{"id":2471,"date":"2024-07-07T20:05:46","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T20:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2024-07-07T20:05:46","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T20:05:46","slug":"blog-marketing-think-like-a-marketer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/07\/07\/blog-marketing-think-like-a-marketer\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Marketing: Why bloggers should think like marketers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blog marketing is a win-win for you and your readers<\/strong>.\u00a0 Marketing is not a dirty word. That\u2019s right: it\u2019s not the art of being shady, spammy and deceitful. Marketers aren\u2019t just spammers and sellers of tat that we didn\u2019t need to buy.<\/p>\n

OK, so there are some bad marketers and some bad marketing practices. But marketing is doing right by your audience in a way that you can benefit from too.<\/p>\n

And \u2018promotion\u2019 \u2014 what we think of most about marketing \u2014 is perhaps only 5% of what marketing is.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the Chartered Institute of Marketing\u2019s (CIM) definition of marketing:<\/p>\n

\u201cMarketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s how the American Marketing Association defines it:<\/p>\n

\u201cMarketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Blog Marketing in practice<\/h2>\n

You might think that the definitions are a bit too \u2018corporate\u2019. But your blog is a business and you are the manager.<\/p>\n

Translating the definitions from corporate-speak, you want to give your audience what they need (and make some money in the process)<\/p>\n

We can break the CIM definition down further and apply it to blogging.<\/p>\n

Identify customer needs<\/h3>\n

This is about getting to know your audience. You\u2019re doing your own market research. Bloggers do this using keyword research.<\/p>\n

Who is your target audience? Is it big enough? What words are they likely to search for, and what words are likely to connect with them?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll cover\u00a0keyword research<\/strong>\u00a0in another post, but there are both free and paid ways to do this.<\/p>\n

Anticipate customer needs<\/h3>\n

This is trickier, but is about taking an educated guess about what your audience will want.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that people interested in my\u00a0Blogging Essentials: Domain Names and Web Hosting<\/a>\u00a0post will be interested in a marketing approach to blogging.\u00a0 An allotment blog owner might anticipate that readers will want winter job tips in the colder months.<\/p>\n

Satisfy customer needs<\/h3>\n

So you think you know what your audience wants? Now it\u2019s about the execution!<\/p>\n

For bloggers, this is about writing compelling, useful content. At the very least it must answer the questions that your readers have.<\/p>\n

Your audience can\u2019t be satisfied if they can\u2019t find your blog, so an awareness of SEO is essential. You text should read and flow well. Subheadings can help your readers scan through longer posts more easily.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the customer isn\u2019t just the reader. If you\u2019re running affiliate campaigns then you must also satisfy the programme\u2019s needs. An Internet user called \u2018blue_beetle\u2019 once cynically said \u201cIf you are not paying for it, you\u2019re not the customer; you\u2019re the product being sold<\/em>\u201c. It\u2019s true that bloggers rely on advertising working on readers. However, readers aren\u2019t simply products: they are part of a three-way exchange in which all parties benefit.<\/p>\n

Profitability<\/h3>\n

\"\"Ah, profit. No matter how good your writing you won\u2019t make any money without a plan. You\u2019ll be like the underpants gnomes in South Park!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a horrible phrase but think about how you\u2019ll \u2018monetise\u2019 your blog. You can either take a broad approach to monetising your entire blog, or concentrate on maximising return from each individual blog post. Sometimes individual blog posts can bring in visitors which you can then promote your more in-depth money-making posts.<\/p>\n

There are several ways to do this. You could charge for the content in a course or membership. Popular posts bolster your stats (and attract sponsored post opportunities). You can add appropriate affiliate links to the post. General advertising networks, such as Google Adsense, could provide you with a trickle of income. You could use your blog to promote other paid services or products that you\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t feel coy about promoting to visitors. Your audience is looking for answers and your products and services could help answer them.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t like the idea of blog marketing? An alternative approach<\/h2>\n

You\u00a0could<\/em>\u00a0blog from the heart without thinking about your potential audience\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with that \u2013 but you\u2019re writing for yourself rather than for an intended audience.<\/p>\n

You\u00a0might<\/em>\u00a0be lucky and just chime with your audience \u2013 but then again you might not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog marketing is a win-win for you and your readers.\u00a0 Marketing is not a dirty word. That\u2019s right: it\u2019s not the art of being shady, spammy and deceitful. Marketers aren\u2019t just spammers and sellers of tat that we didn\u2019t need to buy. OK, so there are some bad marketers and some bad marketing practices. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2472,"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions\/2472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cashpie.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}