The one thing all bloggers desire most is an engaged audience who will give them a positive outcome and feedback for their business.
The way you extract that reaction is by blogging, right?
Not necessarily.
In order to call yourself a ‘blogger’ you have to have content that is constantly appearing and fresh. While doing so is crucial on your website each and every week, this also has to happen on the websites of other related blogging sites. However, a lot of business websites that are producing content simply don’t have the time to create honest material that appears elsewhere.
Sometimes there’s not enough time in the day to do that.
So what do you do?
I came across an interesting business owner whose blog exploded almost overnight. He didn’t have a guest posting strategy either. But, he did have a couple of things you should have in your marketing plan that can help you.
In this article, I want to talk about Justin Kats, founder and CEO of Kats Botanicals, who has over 60 strains of Kratom for sale as well as other botanicals. He captivates his audience because he understands what they are looking for when they buy Kratom and are interested in and bases his content around just that.
Your product may be different, but the results are the same. Here’s what he’s done the past six months which can turn your business around.
#1 – Build A Community
The natural guest posting strategy is one that builds a bridge from a larger audience (the blog you want to guest post on) to your own brand or blog.
The guest post allows you, Ms. Ileane’s readers, to get to know different strategies from creative business owners, like Justin Kats, who you would not have heard about otherwise.
This is called a bilateral community building strategy and while it’s quite effective, remember, we’re talking about NOT guest posting.
But, we’re still talking about the community factor. Your brand needs a landing pad for your community. Currently, Facebook groups are one of the best places businesses use to entice people to engage with the brand. This is true for new and current clients.
While Facebook groups will be a great place for you to advertise your business, take it slow in the beginning. Create an environment for your customers and community members to congregate and engage one another. Use the advertising methods slowly at first, gradually working up to the point where you have enough community members who are comfortable with the process.
When you correctly create this atmosphere, your audience naturally gravitates toward this engagement process that you have established for them.
In the beginning, you may find it to be a little slow-going. Enticing the targeted audience member to the group can be done via several outlets.
- From your Facebook page
- From your email list
- From your blog
- From your product/service (in case they would like to know more before purchasing)
- Facebook ads – depending on how much you want to spend
- Word of mouth
It’s important to remember this can be the life-blood of your business, so make sure to create this community from the beginning.
The benefits of your Facebook Group:
- Groups have more organic reach than Facebook Pages.
- Groups also send out notifications to people in the community as well. This ensures even more activity and prompts more engagement.
- Groups like this can skyrocket your business’s success rate.
When properly managed, your Facebook Group will be able to run itself, all while being a tremendous marketing resource for your blog.
#2 – Use Multi-media Content Effectively
As a blogger, you have already signed up for content creation. However, you may not know at what level you should be creating content.
The more content you create, the more opportunities your business has to be seen by more people.
Using the community feature from above, Mr. Kats explains the reason you should take advantage of multimedia content.
No matter if you’re selling clothing or SEO services, your content needs to be related to that – and not salesy or gimmicky. So many bloggers have killed their chances at sales because every piece of content was too pushy or forward.
Be helpful. Be informative. Be natural.
Here’s some of the content Justin has used in the past within his community that his audience responded well to:
- Previously recorded (and edited) video – for the informative-based content viewer. People who have questions or simply want to know more about your business will be interested in this type of content.
- Live video – Facebook is a great place for live video sessions. These types of media placements can keep your audience excited and engaged with your brand and what you can do for them. Take this opportunity to do giveaways and sales.
- Regular content – AKA, written content on your blog. This needs to be an effective use of easy content which is informative and digestible for your readers. This helps them stay on track within your community.
#3 – Stand Behind Your Customer Service
Why should a blogger have a customer service strategy?
If you sell anything, you need a customer service plan. Even before you release your first product, your customer service plan must be in action.
You may even be a business of one – and more power to you – but, a solo act has to realize, without a customer, they don’t have a business.
So what does this entail?
Justin explained how he threw out thousands of dollars worth of inventory because it didn’t meet his standards.
Again, you may not have a product someone can shelve, but the idea is still the same. Don’t allow your blog to produce something that you’re not completely proud of.
The idea is you want to be able to stand behind what you sell, and this means looking out for the people who are presently supporting your business as well as in the future.
Allow your community to interact with you. Allow them to ask questions and engage with you. The more they get to know you and your product, the more likely they will tell someone else about it.
In Conclusion
There are many ways to build your blog, but the best way is through the people. If you’re like my friend Justin, and may not have time to create tons of content on other people’s sites, then you can adjust your strategy to cover these three issues.
The reason this works is because it focuses more on the person than the strategy, and people are more receptive to intimate conversations than anything else.
What do you think? Do you have any non-guest posting strategies which have worked for you in the past that I didn’t mention? Let me know below!