Sara | Smart Monkey Marketing

Blogging has become an essential part of any successful marketing and social media strategy. If you are already blogging, then congratulations on recognising the importance of this great marketing tool – the following article will help you to hone and refine your blogging skills. If you haven’t yet caught the blogging bug, then the same article will hopefully persuade you to get started.

Blogging is on the increase and, as high profile bloggers are becoming more influential to their readers, companies large and small are waking up to the power of the blog. So the message is clear, ignore blogging at your peril.

1. What exactly is a blog?

As there seems to be so much confusion around what constitutes a blog, I thought it would be helpful to clarify exactly what a blog is. Essentially it is a collection of fairly short articles in date order which are loosely connected to one or more specific themes. The main difference between a blog and a traditional article is that blogs tend to be more informal and express opinion over fact. The informal nature of blogging makes them interesting and engaging to the reader, a bit like a conversation should be. Blogging can be written pieces of content or video blogs.

2. What will blogging do for me/my business?

Blogging is about engaging with your audience. Done properly, it improves your credibility by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in a chosen area. This means that people begin to trust and value your opinion on things. Ultimately people prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust and so, if your blog has successfully represented you, then you now have a captive audience.

3. What are the benefits of blogging?

Apart from the obvious benefits mentioned above, blogging is good for keeping people updated about your activities and your products and services. Remember that if you have managed to gain a captive audience you can now keep them informed. Be careful here though as blogging is not a way to sell things. The main difference being that blogging requires a much more subtle approach. If you ‘sell’ on your blog, don’t be surprised if no-one reads it.

4. How does blogging improve my SEO?

You have probably heard that Google and other search engines love blogs. Well, you heard right. The main reason why blogging improves your SEO is that it keeps your website fresh, current and interesting, which is really important from a SEO perspective. Keep in mind too that not all SEO is done by robots/computers and that there are actual human beings employed to evaluate sites for their interest, relevance and currency. The other reason why it helps with SEO is all that lovely search engine food, otherwise known as keywords, which are included in your blog posts.

5. Isn’t blogging really time consuming?

The great news about writing a blog is that it is less time consuming than say, writing an article, report or whitepaper. Obviously it’s got to read well, have accurate spelling and be grammatically correct but, due to the informal nature of blogging, it is easier and quicker to write.

Planning early on will save time later. The first thing to do is to establish why you’re writing your blog then pick a topic, theme or subject and write down your thoughts, opinions and observations. Let it flow and don’t edit too much at the early stage. A blog should be a set of loosely connected ideas informally written. It does not have to contain lots of relevant facts or answer important questions.

Like with so many other things, practice is key. Once you’ve had a go and found your ‘voice’, set the tone for your pieces and discovered the themes that you like writing about, you are well on your way. Happy blogging!

Marketing has changed so much in the last few years in terms of the vast array of channels which are now available to promote businesses. However, the basics of marketing still remain the same – it is essentially all about getting the right product or service, to the right people, in the right place at the right time.

Simple, eh? Well, we all know that successfully accomplishing this is a little more tricky. Read our top 10 marketing tips below to help you get and stay on the right track.

1. Know where you are heading

It’s really important, no vital, that you have an up-to-date marketing strategy and clear marketing objectives. It’s even more crucial that you read them and regularly refer to them. I say this because, in my experience, strategies tend to be written at the beginning of the financial year and then filed away, only to be revisited at the end of the year. A business without a current marketing strategy and objectives is like a ship without a rudder. Enough said.

2. Understand your target market

I know, I know, this sounds ludicrously obvious. However, in my opinion, many of the challenges that businesses encounter are down to lack of understanding of their prospective clients needs and wants. It is essential, especially in today’s uncertain economic climate, to really get under the skin of your target market. Find out how they think, what their problems are, what they are looking for and work out how your product/service helps them.

3. Highlight your USP’s

Why should someone buy from you rather than one of your competitors? Now, before you answer with something about the quality of your product and service, hold fire for a second. If I had a £1 for every time someone answered that question with the word ‘quality’ somewhere in the sentence I would be a very rich person. You have to be a bit smarter than that and come up with some really, really unique selling points.

4. Promote benefits over features

Many people get features and benefits mixed up. This is a problem in marketing terms as people buy because of benefits. And, let’s face it, the reason you are marketing is to get people to buy your products/services. So, let’s clear this up. A feature is a characteristic of a product or service and a benefit is what it does for the customer.

5. Define your proposition

Someone once said ‘a confused mind always says no’. Now, I can’t remember who said that but they were right. So why then are there so many mailers, emails, leaflets etc which have so many different messages going on, that you can’t actually work out what the company is trying to promote? Keep it simple. Work out what you want to promote and focus on that – make it easy for the customer to see what they need to do. That’s it.

6. Be consistent in your messaging

Are your customers getting a consistent message when they visit your website and receive your email? Or do your different marketing materials look and sound like they have come from different companies? Being consistent is not just down to the branding and images you use, but also the words and the tone you use to communicate your message and ‘speak’ to your audience.

7. Embrace all things social

The world is changing. I know, that’s no newsflash. Social media is the Marmite of marketing, you either love it or hate it. But one thing’s for sure, it is here to stay and it is growing. So if you’re not blogging, tweeting, posting and writing articles you are missing a trick or two. The main complaint about social media is that it is so time consuming. But it doesn’t have to be. With a good social media strategy and some useful tools, social media can be manageable and enjoyable.

8. Integrate your marketing

In this day and age you simply cannot rely on a couple of forms of marketing to achieve business success. You need to use multiple media channels to meet your marketing objectives and you need to be using traditional and digital forms of marketing too. An integrated marketing approach means that all media channels work together to enhance the effectiveness of your marketing activities.

9. Test your marketing activities

A lot of marketing is based on trial and error. After all, if we knew exactly what worked for which business there would be virtually no need for all the different forms of marketing. Based on the fact that we can’t read our customers minds or hypnotise them into buying, not yet anyway, we need to test which headlines, messages, emails and mailers work best. Testing these out through clients, focus groups and surveys is a must to save wasting your marketing budget.

10. Don’t try and do it all yourself

Red Adair once said “If you think hiring a professional is expensive… try working with an amateur”. Keeping up with the latest developments in marketing is no mean feat. It is virtually impossible to be an expert in all areas, which is why it’s important that you hire in the expertise you require. Now, I’m not just saying this because Smart Monkey Marketing provides this expertise, I truly, honestly and wholeheartedly believe that effective marketing delivered by professionals more than pays for itself.

Smart Monkey Marketing offers an integrated marketing service which helps to drive businesses forward so that they grow and prosper. To find out how we can help you and your business, please contact Beth Nash or Sara Knights on 0845 688 4497 or email info@smartmonkeymarketing.co.uk

Smart Monkey Marketing

Author Archives: Sara

Top 10 marketing tips to boost your business in 2012