Image from BigStock
This is a guest post by Tommy Walker.
Why do you blog?
No, really. Have you asked yourself lately?
You want to use your blog to get people to know, like, and trust you. To build rapport and ultimately sell more stuff.
But, you’re creating content on a regular basis, and your sales don’t budge. What gives?
By the end of this article, I promise you will learn the #1 problem with using a blog for marketing, and how you can fix it.
Always have an offer in place
Otherwise, why write?
It’s simple, but people still say, “I can’t make money online.”
When asked, “What do you sell?”
They reply, “Nothing.”
Blogging doesn’t make you money.
Selling a product or service does.
Period.
Businesses aren’t built on popularity. It’s a bonus, sure, but not a business model.
We forget that in order for any of this stuff to, “work” we must always have an end goal in mind.
This brings me to my next point.
Remember Blogging for business is truly Content –>Marketing<–
Have you gotten so wrapped up in, “know, trust, and like”, that you’ve forgotten it’s content marketing you’re trying to do?
When using the social web for business, everything is marketing.
Every article, every comment, every connection, every “like,” and every tweet can be used to market your business.
Never lose sight of that.
Your prospective customers have a problem. Use your content to help them recognize it. You don’t need to be a pushy salesman but you have to remember that everything you write is for the purpose of marketing.
It’s not just about giving away free stuff.
It’s about exposing the gap between where your prospect is and where they would like to be.
To demonstrate, let’s look at this from a slightly different angle
Have you ever gotten your floors cleaned by a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman?
If you have, you probably agreed to a demonstration because you’d get a free carpet cleaning. You probably had no intention of buying a Kirby.
A good vacuum salesman knows this before he’s entered your home.
So, instead of showing you how much his vacuum picks up, he shows you how much your vacuum leaves behind.
He shows you how much dirt is in the air, getting into your lungs. He teaches you about the potential long-term respiratory problems in children, and how regular house dust is more harmful to your health than you may realize.
In other words, the free thing helps you to realize you need the paid thing.
Kirby salesmen don’t just demo the vacuum, make an offer, then walk away.
They take the opportunity to educate you. They let you know that what you’re currently doing is not “fine” and it needs to be fixed.
Help people realize they have a problem
People are creatures of habit.
We go about our days without realizing how much more we could be doing. Whether it’s in business, in ourselves, or vacuuming a floor.
A Kirby salesman educates you on the problems with your situation while demonstrating the solution right before your eyes.
Your content should do the same thing.
Give your reader warning signs, point out mistakes, and explain why certain things will never happen if they don’t change their ways.
Provide context to help them to realize why they should move to the next step of your sales funnel.
Like a Kirby salesman uses the free cleaning to demonstrate why your current vacuum isn’t working, an online marketer uses their blogs, their free ebooks, their Q&A’s, and free consultations all to help their prospective customer recognize one thing:
“I need help.”
One thing is certain, when the salesman has given a good demonstration, you never look at your current vacuum the same way again. Suddenly “good enough” isn’t close to cutting it.
The free cleaning, the free content, is all about snapping people out of the fantasy they’ve been living in, and bringing reality sharply into focus.
A good salesman infuses his demonstration with personality and information. As the customer, you feel informed, and you feel empowered to invest in something that will change your life.
Write purposefully, with intention
So again I ask: why do you blog?
You’re selling yourself short if all you’re trying to do in your content is build trust.
Don’t make the mistake of expecting every article to build your empire for you.
Good content is engineered with a single purpose in mind; be it to spark discussion, generate leads, or get shared across the social web. Great content is one piece of an overarching strategy to reach your potential customers and shake them up.
Visualize the action you want your reader to take, and infuse every word that leaves your fingertips.
Over time, you’ll find yourself planning articles, ebooks, webinars, guest posts and your other online marketing materials to work in tandem to lead qualified prospects to a sale.
So now that you know that the #1 problem with blogging is that most content lacks purpose, what are you going to do?
Will you continue to write purposeless articles and hope people buy from you?
Or will you use your content to engineer a response that will lead to a sale?
