Tips for Building Sustained Revenue Through ‘ART’ Blogging
When ContentMender audits a prospective client’s blog, most, if not all, of the writing self-promoting. These are the types of businesses that thrive on a “me, me, me” stance.
And nobody but that company’s staff cares.
A blog is the backbone of any long-term content marketing plan. If the proper strategy – one that is client-centric – is created well before any posts are written, your blog’s power is endless.
Since blogs are hosted on your website, and not say Facebook, Medium or LinkedIn, you 100-percent own the content. The more you blog, the more your organic rankings will grow – you’ll have a much larger database of keywords and content, which equates to healthier SEO.
SEO is vital, but there’s much more to blogging. With an optimized strategy, you’ll establish what I call ART: Authority, Reputation, and Trust.
For many, the blogging process sounds straightforward. Many just hire a penny-a-word writer from overseas that has zero expertise in their industry and are completely clueless about SEO. Or they’ll require that in-house staff contributes to the blog, though these people again may not know how to write and are likely also clueless about SEO.
Plus, because it’s a long-term play, many lose the energy when immediate results don’t surface.
Here’s how it works.
When you create a blog that educates and guides your prospective clients to make a purchasing decision vs. promoting your products or services, you’ll build your authority as the go-to source. Once authority is fully established, you build a reputation as a thought leader within your space. And once authority and reputation are established, you gain the ultimate element for long-term success with clients and referrals from those clients: trust.
I previously wrote about this concept for Search Engine Journal, but called it “TAR.” The idea is the same, but ART orders things so readers can grasp that it’s truly a simple and linear process. Create blog content that builds authority and reputation, and if done consistently and frequently, create trust.
When trust is established, you’ll continually be, as John Hall, co-founder of Calendar, says in his latest book of the same name, “Top of Mind.”
The ART concept is not just for prospective clients, either. The more you blog and build trust with current clients, the more loyal they will become, helping to provide the ultimate lead generator – word-of-mouth referrals.
Following are some guidelines to use in your business’s blogging strategy to establish ART, and increase your revenue.
Again remember – this is not an overnight strategy, and anyone who tells you that you’ll immediately see results from blogging is absolutely crazy – especially for new businesses or websites. If you create four blogs per month in the beginning, traction and ROI is going to take much longer than a website that’s creating 10 blogs per month.
1. Focus on Reader
As I said earlier, this is the immediate issue my team sees when auditing a prospective client’s blog – or any content on the company’s website.
Some businesses see a blog as a quick way to promote their services or products. Sure, you can provide blog posts about a new service or product, but remember to explain the value the respective service or product will provide to the reader. You can also provide some insight into company culture or recent awards, but do this only when necessary and when you established an audience.
To truly establish ART, you must focus on educating your reader, and gently guide them towards making a purchasing decision. Have a company that sells guitar equipment? Don’t discuss your lineup of guitar strings – rather, discuss how to optimally set up a guitar or get the most life out of strings. And the more evergreen the content, the better. Evergreen content that never ages will get more shares and more views, helping further keep your brand “Top of Mind.”
Again, focus on educating your reader, and don’t be afraid to do some minimal self-promoting once you’ve established a concrete audience.
2. Provide Answers to Questions & Solutions to Problems
These are the most fundamental elements of a blog. It sounds simple, but many businesses forget about them.
When you provide answers to a searcher’s question – even if they are not in a buying phase – and provide solutions to their problems, you’ll naturally build your authority and reputation, which leads to building trust with the readers.
The best story to reinforce the power of this simple thinking is Marcus Sheridan’s. By creating content that answered people’s questions about fiberglass pools, Sheridan saves his business River Pool and Spas during the market turndown of 2008.
This led to him become an advocate on content marketing that answers questions and provides solutions to people’s problems, and the launch of his book They Ask, You Answer. I personally send this to many of my clients to reinforce why my team does what it does, and also recommend it to all my writers.
