Have you ever felt frustrated by an inability to turn your blog posts into a source of views, customer interest, and ultimately sales or leads? Many of our new clients have come to us because they felt the same way. To help shed some light on what we do for them, we’ve decided to produce a two-part blog series designed to help business owners and marketers with online promotion and lead generation.
A Quick Recap of Part 1
If you haven’t already read our first blog post in the series, we highly recommend you check it out before reading onward.
But, if you’re pressed for time or just can’t wait, here’s what you have to know:
- First, you can’t generate leads or sales from your blog if you don’t have traffic. So, it’s important to make the most of things like titles, photos, and search keywords to bring potential customers to your blog posts.
- Second, having readers for your blog is nice, but it doesn’t contribute directly to your bottom line. In order for your blog to have any real business value, you have to have conversion mechanisms in place to turn readers into buyers (or at least leads).
In the first post, we went into a bit more detail on why these elements are necessary, and covered some simple-but-effective ways to make blog posts stand out in a very crowded internet. Today, we’re going to look at the second step, which is often overlooked but every bit as important and valuable.
How Can You Turn Blog Readers Into Sales Opportunities?
Even if someone really likes your blog article, they won’t necessarily return to your website, much less decide to buy anything from you if you don’t motivate them to take the next step. In order to drive that next action forward, you have to give them some kind of incentive.
That’s why every blog post should end with a clear call to action. It should invite the reader to take a step that serves your interests and theirs, while at the same time pertaining to the topic of the article itself. Let’s look at a few examples that have worked wonders for our clients…
- Offer a comprehensive ebook, audio edition, or PDF guide that builds on the information you shared within the post. Give readers a chance to get more detailed or in-depth information.
- Create an app, spreadsheet, or tool that blog visitors can use to apply what they’ve learned in your post to their specific challenge or situation. Online calculators are very popular for this reason.
- Entice readers to subscribe to your email newsletter by promising them regular updates or more timely analysis if you work in an industry that experiences lots of change.
- Tease future articles or updates. Just as we split these posts into a two-part series, you could keep readers coming back with related ideas to be posted in the future.
- Create a resource box with author information, case studies, or company background details that make it clear you have expertise in a certain area and invite readers to contact you for a one-on-one meeting.
Without a conversion plan, your blog is just a series of articles tied together by the hope that someone will contact you. Why not make things easier for readers and increase the odds they’ll do what you want by using a strong call to action at the end of every post? That’s a good way to bring each article to a natural conclusion, and to improve your blog instantly.
For more great online marketing tips, visit our blog again soon. Or, contact our team today to schedule a free consultation where we review your website with you!