Do Blogs Sell?
It’s established now that blogs are a great way to attract attention, to publish your thoughts, even create community, but how well do they do for selling stuff?
I was talking to a client the other night who asked if a blog would help him acquire sales leads. Of course I assured that blogs can and do work well for making sales. All that is required is a different approach to that you might be used to.
The key is to use your blog as a vehicle to attract, inform, and build trust. As I said in my post “The Art of Selling with Your Blog”
Blogs gather you a targeted audience, then drip-drip-drip the necessary benefit-lead, fact-filled, objection-busting content to your prospects – without feeling like they are being sold to.
By all means reference your products and services in your articles, just keep it in the context of reader-friendly content, not a pitch. From your blogs static pages and sidebar you can advertise your services also. Just as I have a footer on this article explaining who I am etc, you can place a footer in your posts and/or feed advertising a particular offer.
A great way to show your services without beating readers over the head with sales letters is to discuss real results as case studies. This demonstrates your expertise, shows your service benefits in the form of a story rather than bullet list, and has the potential to introduce client quotes (testimonials).
Critical to your success will be to keep your prospect top of mind and introduce offers in a conversational way. If you manage this you will both make leads and maintain your readership over the longer term.
Excellent…it’s exactly what I was struggling with at this moment. This is quite an encouraging post.
Chris:
I see blogs as PR, soft sell. They contribute to building credibility, reputation, expertise and conversation, which all go to establish relationships with your readers/prospective buyers over the long haul.
Yup, while I have seen blogs with hard sell I think it is more effective as a longer term approach
I agree with you, Chris. To me a business blog is a bit hypnotic — it draws in the customer, creates a community, enhances the credibility of the business, and ultimately (the hyptnotic part) sells the visitor something.
If implemented correctly, a business blog is incredibly useful for enhancing sales…and sometimes this occurs without the customer even knowing it.
Enhancing, yes David I think that is a good word for it. It is the system as a whole that sells, not just any one component :)
More than hard selling blogs should be used as brand building and loyalty building tools because why would I visit a blog that perpetually harps about products its owners want to sell. On second thought, even such blogs can succeed if they address the quandaries faced by the current or future users of the product or service.
Amrit, I agree though they don’t appeal to me a ton of email newsletters do very well even though they are full of pitches for products :)
Good post, by reading it I tried to understand if I am running correctly my blog on DEsign. I think Form today I’ll do a little better..thanks!
http://www.lucianobove.blogspot.com