Firstly, let’s make it clear we’re talking about blogging for business here! So it’s much easier to start with what a business blog is not.
A business blog is not a what am I doing and feeling today blog. That is a personal diary entry blog, which is absolutely fine if you want to create a blog around you as a person and your experiences, but it won’t do so well if you want to turn your blog into something that can make you money!
A business blog is there primarily for you to sell your products, so that you can feed yourself and any children or cats you might have, so you can carry on making whatever amazing products you make and then continue blogging about them, to sell more products and so on!
That doesn’t mean you have to strip the ‘you’ out of your blog. You are your unique selling proposition, so we definitely need to see the ‘you’, but you in the business sense rather than personal!
Now I know that time is important to you, which is why it’s so important to get this number one point right. So that you’re not wasting your precious time with ineffective marketing. Getting strategic and knowing who are you talking to is key.
Number One Rule of your Business Blog
Who are you talking to? I’m talking about your Ideal Customer here.
Who are you selling to? Who do you most want to work with? What problems do they have that you can solve? What are their hopes & dreams? Are they young or old, tired or excited, live in the city or countryside? Are they slowing down or speeding up? Do they need a confidence boost or new skills?
I’d recommend spending an afternoon or so really getting to grips with this concept. There’s a few ways you can look at your Ideal Customer.
You can think about demographics, are they a young single mum who doesn’t know who to cook good nutritional meals, or a new entrepreneur in her 50’s who can’t work out who to use wordpress? Get specific, really figure them out, what makes them tick, what are their pain points and how you can solve them.
Or you can look at emotions. Is your Ideal Customer a tired, frustrated business owner who longs for a system that will save them time? Or an excited traveller who wants the ultimate planned holiday somewhere exotic? By looking at emotions you don’t need to be as specific on age and gender as we all have emotions that cross those barriers.
Or we can swing this around and talk about finding your niche. Which is:
1 – I love communicating and building relationships with others
2 – I’m skilled at marketing and social media and enjoy sharing these skills with others
Plus – I love working with women in business who are creative to boot.
The idea is that you can’t serve everyone and neither would you probably want to. You can’t talk to everyone – your messages will be bland and middle of the road. You want people to find you and think ‘god damn, they know me, the bloody well know me, they understand what I need and they have the solution’. This will never happen if you don’t niche and speak directly to your ideal customer.
Getting creative can really help here. When I’m working with clients we get A3 sheets of paper and paste words and images from magazines that brings our Ideal Customers to life. It often creates new deepened understandings and brings an element of creativity into business, which I love.
Then whenever you’re writing your blog you have your ideal customer in mind – you’re writing for them, you’re saving their bacon and providing the most amazing solution.
Think the Ideal Customer won’t work for you or your business. Listen to this story:
The other day I was listening to Radio 4 and up pops Hans Zimmer, a 50 year old German composer. He’s written stuff you know, a lot of stuff. The Lion King, Gladiator, Pirates of the Carribean and mostly importantly the theme tune to Going for Gold. Now Hans writes everything with one person in mind; his ideal customer. He writes all his music for a young single mum, who’s not got a lot of money, but pools some resources together to take the kids to the cinema and sit down and relax for 2 hours. Everything. He write everything with her in mind. It’s the most beautiful example of the ideal customer I’ve ever heard. Literally every note of music is to help this mum relax and have some quiet time. And Hans Zimmer – he’s making a lot of money writing for his ideal customer, not Hollywood Execs.
So that’s it?
There are lots of rules of writing amazing business blogs, like consistency, great content, being the expert, sharing on social media, e-newsletters. But the main thing you have to grapple with first is ‘Who am I talking to?’. By talking directly to your ideal customer you’ll be able to show that you understand them and that you have the solution.
Want to know more about how you can use the amazing tool of blogging to grow your business online? Check out how we can work together!