The choice is yours.
Choose wisely.
About the Author: Tommy Walker is an Online Marketing Strategist and host of “Inside the Mind” a fresh and entertaining video show about Internet Marketing Strategy.
Image credit: BigStock
Great points, Tommy! I see way too many businesses start a blog to connect with customers, and then just stop updating it completely when they don’t get the response they want. The vacuum sales analogy is perfect. It really is a missed opportunity to provide helpful information to visitors AND pitch their services as the solution to their client’s particular problem.
Julie M. Rodriguez recently posted..Editing and Proofreading
Great stuff… lets scare the consumers and sale our products… (just joking) But seriously so few marketers have that perspective. Congrats !!!
Actually, that brings up an important point: people may feel like they’re being asked to scare prospects into buying. And there are unscrupulous sellers and marketers who do just that.
But that’s definitely not what you should do. It’s not even making someone feel desire for something they don’t want or need. It’s showing them that there is a very real need that they may not have known about before or how important it was. That is a service to people, rather than a disservice.
But because the techniques are same, it’s easy to attribute impure motives to anyone using them.
If I may use a Star Wars analogy, think of marketing and selling techniques like the Force: there’s a light side and a dark side. The dark side can be tempting but it will ultimately corrupt and destroy.
Michael Martine recently posted..Start the New Year Right for Your Business Blog
Thanks for bringing that up Michael, In no way do I recommend that we scare people in an outright way. Now the truth is, in some scenarios people will be scared, but that’s only because the real truth can be frightening.
I love the analogy of the force, because you can certainly go overboard with all of this, but in time, it will consume you and turn people away. (and someone will cut your head off with a lightsaber)
Excellent advice Tommy. Sadly it takes a lot of time and effort to produce a product you sell, then products you give away be it an e-book, a webinar or whatever and then blog. That’s a full time job.
So why not make the stuff you blog about, and the e-books you write, and the webinar you produce help people realize they need help?
It is a full time job, but try to repurpose and repackage your material as much as possible.
Powerpoint presentations make for excellent material on Slideshare.com but they also make for a great Youtube video, exposing you to entirely different audiences.
See what I’m getting at here?
good points,a lot of people start a blog to connect with prospective customers, and then just stop updating it completely when they don’t get the response they want in my opinion
jubilee debt recently posted..Billions for the Bankers 3: Money as Debt
Hi,
Excellent article Tommy. How true about the Kirby salesman. We had a dog and a baby. He vacuumed the rug and brought up about a pound of dog hair and dust and dirt. Then he said this is what your baby is crawling around in. We own a Kirby now. Providing good content and a good product, you will build trust and get sales.
Thanks,
Jim
Jim Calaman recently posted..Awesome Penny Stocks
[...] Why “Know, Like and Trust” Could be Killing Your Blog, remarkablogger.com [...]
Sounds like somebody may have sold vacuum cleaners at another time in their life?
You understood and communicated that analogy just a little too good.
Mike recently posted..Wisdom vs. Experience
Haha! For about a month, on the van, knocking door to door. I hated it
I hesitate with the whole concept of showing people they have a problem. Obviously it works as a marketing strategy, our society has proven that, but I wonder if there isn’t a way to market what you can offer without first trying to prove others are deficient in some way.
Jon Anscher recently posted..Boosting Your Social Media Based Conversions
Jon you make a good point.
Like Michael was saying earlier, there’s a light side and a dark side.
It’s not about making someone feel deficient so much as it is helping them to see that what they’re currently doing isn’t working quite the same way.
It all comes down to the delivery, which is incredibly difficult to master.
Good marketing, however, should simultaneously attract and repel people at the same time. There is no such thing as a product that is “for everyone” so why do so many try to market their products as such?
It’s not about bashing someone over the head and making them feel as though their worthless, and that the product is going to make them not worthless (though many take that route) it’s about giving a prospective audience all of the information and allowing them to make the decision as to whether or not they want to stay in that position.
