If your business blog isn’t supporting your business objectives, you gotta wonder why you’re bothering. But accomplishing that is not as easy as it sounds.
Or is it?
Next time you write a post for your business blog, and you really want to kick it in the head and get results, ask yourself these four power questions:
- What business objective do I want this post to help me meet?
- Who am I writing this for?
- What’s in it for them?
- What do I want them to do?
What business objective do I want this post to help me meet?
This question has helped me write many posts here on Remarkablogger. Most often, the business objective I’m trying to meet is to attract paying clients for my blog consulting services. You know the old saying: begin with the end in mind. That’s what this question is all about. Even if you ignored the other questions, having your business objective in mind before you write anything helps like you wouldn’t believe. It gives you focus, it gives you a goal.
Who am I writing this for?
Who are the people who would most benefit from your business’ products or services? Who are the people who need what you got right now? Those people are your audience. Here is something I really do: sometimes, when writing a post, I imagine I’m somebody who knows they want a blog, but doesn’t have one because of… what? The “what” gives me endless topics for posts on Remarkablogger. What are your audience’s hopes and fears? Speak to them.
What’s in it for them?
This one is a toughie for business blogs. You can’t just sell at people on your blog, it doesn’t work. Why is a prospective customer reading your blog? Because they’re investigating you. They’re testing you. They’re getting to know you and they will begin to trust you. When you’re trying to attract leads and sales, you have to show your prospective customers that your existing customers are happy with you and successful because of your help.
What do I want them to do?
Business blogging is different than other kinds of blogging because unless your blogging activities show that you are furthering business, you’re wasting your time. Not always, but occasionally, you can work a call to action into your posts. The call to action can be something relatively low-key, such as asking readers to share their thoughts in the comments, which increases engagement, relationship, and trust (and so leads to sales). Or, the call to action can be very obvious, such as when I asked for people to check out Gateway Blogging and sign up to become an alpha tester.
How to Do It
When you have an idea for a post, write out the questions (or copy them from above) and write your answers to them in a word processor. Make sure your answers are all congruent with each other and that what you want and say makes sense. Armed with these answers, now you can write your business blog post.
If you keep at this, you will see results by employing this method. Your audience will feel like you are speaking right to them. Reading your blog posts over time, they will develop trust in you. At some point, they will respond to your call to action and contact you. When this happens, they are already sold, and all you have to do is close the sale.
Kick it in the head?! Between this and the knockout post the other day, I’m starting to worry about you, Michael.
Ending up a week of serendipity, this post comes at the right time as I was trying to figure out how to apply these questions…
http://www.jslogan.com/blog/40-blog/70-when-youre-conversant-in-these-things-good-things-happen-to-you.html
…to my upcoming blog posts this year. Applying your approach to these types of questions will help me do that. Thank you!
@Natasha – LOL, I should write a post called “How to Beat the Hell Out of Your Blog, and Have it Come Crawling Back for More.”
There’s just too much violence on the internetz nowadays…
Hey, Michael, how about “9 1/2 Weeks to Blogging Success.”
These are great questions to kick (er, nurture?) a business blog into higher gear. I’ve certainly used them shotgun in the past, but I’m going to start doing it in a more focused, intentional way.
@Sonia – I’m sure Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger could use the work.
MIchael – chuckling…strawberries and cream…Ahem, but back to the questions, which are excellent. It’s like Michael wants us to be master bloggers or something. Ohhh, he does.
Fundamentals. Always good to have those fundamentals brought so clearly into focus.
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[...] 4 Power Questions for Killer Business Blog Posts that Grow Your Business by Michael Martine… These questions are importnt for any business blogger to ask themselves before starting to write an article. Michael even includes a “How to do it” so it is easy to implement. [...]
Answering those questions is the first step in achieving success. The second, more important step, is to actually act on those answers to improve traffic and retainability.
[...] Michael Martine of Remarkablogger suggested 4 power question a person handling a business blog should reply to then generate valuable posts. The objective of these posts is of course to generate business growth. [...]
Sorry Michael but I don’t understand: What exactly is a “killer business”? Why should hit men blog?
@Tad – A hit man’s gotta engage in marketing 2.0 just like everyone else. How else is he going to really let prospective clients know about his expertise? Plus, with all the social media services, it’s easier than ever to keep tabs on his targets.
You would think that the openness and transparency of the web would work against the profession, but that’s not true. If you can be transparent and open, and still get away with murder, how awesome is that?
Some great points, I really struggled with business blogging as you know. I think I targetted the problem to enjoying blogging more than the business side of things in the first place.
Great post Michael.