Hey there Mr. Marketer or Ms. Creative Director.
If you are in the position, like me, of selling blogging services to small and medium businesses, then I hope you find the ideas in this post help you to sell blog content. I think about this stuff every day.
How do I sell blog content?
Well, the answer to that question always comes back around to a pain point. I gotta find out what’s causing my friend ongoing pain in their business or headaches with their website. Then, I can start thinking about how to alleviate that pain.
So I’ve asked a lot of questions in emails or on the phone to try to find out what’s hurting for these small business owners or marketing managers. Turns out, the responses I get are pretty consistently one of (or a combination of) the following three.
Ouch.
Pain #1: Can’t Keep Content Fresh
It’s no secret that if you’re running a business, it is super hard to write blog posts while you’re running a business. And even harder yet to think of new topics and creative ideas about that content if you’re spending all your time managing your team, talking with clients, or delivering your service or product.
So one way I can help agencies like you sell blog content to business clients like these is to suggest you listen for opportunities to offer fresh content to them, and better yet, take even more content creation off their plates.
Pain #2: Not Enough Website Traffic
I have also spoken with a lot of businesses who have launched new websites. (They may have even had you as an agency design it for them.) So now they have a beautiful, shiny, new storefront to send people to learn about their business, product or service … but no one is finding them on their own without much content to read.
They need traffic. And that situation can really help you sell blog content easily. I’m sure you know, but in case you didn’t, publishing consistent, fresh (see above) blog posts is one of the strongest pillars supporting any solid SEO strategy. Ease that pain and start whipping out some website blurbs for your clients to build their SEO presence.
Pain #3: Trouble Converting Readers, to Leads, to Customers
So I have also spoken with a bunch of businesses who have some good traffic coming to their website, but only to the home page. Then they disappear. There was nothing there for them, no reason to stick around and learn a little.
Designing a new layout for the home page won’t help. But asking your client to describe more about that specific pain point will help you sell blog content. No doubt. Because you know better than I do that engaging blog content will keep a visitor on the page and get them curious and looking around so they can learn a little something (and maybe even check out that CTA you have designed for action). Once you start blogging or creating content for your client, you can help determine driving and measuring the engagement on their blog to track conversions.
As I mentioned above, these three sources of pain come up time and again. But it’s not an exhaustive list. There are other things like copywriter burnout, fear of imperfection, and lack of a strong voice or focus that keep people from writing. The key is to ask and listen to discover their pain so that you can sell them the blogging they need, not the blogging you want for them.
And when you’ve polished your skills and sell so much blog content that you don’t have enough time to write all the posts for your clients, you can schedule a demo of BlogMutt for agencies with me, and I’d be happy to help alleviate that pain for you.