Some people will take it and be thrilled to do so (the one’s that qualified themselves) and others will decide that it’s not for them (also qualifying themselves, just in the opposite direction)
When you don’t add this element in, and you’re trying to appeal to everyone all the time, you end up with an inbox full of pitches you ignore, snail mail you don’t open etc… whereas if you felt as though something truly was for you, you’d be excited about it’s marketing, because you got to learn more.
This is very true. When I first started I thought it was just an easy way to make money without putting in much effort but then sales and revenue were making around $30 per month after a few months and I was very tempted to give up, but I am carrying on and will try to use the information in this article.
Nice post, waiting for more !
interesting reading, I will come here more often
When you say selling something, do you mean that every post has to be selling something. I run a video game blog and the great number of our posts are walkthoughs. They assume you have the game already so sales would be hard.
Kate recently posted..The Legend of Zelda: Lanayru Mining Facility
No of course not, your blog uses a bit of a different monitization structure because you’re using display ads to make your money. Your focus isn’t necessarily on “selling things” as much as it is “get more views”
Now if you were primarily doing game reviews and selling the games through an affiliate link, it could be a bit of a different story.
Tommy Walker recently posted..Warning: Self deception and manufactured fame kills “entrepreneurs”
Many people buy games based on “let’s play” or walkthrough videos. That’s why I bought Minecraft and Terraria. But let’s say you were reviewing a gaming mouse and had an affiliate link in the post: that would be a more direct selling. All links to all products should always be affiliate links in the case of sites like this.
SOOooo true!
I have to figure that out myself: I just write good quality, highly related stuff and have my offers in the side bar, plus some cta at the bottom of each post.
I don’t like to employ the “in your face” strategies some use, and I will not tell them my grandma’s seriously ill and they have to buy now or it’s too late.
But I guess I really need to focus on helping my readers “realize what they need”, and that what they need is what I got to sell.
I’m glad I found this blog, and btw Michael? I nearly wet myself when I saw your title and tagline, SUPER-cool stuff!
Mark
Mark’s Fat Burning Food and Fitness Blog recently posted..Lugol s Solution: the “Solution” to your Fitness and Health Problems?
Blogging it is not an eady piece of bread, as we talk in Poland, so I can understand the mistakes
Yes you have a point there. Often making people realize what they need makes up most of the marketing. And bloggers who fail to project on this fact, fail to make money online.
Anita Richard recently posted..Review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
After reading your post, it really makes me think. Thanks Tommy!
Tim recently posted..Quick Questions To Ask Before You Buy Mobile Money Bandit
[...] A new look at how you do business. “Businesses aren’t built on popularity,” blogger Tommy Walker reminds us. Whether you use blogging or some other kind of marketing, business is really about solving a problem for your customer. Remarkablogger [...]
[...] A new look at how you do business. “Businesses aren’t built on popularity,” blogger Tommy Walker reminds us. Whether you use blogging or some other kind of marketing, business is really about solving a problem for your customer. Remarkablogger [...]
[...] A new look at how you do business. “Businesses aren’t built on popularity,” blogger Tommy Walker reminds us. Whether you use blogging or some other kind of marketing, business is really about solving a problem for your customer. Remarkablogger [...]
[...] A new look at how you do business. “Businesses aren’t built on popularity,” blogger Tommy Walker reminds us. Whether you use blogging or some other kind of marketing, business is really about solving a problem for your customer. Remarkablogger [...]
I see blogging as helping people out, giving advice on stuff you really do know, sharing knowledge about specific topics.
If you really have those qualities people will come to you by themselves and buy a service/product you are offering. A) Because it is useful to them, B) They trust your expertise. And you did not sell them anything explicitly, that is the most beautiful part of the whole blogging process.
A very thought provoking post indeed, thanks for posting this, Tommy.
The typical blogger is not a marketer. Quoted for truth.
Betty
Betty’s Homes For Sale recently posted..homes for sale
excellent, very interesting points, why do so many people start a blog to make customers, then give up so soon?blogging is a great way to provide helpful information to readers AND pitch their services at the same time
[...] A new look at how you do business. “Businesses aren’t built on popularity,” blogger Tommy Walker reminds us. Whether you use blogging or some other kind of marketing, business is really about solving a problem for your customer. Remarkablogger [...]
