Are you worn down by your business blog? It's a good question to ask your clients, who need to come up with engaging content on a weekly and even daily basis.
Creating business blog content, after a while, starts looking more like a chore and less like a fun way to market a business, and at some point your clients are going to want to scrap the whole thing. The good news is, it doesn't have to be difficult if you help them create strategies for blogging.
With a little planning, they can create fresh, relevant content that engages customers and prospects and enhances their credibility in the field. Here are seven simple ways to create fresh content for a business blog:
1. Answer your customers' questions.
Do you get the same question in your company's inbox from customers, but the answer is too long for a simple spot on the FAQ page? Consider answering that question in a blog post. To find new, interesting questions, poll your sales force or your tech support team - they probably have a ream of great blog fodder at their disposal.
2. Go visual.
Your business blog content doesn't have to be just about text. At your next trade show or event, take pictures and post them to your blog. You can also take photos of new products, unusual uses for your products, or even ordinary uses to show prospects what you can do for them.
3. Curate industry information.
Be a content curator for your industry: scoop up statistics, images, and video into one blog post. If you already read industry blogs and publications, this should be a snap. (And if you don't, it's one more reason to beef up your RSS reader with some more feeds.)
4. Make lists.
Think of customer problems and your industry in terms of lists. These lists can then be posted on your blog using the Cosmopolitan headline practice: 10 Ways to Market to Lawyers! 5 Surefire Tips to Close the Sale!
5. Create charts.
People love data, and they love visuals. Why not combine those two into charts that illustrate industry trends, problems, and solutions? These charts can provide your readers with valuable industry insight that they won't find anywhere else.
6. Be a columnist.
You may absolutely love her or hate her, but one reason why people talk about Ann Coulter is because she gets on one side of an issue and argues it passionately. You may not want to go that far, but pick a controversial topic in your industry and argue your company's position.
7. Probe your analytics.
Take a good, hard look at your website's analytics. The keywords that people search for and the links they visit can all be fodder for business blog content. You can also gain valuable insight about where your visitors are coming from and use that to create posts tailored to their geographical locations.
These are surprisingly simple - yet incredibly effective - ways for your clients to come up with content for their business blogs. And even better, some of them don't rely on text, which makes your clients' blogs more visually appealing.
Use these tips to create inspired business blog content, or come up with some ideas of your own, and share with your clients. What else can you think of to create fresh blog content?
