Most businesses are attracted to blogs thinking that it’s a channel through which they can communicate their brand messages and even sell their products.
In short, they see it as an avenue to talk as much about themselves, including their histories, their achievements, visions, missions and such.
Most who take this route not only end up disappointed with the ensuing results but also create a bad image for themselves.
They are so caught up with their own brands, products and services that the miss an important part, or even the most important part their marketing efforts should focus on.
But they’ll not learn. They will keep doing what they think is right. Talk about flogging a dead horse.
During my stint as a content development manager with a supposedly IT-savvy company, I came across a naive marketing strategy which just slaps a product on to a web page, puts the price, include some features an expect folks to come in droves to buy.
That’s what content marketing is all about for them. Then during meetings they scratch their heads and try to find out what’s wrong.
The marketing department ends up taking the blame for not trying harder to push the products and services to the market.
There are many companies out there who treat their web pages as brochures where they could just display their products and services. expecting to profit from it.
If you’re one of them, you’d better change your strategy. Otherwise, you’ll just be wasting your time and effort.
You may be excited about your product but the potential customer doesn’t have to be. For her, there are thousands of other products out there. She will choose the one she thinks suits her best and buy from the one she trusts and have a good impression on.
Good impression counts. Buying is a very emotional thing. We buy from those whom we like.
So, you’ve to create that impression before selling.
What You Should Blog About Instead
If you’ve a blog, you should start talking about the problems of your target market.
That’s the way you get the attention of your propspects and existing customers.
Identify their pain points and try to dig deeper into them.
Maybe you already have feedback, letters or email messages from them. Use that as a start to identify their problems.
Be a Solution Provider
Instead of talking about your
brand and products why don’t you use your blog to discuss the problems of your customers or other consumers in the market?
This could be a strange thing to do. There are many smart marketing alecks out there who would say, “We’re not in the business of educating the consumers or offering them inspiration.”
A very sensible thought. But that’s what works these days.
You got to engage your customers and win their trust first before you can sell them anything.
The best way to do that is offer content provides them with value.
That’s what content marketing is all about.
