Month: August 2020

One of the most common questions I hear when I suggest business owners start a blog is “But what will I write about?” Coming up with ideas for your blog (or any of your social media posts, for that matter) can feel like a massive task at first. It’s also entirely possible that you think you’ve covered everything you can write about already. The truth is, there are ideas all around you – you just have to know where to find them. Here are 5 simple ways that you can find new ideas for your blog.

Keep it simple

I talk to a lot of business owners who don’t write about really obvious things in their blogs. They think that because they think something’s boring and routine, their customers will too. Truth is, your customers need you because they don’t know what you know. If your strength is making beautiful jewellery, your weakness could be keeping your accounts in order. If you’re the accountant who can give them a simple way to keep everything organised, talk about it! It isn’t too obvious, it’s really helpful. A list of your FAQs = an instant list of blog topics.

How do you help?

You’re in business because you offer something people need, so if you want customers, you need to tell them how you help them. What are the benefits of working with you? I talk about things like coming up with ideas, writing in a way your customers will understand and turning lacklustre words into something better. You can also think about all of the different things that people might be Googling that you can help with. Say you offer massages – there are loads of different ways that someone might benefit, and you can write about them all.

Talk to people

Taking a genuine interest in your customers’ lives is just basic human decency. It also helps you to come up with ideas. I get a lot of ideas from conversations I have with other business owners. You discover what they’re struggling with and what misconceptions they have about your industry. That doesn’t just come from business networking. Your customers could be the people you chat to in the local shop (albeit through your mask just now). The key is to listen to what people need – then you can write about ways you can help.

Read other blogs

I’m not suggesting you steal other people’s work. Plagiarism is bad. However, reading other blogs and marketing content within your industry helps you to keep up to date. This can also sometimes apply to reading the news. Writing a blog post about something that’s changing will be really useful to your customers. The obvious example at the moment is COVID-19. There is so much change going on, my head’s spinning. If you can help your customers understand what’s happening in businesses like yours, it helps us all deal with the stress a little bit better.

Use some tech

There are lots of techy ways that you can come up with ideas for your blog. I like Answer the Public, where you can type in a keyword and it gives you loads of different questions that people have asked around that word. There are also some great keyword research tools. My favourite is Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest. Buzzsumo is also a great tool if you want to find out what kind of content does well in your industry.

I hope that’s given you food for thought – if you want a whole heap of topic ideas for your blog that are ready to go, sign up for my mailing list, and I’ll send you a free copy of my eBook ’50 blog topic ideas for your business’ as a thank you.

Alternatively, if you’d like a chat to find out how it works, you can book a call here.

Further resources

For even more ways to come up with new ideas, this great post from Orbit Media is well worth a read.

Does it ever feel as if some people might be a bit scared of your business? You might think of yourself as a perfectly pleasant person, not an ogre or a troll. Yet you haven’t had a steady stream of new customers beating a path to your door. Or maybe you’ve introduced an exciting new product or service, and it’s fallen completely flat.

It’s not because you’re terrifying. (Probably – if you are actually really scary, I can’t help you.) The truth is, people like to know what they’re getting into. Trying something new takes a bit of a leap of faith. If you want your customers to have confidence, there are a few things you can do to help them.

Tell them about your business

If you have a business that might be considered ‘unusual’, this is for you. There are a whole load of businesses in the world that do exactly what they say on the tin. If you’re a hairdresser on the local high street, people will get it. But what if people wrinkle their noses and say, ‘What’s that?’ when you tell them what you do? Your future customers might be doing the same. You could be the solution to a problem that’s really holding them back, but they’ll never find you if you don’t teach them how you can help.

It’s also possible that they’ve got the completely wrong idea about what you offer. They’ve read something somewhere that was completely inaccurate. It might have been sensationalised or just phrased in a way that made them think it wasn’t for them. Never be afraid to bust a few myths if you need to.

Do your customers know about your services?

Of course, there’s another possibility. Maybe you offer a range of services, and most of them are perfectly ordinary. Like a beauty therapist offering facials and massage. Then you bring in something new, like Hopi ear candling. No one books. You’ve told people you’re offering it, it’s there on the menu, but no one’s buying. That’s probably a sign that they don’t know what it is or why they need it.

Explaining the benefits of a product or service is a great idea, no matter what you offer. Even if you think something is mainstream, there are bound to be people who’ve never heard of it. Or maybe they have heard of it, but they’re not exactly sure why they’d want it. Saying things like ‘this is a great treatment for hayfever sufferers’ or ‘this will save you time doing x job’ demystifies your services and encourages people to try them out.

Cover the basics

Sometimes people worry about simple things. Signing up for a class or an appointment with a professional is a big commitment. You can’t just run out if you don’t like the look of it. (Well, you could, but you’d probably feel pretty silly.) People protect themselves by not making the booking in the first place.

The concerns your potential customers have will depend on what you offer. If they’re in a group setting, they might wonder what the other people will be like. They might worry about what you’re like or whether they’ll be safe visiting you. Going to see a solicitor or financial adviser runs the risk that they’ll be blinded with science. Telling people what to expect gives them certainty and reassurance. It tells them that you’re friendly and will look after them. That could mean the difference between a new customer and one that never gets in touch.

If you need help speaking your customers’ language and demystifying your business, email me or book a call.

Alternatively, sign up for my mailing list here, and I’ll send you a free copy of my eBook ’50 blog topic ideas for your business’ as a thank you.