How to work with bloggers if you really want to drive sales?
Everyone now is trying to advertise on blogs. Some people find it effective, some - pointless. So do you want to do it?
Everyone now is trying to advertise on blogs.
Someone says it is effective someone thinks it’s pointless.
So do you really want to do it?
You should place ads on blogs. Apart from the tangible effect that can be calculated (traffic to the website, registrations and subscriptions, orders, etc.) advertising on blogs can significantly increase brand and product recognition. It also gives opportunities to reach people “living on the Internet” who are quite difficult to get by traditional advertising: TV, radio or print media.
Should you make it clear it’s an ad?
It might sound strange, but yes, you should. If we really mean promotion, we should clearly indicate it. If we aim at PR, reputation management and ephemeral indicators, we’d better not call it an ad out loud. PR for publicity sake is bad taste.
How to write a blog post?
Your post should have a simple structure. A standard algorithm of an advertisement is the best option:
- Problem. Do you have monsters living in your toilet underneath the rim? Are you going to buy a new kitchen set? Do you need new customers? The easiest way is to use questions here. There is a quite good technique of three “YES”. The bottom line is that if a person answers “yes” to the first three questions you are asking, chances are that this person will reply "yes" to the fourth one as well (or will accept the given information in a more positive way).
- Solution. Present your product/service/website as a solution to this problem.
- Advantages. Why is it particularly your product / service / website which is able to solve this problem? Why is it better than others? Speak about it. For this purpose it is better to use a bulleted list, highlighting the advantages in bold. This enables the reader to structure the information better.
- A key advantage. This is like the final nail in the coffin. It serves to destroy all the objections, all the doubts that your potential customers might have. Once you have written it, they should not have any more questions, just a desire to buy the product / to order the service / to go to the website.
- Calltoaction. This is something you cannot go without. If you don’t tell people what you want them to do, they won’t do it. As simple as that. And you shouldn’t think that having read this article people will understand everything themselves. That’s why just don’t forget about call to action!
- Footer. The bottom section where you can give information about your company, place links to your other services and products, etc. As a rule it is indented and is written in a smaller font than the main text.
How to make your post more successful?
- There should be a link to your product / service / website on every user’s screen. No spamdexing, no need to measure the exact number of characters between the links. This is an approximate parameter. The user should be able to go to the website from any place of the post. He is unlikely to scroll the text to the very beginning or the end, if he does not see the link at once.
- Style and design. There must be images in every post. Posts which entirely consist of infographics are very effective – users like examining them.
- Don’t be afraid of large pieces of text. The idea that Internet users are reluctant to read long texts is a myth. If you really have something to say – do write. But remember – your text shouldn’t be just a faceless piece of writing. It must have paragraphs, indents and bulleted lists, highlighting, links, images, and so on.
- Don’t try to copy the blog’s author’s style. It may spark negative reactions with the blog audience. ?? ????????? ???????????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????. For your private ear - when it comes to blog ads, the number of comments doesn’t at all influence the amount of sales.
And the most important thing. If you have a choice, it’s better to place a quality post onto a good platform (high traffic, high prices, etc.). Perhaps you’ll spend a little more money than on the placement on a pile of small blogs, but it will save a lot of your own resources. And you’re sure to find where to invest these spare resources.