The Savvy Business Owner: Maximizing the Business Power of Blogs

Blogging for business has become quite the trend among entrepreneurs these days. Whether they’re running an online business or a traditional offline business, many business owners today are maintaining a blog where they can promote their products and services. However, it takes much more than just having a blog to grow a business. As a business owner, you need to create your blog posts in such a way that you’re targeting a specific group of people — those people who are most likely to buy your products and services.

Every single day, the Internet is surfed by millions of people from all over the world. If you simply throw your blog posts out there without a particular target audience in mind, there’s a low chance that your blog traffic will actually convert to sales. In other words, your efforts will practically all be in vain. In order to maximize the business potential of your blog, the first thing you have to do before you even post anything is to identify your target market. Figure out what kind of people will be most likely to patronize your products and services. This process can be made easier by answering some very basic questions, such as the following:

What is the average age of your target market? Are you planning to sell to children, teens, adults or the elderly?
What gender are your products designed for? Are you leaning more towards the male target market or the female target market?
What is the economic status of your prospective customer? Are you addressing the needs of the lower-income bracket, the middle class, or the wealthier members of society?
What is the location of your preferred client? Are you running a local business, with customers limited to a particular town or city? Are you hoping to attract clients from all over the world?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a better idea of who your potential customers will be like. You’ll be able to design your blog and produce blog posts in a way that’s more appealing and attractive to your target market. However, these questions are still very general. If you want to further narrow down your target market, you can break your target market into smaller categories using the following classifications:

Needs – Target people who have similar needs in terms of accomplishments, belonging, and self-actualization.
Objectives – Focus on people who are working towards a particular goal.
Personalities – Target people with like traits, such as those who are carefree, or those who are very serious, and so on.
Fears – Focus on people based on their fears like growing old, losing their job, or getting sick.

By narrowing down your target market in this way, it will be much easier to write posts that address their needs, wants, and desires. It will also be easier to convince them to take a look at your products because you already know at least part of their personalities and their way of thinking. The more your target market can relate to your blog, the more they will be likely to purchase your products and services. So the best way to maximize the business power of your blog is to first know your target market and then use your blog entries to communicate with them your business.