Friday with Tess. For those of you who don’t know, Tess does newsletter programs for contractors. Today she is going to talk about blogging for contractors and how you can improve the value of your business.
You may have noticed that in the last few years, blogs have become an indispensable tool for many businesses – including home builders, remodelers, subcontractors and even suppliers. And when executed correctly, blogs incorporate well into a company’s overall advertising and marketing strategy.
Good Blogs Mean Good Business
A good blog can definitely increase your business value by creating loyal customers and help you build trust among potential customers. A blog can also play an integral part in garnering visibility for your business, keep your website “fresh” with new, useful information, and over time can be an important aspect of positioning you as an “expert” in your industry.
Understand, however, that a blog will only bring value and desired benefits to any business if done in a strategic manner. Conversely, if you do not nurture your blog, it can turn around and bite you in the butt and actually be destructive to your business.
Before you join the masses and start a blog, here are a few tips to consider.
- Take Good Care of Your Customers. Take care of your readers as if they are old and loyal customers. How do you do this? Make it a point to reply to every comment and email promptly and courteously. Furthermore, if you have to do some research to answer your readers’ questions, tell them that you need to look into their question and then do the research and get back to them – the same way you would for a customer. This will ensure you create a blogging environment that is personable, customer oriented … and trusted.
- Edit Before Posting. In the construction world, the saying goes, “Measure twice; cut once.” Make sure you apply this to the blogging world as well – edit twice; post once. Before you post what you wrote onto your blog, make sure that you’ve edited it for grammar, spelling and readability. This way, you will appear sharp and knowledgeable to your potential customers – which will surely reap the benefits of credibility and loyalty in the future.
- Clear and Concise Is Critical. Blog readers don’t want to read a novel, so don’t turn your blog into a long, drawn-out book of information. You have less than a minute to capture readers’ attention and convince them that your blog post is worth their time reading.
So how do you do this?
- Keep your sentences short and sweet.
- Break paragraphs frequently.
- Use bullet points or numbers.
- Use bold and/or italics to draw the eye to key elements in your post.
- Use illustrations, photos and graphs to help demonstrate points in the post.
These tips allow busy customers to skim your post and get the general idea without having to read the entire post.
- Be Personal and Yet Not Too Personal. Storytelling is very helpful in capturing readers’ attention. It makes your blog funny and interesting, and one that makes you more friendly and approachable (and we all want to do business with people we know, like and trust). However, be sure to pick a story that is appropriate to your blog’s topic – and not simply tell a story about your son’s football game on Saturday just because you feel the need to share it. Save those stories for offline.
Remember, to build value with a blog, first take the time to tie your blog into your overall marketing strategy. It doesn’t happen overnight, but over time, you blog will create trust among your readers and eventually translate into good business.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This was an interesting article. We’ve been thinking about blogging, but I don’t know if any of us are good writers, really. Can you reccomend a site that might be useful? I know about the blogspot ones, or I guess wordpress, and those are easy, but I don’t really know if they have a lot of credibility. Lots of people talking about their cats and stuff- is it bad to be in that neighborhood? I don’t know anything about web design or anything. I appreciate the article.
Brian,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting (I am assuming you are Brian?). To answer your question, maybe video is your better solution? Instead of having to write stuff out, you could shoot how to videos. I would think especially for your business video might be the better play anyway. Let me know how you do!
Darren
That sounds like a good idea Darren. I appreciate your advice on this, and all over the site. Now I guess I’ll have to find some guys without a “face made for the radio” haha.
That one I can’t help you with!!!