Thanks – good post. Timely reminder for me too.
@julie Many bloggers make the mistake of providing too much information and pitching too little.
-Thomas
Thomas recently posted..best marketer in malaysia
wow, very interesting points
confidence, profesionalism, and practice is the key
but there are so many little things, even just things as wording that can throw people off a little bit
Very good points. I feel that it’s common sense that in order to make money, you need a product that people want to buy and decent traffic coming your way. You can either create your own product or promote someone’s product. You can make lots of money with blogging.
Some nice points – love the vacuum cleaner analogy. Essentially there is little difference between selling on the phone, face to face, and in your online marketing material – a lot of people make the mistake that the basic sales rules don’t apply to online material.
great points made by Tommy. It is always difficult to keep the “sales” hat on when you are trying to connect and develop trust with your audience. It does take finesse, but with enough time (and mistakes made) you’ll eventually get it.
Such a smart post that really does hit on the key question…if you don’t know WHY you are blogging, then how can you focus your efforts to generate business?!
This is a must read for all bloggers.
I salute you for pointing it in great details.
~Drei
Andrei Clint recently posted..How To Get A Girlfriend
I agree, I first started thinking I could write about anything, but you will only get readers if you are very passionate about a subject and are very knowledgeable.
Hi Tomy! You made a clear point there. I was enlighten on how to focus my attention to my priorities. Does having an excellent to make money will help me succeed in blogging or maybe at some point it wound be an overkill?
Thanks for sharing!
-Lea Dee
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[...] A new look at how you do business. “Businesses aren’t built on popularity,” blogger Tommy Walker reminds us. Whether you use blogging or some other kind of marketing, business is really about solving a problem for your customer. Remarkablogger [...]
Great post. Some parts are hard to understand for me, non-native english though… Do you know any good translate plugin for WordPress?
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Google translate is the best you’re going to find.
I like your blog’s graphic design – is it custom made, or some public template? Where can I download it from?
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I created it using Headway: http://ow.ly/6Uv3v
[...] is a post I wrote to help struggling bloggers get their content back on [...]
Hey Michael,
any tips re seo/backlinking now since the recent panda update?
Thanks,
Mark
Mark recently posted..Rusty Moore of Fitness Black Book & Visual Impact Muscle Building: A Fitness Blogger with a Difference
Avoid link-building services like the plague. A real network beats paid links for long term authority.
Michael Martine recently posted..3 Tips for Creating the Perfect Infographic (Ironically not an Infographic)
Thanks Michael!
What would a real network be? And how can you find/join them?
Mark
Mark recently posted..Rusty Moore of Fitness Black Book & Visual Impact Muscle Building: A Fitness Blogger with a Difference
What I mean is your own personal network which you have cultivated over time.
Amen!
Having a network of connections makes link building as simple as an email request, rather than buying links from… God knows where.
Now it’s coming out that some people who had top rankings lost them, and because of that, they’re stuck with nothing… not really a great place to be :-/
Thanks Michael!
One other thing? My site is a self hosted wp blog, of course.
I just signed up for wordpress.com stats (kind of like google analytics), and registered my url with them for that.
That is not a mistake, hopefully? You never know, by God I made them before, totally un-wittingly.
I mean I don’t think so but I want to be sure.
I guess this is just registering and prooving this url is mine, I have not now made my blog a wordpress.com blog or some such weird thing?
Hey muchos appreciatos man,
Thanks!
Mark
Mark recently posted..Rusty Moore of Fitness Black Book & Visual Impact Muscle Building: A Fitness Blogger with a Difference
Having an account doesn’t mean you have to have a blog. I use Google Analytics. The Headway theme makes it easy to paste in my GA tracking code for use throughout the site (all premium theme frameworks do this).
Michael Martine recently posted..How to Recognize a Spammy Guest Post Request (and what to do about it)
Thanks for sharing this… It has really cleared some thoughts off my head about building trust among my readers…
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