable, and it gets potential customers thinking how they might use your product to solve their own need.
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