It goes without saying that all answers and solutions must be reputable and honest. I’d love to say that ContentMender’s blogging efforts will get you to the first place for a highly searched keyword within two weeks. But I’d hope you’d immediately call BS. Trust your instinct, and learn to recognize a fake – from experience on both sides of business seeking a digital marketing agency and working for agencies, the number of hacks are endless.
3. Blog for Various Levels of Sales “Cyclone”
Yes – I said “cyclone.” After reading Smash the Funnel by Eric Keiles and Mike Lieberman, I have a whole new perspective on the traditional sales funnel.
In the book, Keiles and Lieberman deconstruct the buyer’s journey and create a new way of looking at it, calling it the “Cyclonic Buyer Journey.” There are eight “cyclones” in this customer-centric model that revolve beneath customer service, marketing and sales:
- Pre-Awareness
- Awareness
- Education
- Consideration
- Evaluation
- Rationalization
- Decision Making
- Ongoing Delivery
I won’t get into the exact details of the book (read it; it’s a game-changer), but know that it’s wise to create content for each phase of the sales process.
One of ContentMender’s main blog strategies is creating a “50/25/25 Blend,” which will be the focus of an upcoming blog that I’ll link here.
We create blog strategies that provide:
- 50-percent education for newbies – those who know nothing about a service/product
- 25-percent education for intermediate readers are educated but want to sharpen knowledge
- 25-percent education for expert readers. They know everything about the product or service, but just are looking for something a bit more valuable to help guide their purchasing decision
Every business will have a different audience that’s at different “cyclones” of the buyer’s journey. Make sure to create content that speaks to each one.
4. Blog from Different Company Perspectives
This is a huge miss for companies that have larger teams. The more variety of voices you blog from, the more variety of readers you’ll attract. As an entrepreneur, I’m all about the value and learning from other’s journeys. If I’m researching about something like biohacking, and I read a post directly from the CEO of a company like Dave Asprey of the Bulletproof Diet, his words will resonate with me on a strong level.
Others readers may love finance or marketing or the actual tactics of a product/service. If you have your CFO, CMO or technical staff all creating content, you’re going to appeal to each of those readers on a much more valuable level.
Sometimes a CEO or someone with similar responsibilities either doesn’t have time to write or simply can’t write. No worries – have your top writer get an outline and ghostwrite that article for them. I made a partial living ghostwriting for various business leaders over the past decade, and this led to it becoming one of ContentMender’s first services.
Here’s a quick example from a digital marketing agency view of blogging from different company perspectives:
- CEO creates inspirational content that drives the “why” of the business
- CMO creates content that exploits project management advice
- CFO creates content that highlights various tools for finance
- SEOs create content that educates on various tactics
All businesses will be different. Unless you’re a one-person team, don’t write from a singular perspective. Educate from all perspectives of your company so you can appeal to a wider audience.
5. Blog Consistently and Frequently
If I were a content marketing preacher discussing how to establish ART, I would end every sermon with some words on blogging consistently and frequently. This is vital for success from both a reader and search engine perspective.
For readers it’s simple – when they see the efforts put in to consistently and frequently educate, they will see you as an authority and reputable business, which will lead to trust.
More trust means more reads and social media shares, which leads to more trust within a search engine. The consequence is stronger search rankings, and of course more ROI.
Concluding Thoughts
Don’t blog just to promote your products/services. Let your dedicated product/service pages do the promoting.
Blog to establish ART – Authority, Reputation, and Trust. When you create trust between your business and the reader, it’s much easier to offer what you’re selling. Many of those readers may be in awareness stage, and may not be looking to purchase anything. But if you educate them through your blogging efforts, you’re company will be “Top of Mind” for that reader when they’re actually looking to purchase.
And remember, blogging for ART is a long-term strategy, one that may not provide ROI for sometimes six months or even a year. If you’re dedicated to your business and have the top goal of providing true value to your clients/customers through your products and/or services, the wait is no problem.
ContentMender always piggybacks the strong what we call “home base” blogging strategy with guest posting on other leading publications within your industry – preferably a leading news website or a giant like Forbes. This compounds all blogging efforts, providing you with strong ART, which ultimately leads to stronger revenue and truly sustainable business.
