3 steps to turn your blog into a business

When you’re itching to start a business from your blog, it is easy to get stuck because you might not be clear about where to start. Start with the core of your business and that is your marketing foundation.

Your marketing foundation is THE place to start building any type of business – including a blog.

In short, it allows you to be clear on your audience, and your message and gives you plenty of direction when it’s time to create the perfect content that every one of your readers will enjoy.

So where do you start? I’m glad you asked.

Step 1: Perform Your Marketing Research

The first place we start is with YOU. Yes, you. Start by asking the questions:

·         What is my message?

·         What do I want to express more than anything in the world?

·         Who are the people that I get really excited to be around and can talk with for days?

·         What do I stand for?

By answering these questions from the beginning, you bring uniqueness to your blog that will attract people that are soul mate readers and completely relate to your every word. You bring readers that stand for what you do and form bonds that are unbreakable.

Your message serves as the core of your blog and by clearly identifying what message you have for your readers you know what type of content to write, what subjects to allow guest posting, and even identify which types of readers wouldn’t be the best fit for you.

Then you lead by asking questions about these ideal readers (aka your target audience):

·         Who are my ideal readers demographically?

·         Where do they hang out?

·         What are their interests?

·         What are their desires?

·         What are the biggest problems they have?

·         How can I help them solve these problems?

This portion of your research allows you to spend time with your potential readers so you learn about them and what makes them tick. You get an inside scoop on the topics that interest them from the beginning and essentially armed with this information could never create an article that they wouldn’t love to read about.

ACTION STEPS FOR STEP 1:

-          Get in the trenches and talk with them.

What better way to find out the answers to your questions about them than to ask them directly? Interviewing them and providing lots of assistance helps them to trust you and you achieve your goal of completing your research. WIN-WIN!

Step 2: Presenting a Solution to a Common Problem

All the best blogs have active email lists. It’s another way to communicate the content you provide they love and desire and retain their viewers. Using the information you gathered from your market research create a detailed blog post article that gives them insight on how to solve their problem. Share it with the people you’ve interviewed and get their direct feedback.

By creating content they asked you for, it shows your readers that you are in this for them and that you have their best interest at heart. Again, you are establishing more trust.

Now you are at the place in your business building where you can automate all of this by adding some basic systems. Don’t let that scare you.

ACTION STEPS FOR STEP 2:

-          Create a thorough blog post solving your ideal readers’ problems

-          Share it with readers that have accepted your offer for an interview

-          Invite them to have a chance to share their feedback via email, video call, or over the phone

-          Save their information! (Using an email database – just trust me on this!)

Step 3: Cultivate your newfound loyal readers by Providing More Value

Step 3: Give away valuable content

The final step in preparing your blog for business is to keep giving away valuable content that helps them. You can create in-house challenges that allow them to take direct action on your content or use whatever medium you desire to express that you got their back so to speak.

The purpose of having an email list is to notify your audience when something new comes to solve another one of their problems or to help them get to where they want to go. See, how the marketing research is already making a great deal of sense?

At this point, you have created a rock-solid foundation that allows you to bring on thousands of readers to your blog regularly.

Bonus: An example of a marketing foundation done right for a mommy blogger

STEP ONE:

She loves to work with other moms that have young kids, not a whole bunch of time, and desires to have great nutrition for her family. She wants to express more than anything else to her readers that you can be healthy even if you don’t have a lot of time to prepare meals. She’s done it and she believes wholeheartedly that her readers can learn the same.

After speaking to other moms that have young kids and not a whole lot of time, she learns that they want help with time management, balancing their family life with their personal time and that their biggest struggle is figuring out how to get their little babies to eat healthy.

STEP 2:

The mommy then creates a blog post titled “How to Create 10 Healthy Meals Toddlers Love In 10 Minutes or Less”. She takes the blog post back to her mommy audience and they use her tips, write amazing reviews about the article, and share it with their friends. She gains 20 new readers to her blog.

STEP 3:

After collecting reviews and testimonials, she follows up with an email to ask her new happy readers what they want more time to do and why they feel they cannot achieve this. She receives a flood of responses and has the basis of her next blog post. However, this mommy blogger is savvy and she begins to share her recipes live at her local community picnic and gives everyone the link to her blog to download the blog post. But it’s not just a blog post anymore – it’s a downloadable PDF document they can print out and view from anywhere. She has tripled the number of readers from 20 to 60 in a matter of a single event.

Regardless of what type of blog you have building your marketing foundation is absolutely the quickest and most effective way to create the foundation for a profitable and sustainable business.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR : AMANDA HINES

Amanda Hines is the cutting edge Success Coach and Mindset Mentor for creative entrepreneurs that want to show up, get heard, and lead by doing what they love without sacrificing their time! She believes that when her people lead with what they stand for and come from a place of service all the riches will be added. For more training like the one presented here, visit her directly at www.amandahines.com where she provides simple yet actionable training for those that are ready to get their hands dirty and create their own success story.