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Section 2: Recipe No. 4 | Write a case study
Choose your voice
Decide whether you’d like to write the entire article in the first person, from the viewpoint of the case study, or from your own perspective. The easiest way may be to introduce the article yourself and include direct quotes when you have a particular point you want to illustrate.
For example, you could state, ‘we helped our client find a more cost-effective way of collecting customer data by installing our new widget technology, which… (describe the tool you provided for the case study).’
Then, you can drop in a direct quote from your case study that illustrates both the savings they made and what they plan to do with their improved customer data.
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Write a blog
Content attracts prospects, engages them in conversation, and converts them into customers by building their trust in your ability to deliver. One of the easiest and most direct ways to do this is by blogging.
5
Anything you want
A blog is a ‘personal online journal’ and millions of people are already publishing them. In 2008, blog search engine Technorati claimed to have indexed 133 million blogs. Blogs can be about anything you want — a parent might write about the health of his kids, a student might share her experiences of traveling abroad and a teenager might write about the everyday difficulties he encounters. There is no end to the possibilities.
Build a profile
For the business or website owner, publishing a blog is a terrific way to raise your profile, get inbound links and, above all, interact with your customers and marketplace. A blog allows you to give customers an insight into the type of person you are — as a result, your customers may be more interested in buying your products.
Those who blog or participate by posting comments, generate debate and comments from other readers. So, a blog provides an excellent way for businesses to understand and interact with their customers.
Gary Vaynerchuk took his family ’s wine business, Wine
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Library , based in Springfield, New Jersey and grew it from a profitable $4 million a year business to $50m a year. He channeled his enthusiasm and passion into communicating a love of wine through writing and making videos online. He now has more than 90,000 visitors a day to his website. Vaynerchuk’s success led to television appearances and he has his own wine club, reviews wines, and of course, sells wine and spirits through his website.
Woot , an online electronic good store, was launched in 2004 and sold its 1,000,000th item, a 4 gigabyte (GB) hard drive, on February 5, 2007. It sells one type of product a day through its daily blog . The day ’s product is advertised in a fun, quirky style. Customers stampede to buy its products and the company does hardly any advertising.
Other successful bloggers
Other companies that blog successfully include Dell , about its products, services and customers. Amazon publishes Omnivoracious . Small businesses are blogging, too – have a look at the Lincoln Sign Company , which showcases the best in custom signs.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 5 | Write a blog
Hot Tip
Keep your readers
coming back to your blog with frequent updates.
Woot: one day, one deal.
There is nothing mysterious about a blog — it simply lets you create and publish content very easily.
If you decide to publish a blog, you may want to incorporate it into your existing domain (something Lincoln Sign Company didn’t do). By setting up the blog page as www.yourbusiness.com/blog, rather than something like http://yourbusiness. blogspot.com so that all the traffic it generates comes into one site. This can help you to rise up the Google rankings.
You do need to make a commitment to update your blog regularly – aim for a couple of postings a week to build up a readership. Unfortunately, for many would-be bloggers this is a tough commitment to follow – some 95% of new blogs quickly become inactive http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/fashion/07blogs.html .
Blog posts don’t have to be long, but they must be useful. Making regular postings of one or two paragraphs, together with an occasional longer article, is a good starting point. Here are some ground rules:
• Adopt an editorial position – what type of voice will your blog have? It is worth
giving this some thought.
• Be brief and direct in what you say. Puffy or pompous language reads
dreadfully on a blog so keep your writing simple.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 5 | Write a blog
• Use Wordtracker’s research tools to incorporate popular keywords into your posts. The headline is particularly important. So, if you’re writing about
small business, you might want to rewrite the headline ‘A time for change?’ as ‘A time for change for small business’. That way, you’re more likely to attract visitors who are searching for the term ‘small business.’
• Use Wordtracker’s SEO Blogger tool to make keyword research easier when
publishing posts. You can find the most sought-after keywords for your subject without ever leaving your blog-editing screen. The tool sits alongside whatever blog publishing software you’re using so you can do keyword research and optimize your posts as you write.
• Include keyword-rich linking text — the people you link to will love you for it
and it will help Google decide what your blog is all about.
Content
So what should you write about?
(i) Comment on an external news story – there is a ton of material out there,
no matter what business you are in. Sign up to important newsletters and RSS feeds in your industry, as well as general business publications. One of your first tasks in the morning might be to review these publications and pick out interesting items that you can point people to or comment upon.
(ii) Tell people about a useful report or resource that you’ve come across in your day-to-day work. As you browse the web, you’ll come across stuff
that you find particularly interesting or enlightening. You can help your readers by telling them about the resource and linking to it. Even better, you reward the author or publisher of the article by giving them a live link and you’re making connections with other influencers in your industry.
(iii) Point to an article or resource on your own site. People, who might
otherwise have missed it, find it.
(iv) Post an answer or comment on a query you received from a customer. Many writers make the mistake of thinking that their comments or posts
should always be leading-edge – aimed at setting opinion in the industry. But many readers are just looking for straightforward information – giving it to them in simple plain English may well be all they want.
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Section 2: Recipe No. 5 | Write a blog
(v) Write an announcement about a new feature or service you’ve added. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, just a useful addition. Always write from
the customers’ point of view: don’t assume they will understand your in-house jargon. Don’t use the blog for the hard sell, a blog should be informative and useful, not just another means for you to market your products.
(vi) Write a seasonal statement. How do seasons influence demand for your
products? What about holidays such as Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, or Ramadan?
(i) Invite opinion or comment. Develop a dialog with your audience by asking for
their opinion on an important issue, research in your industry, competitive activity or publicity.
Writing tip
Here’s a tip I got from Craig Garber . Get one of those small kitchen timers, or something similar and once you’ve scanned the day ’s news, set it for 30 minutes and write without interruption. Once the timer goes off, you should have written a few hundred words or more. Do a quick edit, or ask a colleague to review it, and you should have a pretty good blog post.
Little but often
Write a little every day, but don’t be over-ambitious. You don’t need to write perfect English and you don’t need to agonize over every point you make. Blogging is not an academic exercise, so don’t be afraid of being wrong — but if you are, make sure you acknowledge it.
More information and resources
For more information and free blogging advice , visit the Wordtracker Academy . Or buy Chris Garrett’s book on Business Blogging , which is packed with useful advice.
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