7 Ways To Create Killer Content for Business Blogs

7 Business Blog Post Ideas Every Business Can Use

Business blogs require more than a rehash of other ho-hum corporate content. To be effective, your business blog must offer information that prospects, customers and fans feel drawn to consume. They should feel like your blog is reaching out and pulling them in.

Here are seven ways every marketer can develop killer content for their business blog regardless of the type or size of business. Don’t forget to include a call-to-action in the post linked to the appropriate page on your website. (If your boss doesn’t want a blog, check this post.)

  1. Use show-and-tell to put products in context. Entice prospects and customers to buy your products by showing how they’re best used. Showing a lone jacket or lamp is great for supplying purchase details but may be difficult for potential buyers to envision in use. Think print catalogs come to life. Since blogs continually need fresh posts, plan a sequence of articles. While showing a full wardrobe may work at the beginning of the season, plan posts for later when customers may only buy fill in items. Stacks and Stacks’ Clutter Control Freak Blog shows customers how to use their products.
  2. Answer customers’ burning questions. Use your blog to offer extended responses to FAQs. Reply to one question in each post. Until you answer all of your prospects questions, they won’t purchase. Source questions from your sales team, customer service and social media. Include a section on your blog to gather customer inquiries. The more information you give the more that prospects can assess your offering against the alternatives. Marcus Sheridan blogged about price on his pool blog. The transparency helped persuade buyers.
  3. Give prospects and customers the inside scoop. Everyone loves gossip. Consider how you can use voyeurism to pull prospects into your offering. One option is to show how your products can be used to achieve runaway and designer looks, whether as is or a knockoff version. This works well with clothes, home furnishings and crafts. If you’ve got well-known executives, spokesperson or industry experts, give them the podium.
  4. Offer enhanced alternative to instructions and manuals.  Support customer use post-purchase, whether it’s a step-by-step video on how to put children’s toys together or determining what the problem is when one of your car’s dashboard lights goes on. Go one step further and gather customer input to enhance your blog. This works for complex products and DIY crafts. Don’t underestimate the need for this type of information by other users. Include photographs and videos where available and appropriate.
  5. Teach prospects and customers. Make learning fun. Show your audience how to use your products better. Think fun or useful information whether it’s videos regarding how to apply makeup better or DIY home improvements. The goal is to support customers and encourage them to buy your products. Here’s where you can use a different spin on product placement. Don’t forget to provide printable instructions with your product name included. Enhance the utility of this information with a human face in terms of photographs and videos. Lion Brand runs a knit along (aka KAL) so that shoppers can work on the same project together.
  6. Shine a spotlight on your customers and fans. Make your customers celebrities. Use photographs of them or their work. Interview them in a fun way related to your offering. Let them explain their best tip of the week or recipe. If your customers aren’t willing to engage, consider offering them a gift or special promotion.
  7. Make them laugh. Entertaining prospects and customers is an old content marketing approach. It led to the creation of soap operas.  Develop a company mascot or representative to help communicate with your target market. Don’t forget that you can deliver videos via your blog. While Ford used videos with Doug, an orange puppet, to introduce their 2012 Focus (although they’re no longer available), this type of fun content could have been delivered via a blog.

Publishing for a killer business blog, like any content creation, starts with understanding your customers and their needs so that you can answer their pressing questions. By engaging them with your content, you can build a relationship that keeps them returning to your business blog.

What examples of killer content have you seen in business blogs? Why did you think it was good?

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen


Here are some related business blogging articles you may find of interest.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/levork/5880039212/
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