The Business ‘Lifecycle’
Businesses go through something of a lifecycle where each stage is partly determined by the number of customers. There are two critical points in this ‘lifecycle’ – start-up and what I like to call the ‘plateau’ stage.
If you are or have ever been at the start-up stage, then you know how hard you work to define and refine your product and sell it to your demographic with hope of getting customers and maybe even retaining them. You are hard on the hunt and you need to make sales otherwise your entire business could go up in smoke.
The ‘plateau’ stage is where you are in desperate need of diversification of either the product, the demographic or both because sales are not increasing and may even be declining. Again, you are hard on the hunt for customers; whether to retain the present ones, reclaim ‘lost’ ones or gain new ones (the more the merrier, right?). These are the basics but there’s a lot more to starting a blog.
Why you should Start Blogging
Whatever the stage, you need to make sure you are retaining customers and gaining new ones as much as possible. One of the ways you can do this is by writing blogs. I know what you are thinking: ‘What does a blog have to do with gaining customers anyway?’ Well, I’ll tell you:
- Business visibility: A blog on your website with the relevant keywords (without sounding all sales-like) will ensure you appear high in search engines resulting in more traffic to your website. It’s basically cheap marketing.
- Free product and service marketing: Rather than paying for all kinds of ads, you can create awareness about your product or service right on your website by writing a blog about it.
- Stake your claim in the market: This works in two ways: by blogging, you get to build your brand even without the product and you can become something of a ‘go-to’ site for insights on your specific market niche.
- The gift that keeps on giving: Consistently writing blogs will ensure frequent views and shares which will cascade into increased traffic to your site. This means potentially more clients, conversions and customers for your business.
Here’s how…
Now that I have your attention, here’s how you can get started:
- What do you want to say?
Choose relevant topics based on your kind of business. The more you have the better.
- What do they want to hear?
Talk about things that are relevant to your demographic. Find out what their problems are and address them.
- Get specific
If your product or service cuts across demographics or if you are looking for customers as well as investors, tailor your blog posts to suit these specific groups then list them clearly for each group.
- Stay on top of things
Always make sure you know what you have already written about and what you haven’t yet addressed to avoid repetition. You need to keep things fresh on a blog. Keep sourcing for interesting material that you can include to make your blogs even better.
Happy blogging!