Business blog posts generally fall into one of 10 types. When you’re trying to write for your business blog and you feel a little stuck (or if you’re new to business blogging), you can just pick one of these 10 types of business blog posts to use as a guide.
1. Customer success stories
One of the most powerful types of posts you can write for a business blog is the customer success story, because it sells without the “hard” sell. As far as other people are concerned, you are in business to help them.
In fact, you could go as far as to say that your business helps others do their business faster, better, or cheaper. So you want to tell stories about how your business has helped others do their business faster, better, or cheaper than without you.
2. Product or service tips and tutorials
Keep your customers informed with your blog. Chances are, you and others in your company are the foremost experts on your own products or services. You want your customers to be loyal, informed, and prone to brag about you. Keeping them educated with constant tutorials and tips helps you do that. It also helps you create scenarios in which customer success stories can happen. Microsoft has become very good at this, lately.
3. Upcoming products or services information
Use your business blog to provide your readers with sneak previews, teasers, beta invites, focus group/survey invites, and other buzz-builders. Customers who frequent your blog — especially those who frequently comment — may very well be early adopters of your company’s products or services. These are people whom Seth Godin calls “sneezers”. They are the ones who can do word of mouth marketing without even being asked to. They spread your “ideavirus” to others.
Providing some information on upcoming products and services makes your business blog a place of excitement and anticipation. It helps reward loyalty and spread your marketing message and brand at the same time.
Again, we can look to Microsoft as an example. Before Office 2007 was publicly available, it was available as a beta (test) version. Office 2007 developers at Microsoft previewed the new interface and new functionality, which helped to build buzz about Office 2007 before it was released.
4. Request feedback from customers
Your business blog is a much better avenue than surveys and focus groups for getting feedback. Why? Precisely because of the reasons most people would say “no way” to such an idea: it’s messy and impossible to graph.
You can use blog polling services or plugins to provide some graph-able structure to the feedback, but likely your most valuable insights will come from comments to the post. People who feel strongly enough to take the time to leave a comment (good or bad) are a precious resource for your business, because it costs nothing to get what may be the most intelligent, valuable feedback you can have.
5. News and announcements
Reporting news and announcements is often the first type of business blog post that comes to most people’s minds, and that’s why I deliberately did not place it high on the list. I wanted to you get some exposure to other post ideas and get you thinking about them.
Remember that it is blogs that are different, unique, or unusual that stand out in visitors’ minds Accomplishments, introductions, new staff, staff leaving, product or service changes, new products or services
6. Industry news
Position yourself as a leader in your industry by relating industry news to your customers. Tell them why it’s important for them to know this, how it affects them. Your customers want to know that you are aware of the big picture and that you’re looking out for them. That helps reinforce the notion that they made the right decision by going with your products or services. With type of post, being opinionated is okay, but remember some important points: don’t bash your competition — say nice things about them, and don’t sell in these posts. Objectivity is not possible and most people know this, but trust is. You want your readers to trust you. You need to show modesty and humility and refrain from bragging or selling.
7. What to look for in a…
This is a classic educated customer type of post. There’s an old saying: an educated customer is our best customer. In the so-called information age we live in, the better-educated you are about something, the smarter your decisions will be. Educating your customers (as opposed to bombarding them with your unwanted “marketing messages”) puts them in control of a purchase process that engenders confidence by being knowledgeable. If you sold aftermarket performance parts for cars, you can’t sell to someone who doesn’t understand what’s so great about your products unless you can educate them about performance and quality. Don’t go for the hard sell. Educated people sell themselves on your products because you deal with them more as equals who are experts.
8. What to watch out for from…
Used judiciously, this type of business blog post implies that you’re not doing these things — and others might be. Helps to build trust because you’re looking out for your customers. You can only use a post of this type occasionally, because its effect quickly wears off with repetition, and you will look like you’re just fear-mongering. You will see this type of post from someone who sells higher end products and services. For instance, if you sold expensive, custom-built computer workstations, you cold write a post called “What to Watch Out for from Cheap Parts Computer Companies.”
9. Related interests
If you sell outdoor gear then you should blog about trips you take. If you sell diapers then you should blog about parenting and your own experiences as a parent. You’re relating to your customers by blogging about related interests you have in common with them. This is a benefit you get when you target a niche demographic rather than just a niche product.
10. Product, service, or process explanation
Consumers want to know your process because they want to trust you. They really do, and they will if you give a reason. This is part of the new transparency and openness in business. Tell your customers where your materials come from, how things are made, how your service processes are structured. Inform, inform, inform. Educated customers really are the best customers. And yet, you can do a great job with the story and anyone will “see” increased value in the product or service.
For example, I could show you a plain spice jar labeled Cinnamon. And I could show you an unusually shaped and designed jar that contained Moroccan cinnamon from a particular region where the soil is the best possible for growing amazing cinnamon and processed by the same family for generation after generation blah blah blah.
Which one would cost more? How do you know the first jar didn’t have the same kind of cinnamon in it? It depends on the story I tell. Now, I am not suggesting for even a moment that you make things up that aren’t true. Think about it this way: if your products or services don’t have any good stories behind them, maybe there’s something else deeply wrong with your business that a blog ain’t gonna fix anyway.
Use This List to Help Yourself
When you’re writing a post for your business blog, check against this list so that you can make sure you’re not muddying up a great point by being too broad. Use it as inspiration if you’re stuck for something to write about for the blog. And if you can think of anything I missed, please add it to the comments below.
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