Use Promotion and a Newsletter to Build Credibility

Whether you write your blog daily, weekly or monthly, you don’t want to waste your efforts. Even if you hire a service like Ray Access to write or edit your blog posts, they won’t do you any good unless they’re read. Unread blogs — especially when they’re full of interesting, engaging material — are like packets of vegetable seeds left to rot in the pantry.

So if you’re sure your blog posts are well written and relevant to your audience, the next step is to make sure your customers know about them. There are a number of strategies for doing that, while reaching potential customers, too. These plans take a little planning and a little effort, but they can pay off in new and returning customers.

Step 1: Start with Quality

Some talented salesmen claim they can sell beer to a brewer. But when you’re using content marketing, you’re using words instead of salesmen. So your content better be top-notch. It’s one thing to employ the rules of grammar correctly; it’s another to craft compelling content that your audience wants to read and share.

Before you think about getting your customers to read your blog, make sure it’s worth their time. Make sure they’ll thank you and not curse you. Spend time on the creation process and make sure you’ve got a topic your people are interested in. Don’t waste your time promoting poor content. That’s not effective content marketing.

Step 2: Promote Your Blog

Once you’ve crafted your blog post and you’re satisfied with its quality, you’re ready to send it out into the world. Publish it on your website. Make sure it’s everywhere it’s supposed to be, as some websites — like Ray Access’ new site — link to the latest blog post from the Home page, the footer and the sidebar. The more places it appears, the more likely a visitor will encounter it and be intrigued.

Don’t stop there. Place a teaser blurb and a link on your social media platforms. The purpose of these blurbs is to entice people to click the link back to your website, where they can:

• Read the entire blog post
• Look around your site to see what your business is all about
• Bookmark your site
• Become a customer

Using social media, professional organizations and other online avenues to promote your blog posts give your company an immense online presence. It costs very little, but it does take some time every time you blog. The ROI for this little bit of work is enormous, especially if you choose the most appropriate sites and your content is well targeted.

Step 3: Reuse Your Blog Content

Content marketing doesn’t have to mean writing new content all day. Once you’ve written a blog post, you can reuse those words wherever and however you can. That increases its value exponentially and allows you to focus on creating really good content. If you’re just cranking it out every time, the quality will suffer. So create something special, and then reuse the heck out of it.

That’s where a newsletter comes in. Not all of your customers are going to keep checking your website for the latest blog post. They may miss your teaser blurb on their favorite social media platform. A newsletter is the perfect vehicle for reusing content. Use a pull quote or a paragraph from the blog post and place it in the newsletter, with a link back to the entire article.

Since newsletters are delivered directly into your customers’ email inboxes, they’re bound to see it. If you package it properly, they’ll gobble it up and be glad you sent it. Between newsletters, social media and your other efforts, you can do a lot to get your blog posts in front of the people who matter to you: your customers. And that’s worth the time. Good luck and remember the content marketing experts at Ray Access if you need help.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.