Why do you blog? What’s your goal?
Simply writing and publishing a blog post won’t get you very far. If you want traction and are looking to go beyond providing informational and educational material to your blog audience, you’ll need to change some things. To be able to get the results you want — provided you know exactly what it is that you’re aiming for — you’ll have to improve your current blogging strategy.
You might be a superstar when it comes to creating amazing content and you might even be great at getting traffic, however, if your ultimate goal is to elevate your brand while generating sales and profits, something else needs to come into play.
In this article I’ll share with you four actionable steps to building your blog audience and achieving success with blog marketing.
1. Distribute And Promote Your Content.
This one might seem like a no-brainer, however, I’d like you to focus on the first word in the headline for a second longer.
DISTRIBUTE…
Distribution doesn’t equal social media. It’s way more than social media.
Yes, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Co. are awesome distribution and promotion channels, however, if you want to maximize your blogging impact, you need to look beyond social media.
And this includes making your content available across the following distribution channels:
- Owned Media Channels: Email and newsletter marketing, SlideShare marketing, podcasting, video marketing, social media marketing, webinars, seminars, workshops, live events, Word-of-Mouth marketing, Face-to-Face marketing
- Earned Media Channels: Leading media publications such as magazines, articles, newspapers, blogs
- Paid Media Channels: Native advertising (social ads, sponsored content), paid placement, content discovery platforms
Do you want to know how to take your blog marketing to the next level and achieve even better results?
Integrate the distribution and marketing channels I mentioned above. Separate, individual silos in marketing can get you to a certain level. However, if you want to leverage your marketing efforts and finally boost your results, you need an integrated approach.
2. Write Quality Content And Publish Consistently.
Ready to delight your blog audience even more?
Provide quality content and do it on a regular basis. Be consistent. Set up a blogging schedule and stop random acts of marketing.
Now, you don’t need to write and publish a blog post every single day — unless you want to, obviously. You can do it on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.
What works best for your particular blog audience?
To find the answer to this critical question, you’ll need to dig deeper and identify the needs, wants, frustrations, fears, and desires of your ideal visitors, prospects and future clients.
Let’s say your blog audience loves and expects to be greeted with new content every week on Wednesday. If that’s the case, do whatever it takes to publish a new blog post every Wednesday. This will keep your loyal fans and followers engaged and on the lookout for it.
3. Offer Your Blog Audience The Possibility To Join A Community Of Like-Minded Individuals.
I guess you’re already familiar with the slogans
- “The money is in the list..”
- Or, here’s an even better one: “The money is in other people’s lists (OPL)”.
The fact of the matter is that you need to offer your blog audience a subscription method, better yet, several different subscription options.
So, what are some of the common ways to subscribe?
Most people, even less tech-savvy individuals are familiar with email. Besides email, there are numerous other ways to subscribe. This could be via RSS, Facebook, Twitter, a LeadBox, an exit pop-up and so on. Remember, different subscription methods appeal to different people and preferences.
Lastly, whatever subscription options you choose to offer, make sure they are clear and easy. Don’t over-complicate the process.
For those of you looking to join the Strength In Business community — a community of highly-committed, driven and passionate entrepreneurs, business owners and multinational corporations, who are eager to receive exclusive content that I never share with the public audience, make sure you subscribe here.
ATTENTION:
The content I share in my exclusive weekly newsletter is NOT for freebie seekers and looky-loos. It’s for serious business people who are 100% implementation and results-oriented!
4. Repurpose Your Content To Get Even More Traffic.
Last but not least, repurposing your content.
This one is such an amazing marketing weapon and yet, so few use it intelligently.
Why should you let your best blog posts only be a blog? Why not leverage your efforts and turn those blog posts into videos, slideshows, podcasts and more?
Repurposing your blog posts is a great way to expose your quality content to a larger audience and get even more traffic.
Expanding your current blog audience isn’t such a big deal after all if you:
- Publish the content you already created as a video on YouTube
- Create a few PowerPoint slides and upload them to SlideShare, or
- Record an audio podcast and make it available on iTunes.
This is the art of repurposing content and you can master this art too.
So, what are you waiting for?
Conclusion
There is a lot of noise in the market, and even more online. And it’s going to get even noisier as more and more people join the “blogging crowd” to grab a piece of this tasty-looking cake.
Blogging is hard work. If you want to get rich quick, you gotta look around for something else — I’m sure you’ll find some online guru eager to sell you the next shiny strategy…
But blogging is also very rewarding… in many different and unexpected ways. You get to dive deeper into the minds and hearts of your ideal blog audience, you continuously improve your writing skills and get to master the art of copywriting, you mingle with other like-minded bloggers from different industries, you get to share your stories with people who have similar backgrounds, paths, dreams and ideas… and I could go on and on and on with the benefits of blogging.
I’d like to end this article with an epic quote by world famous blogger Darren Rowse who has mastered the art of blogging. Darren is the Founder of ProBlogger, a leading blogging platform for passionate writers looking to consistently add more value to their blogs. If you want to continue to WOW and delight your blog audience, take Darren’s words seriously.
“There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there.” ~ Darren Rowse
Over to you…
What strategies do you use to build and grow your blog audience?
