I’ve been drinking (and serving) the Kool Aid of Content Marketing for several years now.
I took my first ‘sip’ when I owned a painting company. In the first year of blogging we doubled our web traffic and leads. This led to close to $70k in new business that first year. Not a bad start!
Over the next two years our blog generated about a quarter of a million dollars in business. That’s a quarter million generated by just sharing the knowledge I already had. If you’re considering starting a blog for your business here are a few tips for you:
Be Yourself
If you’re not a writer, that’s ok. Write the same way you speak. Avoid trying to sound corporate or formal. When you are authentic and transparent you will be more likable which will lead to people wanting to do business with you.
Answer Questions
Your clients and potential clients are searching for answers to their problems. One of the most common questions I got as a contractor was “Should I use flat or eggshell paint?” You have questions you hear all the time right? Just answer them in your blog post…that’s it. Become a source for them to get their questions answered and their problems solved.
Blog Often
Writing a 300-500 word blog at least one time each week is the bare minimum. When people ask me how much they should blog I always answer “as much as possible.” As long as there are questions to answer and needs to meet you will have some writing to do! Google also ranks your website higher when you are producing valuable content on a regular basis. If possible, blog 2-3 times each week. The more you do it the easier it will become.
Don’t Let Your Posts Just Sit There
Remember the question above about flat or eggshell paint? I would use that, as well as other blogs I wrote to help me in the sales process. When a client was reviewing proposals I would send them links to relevant and helpful blogs we wrote. This would do a couple things. First, it kept the relationship warm. While other contractors gave their proposal and moved on to the next estimate, I stayed ‘in front’ of them for the next week simply by using content produced many weeks or months ago. Next, it also set me up as the expert that can be trusted. When you are trusted you will get more clients that are a good fit for your business.
Blogging can seem like a huge thing to implement, but I want to encourage you to start now. You are an expert. Just share what you know on a regular basis. Keep learning and you’ll get better over time. Here’s a link to one of my first posts…which totally sucked. Although it was awful I kept after it and eventually had blogs like this one get shared and linked to by people all over the world. You can do it too!
