12 ways of using a blog to sell your startup

bloggingbuddyOct 15, 2013002226

If you are a startup, there is always a question of how to blog such that you can relate to your customers and break through the clutter of thousands of blogs out there? Came across this very interesting questions and answers regarding this.

Of course, the common ones are – to create stories around your customers and to include customer feedback into your content. But some of the suggestion merit some thought. The one that stood out for me was “Creating an Actual Editorial Program”.

Consider an actual editorial program.

Take two startups as an example: Bundle and Of a Kind.

Bundle (personal finance) devised an attention-getting editorial program that dealt with consumer finance. They did interviews with people about their financial lives; they published actual journalism that addressed people’s very real concerns and behaviors about spending and saving. That was their audience for their services, so why not use those tools to draw people in?

More recently, Of a Kind (small-batch direct-sale fashion) decided that they didn’t want to just put up a product for sale; they saw that they wanted to inform and engage a community of potential customers, so they treat their ‘sales’ site like a magazine. This is smart. It helps people identify with the seller, with the product and with the company.

Actual editorial programs in all manner of service-related businesses bring attention, bring customers and bring value.

Another one that seems to suggest not directly focusing on the product per se is – where the writer suggests to claim the “space” and not just talk about the product. I agree.

Talk about your space, not about your own product.

If you are creating a task manager, write about productivity, workflow, etc.

This can go broader too, in this case, your target market is.. companies, startups. -> write about startups, about life behind your startup, how you decorated your office, what rules you live by, startup tips, … see where I’m going?

When you’ve done that, after you’ve “informed” your target market, you can take it one step further and teach them. Going from the example case again, teach them about productivity, teach them about running a startup, …

Your own product doesn’t matter, if you center your blog around your product, no-one will care. Base it around a space, a target market, now that’s another thing. And once you got them where you want, stealthbombing your product here and there is as easy as pie.