A critical component of Challenger Brand marketing is having a powerful blog strategy. Blogs position you and your company as thought leaders and experts in your field. But as we all know, just because you write a blog, doesn’t mean that people will read it. So how do you write blog posts that are compelling and relatively easy to execute?
Successful blogs must provide compelling and interesting content to their readers, while simultaneously positioning the writer as the go-to expert in the category. The number one challenge we hear from our clients is “how do we write blog content that will make this happen?”
So to help you create blog content that your followers will find compelling, below is a list of eight topic categories that we typically use when writing blogs as an efficient part of our clients’ overall marketing strategy.
1. Write a review – Reviews are an excellent way to position yourself as an expert. Consider reviewing new products, updates to existing products, or simply give your analysis on a trade show or conference. Readers enjoy hearing the opinion of an expert.
2. Create a poll or survey – Typical readers are intrigued by polls and surveys. Be sure that they are either timely, insightful or support your unique brand position. You can conduct a survey on your own or you can simply provide your insight on a survey conducted by someone else.
3. Make a prediction – Readers love to hear what experts think will happen in the future. How will your industry change next year? What new products do you see emerging? What new products or services need to be developed to solve a problem? What trends do you see in the coming months or year? Will industry sales be up or down? The list is endless.
4. Interview an Expert – Interviewing experts is a great way to generate relevant content that your target will find valuable. Not only is this a relatively easy way to generate great content, but you will also stand to benefit by associating with the expert and getting the expert to link back to you, which by the way is great for improving your SEO results.
5. Create Top XX Lists – Readers are drawn to Top XX lists. This could be anything from “The 10 Best ways to…” or “5 common mistakes made by…” Creating a Top XX list generates excitement and intrigue for the reader and also lets the reader know the content will be easy to read. The blog you’re reading now is using this strategy!
6. Comparisons – This is an excellent way to give your opinion in a valuable way. You can compare a new version of a product to an older version or compare last year’s conference to this year’s. You get the idea. Your readers like to hear your opinion.
7. Create some news – Reporters get attention by breaking news stories. Is there something happening in your industry or did you hear something at the last conference you attended that might be worth mentioning and commenting about? The idea here is to position yourself as an industry insider.
8. Tell a story – What is your company doing differently? Do you see any trends emerging? Did you see something funny, interesting or unusual, at a recent trade show or conference? Get creative and turn it into a short story.
Writing compelling blog posts that your audience wants to read is 50% science and 50% art. Your blog content has everything to do with the reader and their interests – that’s the science. Making your blog content short, sweet, compelling, relevant and fun to read – well, that’s the art. Happy writing!
