Lots of small business owners have heard that they ought to have a blog to keep readers (aka: potential customers) coming back to their website and keep their business top of mind.
But too many take the plunge into blogging without ever asking themselves: who am I blogging to?
Let’s say a photographer decides she ought to start a blog about photography to showcase her amazing images. Great idea! She’s heard that you should write what you know, so she starts blogging about what she knows best: photography.
Every week, she posts one of her favorite shots and then goes into a detailed technical description of how she took the shot, how she edited it, what filters she used, what techniques. She pours a ton of information into each post she writes.
But the only people that seem to comment on her blog or share her posts are other photographers—and unfortunately, they’re not likely to become customers or send new business her way.
The number one mistake new small business bloggers make is writing for the wrong audience.
Our photographer friend picked the wrong audience to blog to. She’s writing to her competition, rather than her customers!
If she were to come do a Strategy session with me, the first thing I would ask her is: who is your ideal customer?
Because that is who she should be writing to.
She tells me that her ideal customer is a local, suburban mom who wants great photos of her family and kids. She’s stylish and active and wants to remember all the milestones in her family’s life with fine art-quality photos.
That mom is who she should be blogging to. So we brainstorm ways to turn her photography expertise into the kind of expertise her ideal reader is dying to read about. Suddenly, she’s blogging about how to coordinate clothes for a family picture, prop ideas for cute kid photos, holiday photo ideas, and killer photo locations around her town.
In no time, she can tell from the comments on her blog (and the sales she’s racking up!) that she’s finally reaching her ideal customer and putting her blog to work for her.
Ask yourself this: Who is your ideal reader?
Because you should be writing directly to her every time you blog.