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How to Blog to Build Your Product Sales Business

Posted By Guest Blogger 1st of August 2012 Business Blogging 0 Comments

This guest post is by Amy Harrison of Harrisonamy.com.

This article is the final part of a three-part series on how your blog can feed different types of business models. In the previous two articles we looked at how blogging can attract customers who want to hire you to do your thing, or to be coached by you so they can do theirs.

The final piece of the puzzle is looking at one way a blog can be used to sell products to customers. These might be physical products, digital products such as ebooks, or events and training courses.

Writing my blog put my directly in touch with an audience of people who were interested in a subject that I could help them with: copywriting.

As I built readers I became more familiar with the struggles they had, and where they needed help. Their challenges influenced the creation of my first two products, which still sell today even thought I launched them almost 18 months ago.

There’s no way I would have been able to create products that responded well without having a blog to see which posts were popular, which ones received comments, which ones people shared, and which ones got the most traffic. Best of all, I didn’t have to wait till launch day to see if my product was something people wanted.

The blog didn’t just help me get a feel for what products to create; it helped sell the products without being pushy. Here’s how.

Using the blog to set the scene—preparing for a launch

Whenever I’ve launched or promoted a product, the blog has been an invaluable tool in the process.

Even though your products are geared up to help your audience, sometimes you need to raise awareness of the problems they solve, and your blog is a great platform to do this.

Planning your content back from the launch date, you can start brainstorming topics to attract the attention of your ideal customer. When I’m planning a product launch, I’m looking at the key issues and challenges that the product solves and then turning them into discussion topics for the blog. I might also release a couple of cheat sheets and two- or three-page templates or reports that will give my readers a sample of what the full product is like.

This does a couple of things. It raises awareness about the problems, but also the awareness of the “need” to fix those problems along with discussions as to why the problems haven’t been fixed before. That then allows you to introduce the benefits of a product that answers those challenges, questions and hesitations.

It’s like a long sales letter in pieces, except that you’re not pushing hard, you’re simply trying to attract the ideal customer for your particular product.

So, for example, if you were about to release an ebook or course on DIY car maintenance, what would be some of the key issues?

Perhaps the importance of having a properly maintained car, the safety aspects, or how much money you can save by a few home tweaks rather than having to rely on the garage all the time.

Then you could release a couple of checklists about the most important parts to keep maintained on a car.

You could also think about running a number of posts about why people don’t maintain cars properly: breaking myths like “car maintenance is complicated,” or “I’ll void my warranty if I start tinkering under the hood.”

While this is going on, you’re able to start attracting attention from people who are going to be your target market for this kind of product—simply by publishing strategic content on your blog.

Staying flexible

The beauty of your blog is it’s flexible, and you don’t need to decide from day one what your business model is going to be. If you’re still in work and want to launch your blog on the side, you can experiment, find your voice, and find your niche.

And once you do follow one path with your blog, you’re not committed—there’s nothing that can’t be changed. I use a combination of all three blogging models to generate income for my business, and I’m still tweaking and checking in with myself to assess where to place my focus. It’s not a “set and forget” process, but a constant state of evolution.

What I’ve learned the most in three years is that you can plan too much and have ideas about how you’re going to do something, but you learn so much more by just doing. So try things out, get going, and see where the blogging ride takes you in your business.

What about you? How do you promote your products through your blog? Do you use your blog to have seasonal launches or are your products evergreen? Let us know in the comments!

Amy Harrison is a copywriter and content marketer for Personality Entrepreneurs wanting to connect and sell authentically to their audience. You can now download her free report on how to write sales copy when personality is part of your business at Harrisonamy.com.

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Comments
  1. I took a look at your site…I love the setup. I really think I need to learn the art of copywriting. It is so important. I mostly do launch products through my blog: I reach out to my email list, split test facebook ads, and etc. I think this is a real great help!

    • Thanks Michael – the website is due a revamp to make mroe of my content more accessbile, particularly to people looking for specific answers like yourself so stay tuned! :-)

  2. I haven’t yet used my blog as a platform to sell my products, but I am aiming for it.

    Besides the useful tips you mentioned, here’s what I’d like to add:

    If you want to leverage your blog to sell your own products then start by building a rock solid relationship with your readers. You do that by regularly publishing awesome content, replying to each and every comment, giving value through email, etc.

    The deeper your relationship with your readers, the higher the conversion rate you’ll get.

    • I agree with each of those points. Nurturing your relationship with your audience gives you a big advantage in reaching more people when you are ready to sell your products.

  3. Finding your niche is one of the most important things that you can do to make money with it. Many people just jump into a niche because they know that it yields a lot of money, but that is usually the only thing they know about it!

    Its a good practice to get into a niche that you know something about so you can inform people better.

    • Having a strong interest to dedicate yourself to your niche is important. If you’re only half-interested, your more passionate competitors will whoop you in the quality of their content.

  4. Making attractive sales page with super catchy headlines may help to increase product sales -and more traffic you bring into it the more your sales will be! I’m just sharing it because it works and if you’re serious about your product business then this might be a cool step for you.

  5. Hi Amy, top notch question you have from your last paragraph, I am stunt. I am a beginner, but I think I can say I am the flexible one, I prefer promote products using video, but for product itself I love to taking care evergreen products. Thank you for your great post. Regards.

  6. hi

    I have the same thinking that you dont have todecide a business model in blogs from day 1. You just take things as you go building your content. That is a good point.

    http://www.proenrichment.com

  7. Interestingly enough, I am launching a training course next Monday and have just written a couple of awareness-raising posts that will be published all week up until launch day!

    The course is free, but I am still in the credibility gaining phase of this particular blog and I know many people will benefit from it. It’s cool that I picked such a broad topic because I can focus on one aspect at a time as I build my blog.

    Thanks for the awesome post,
    -Gabe

  8. Great article Amy!
    Being flexible is key because if your competitors are flexible and you are not, big problems could come your way. I know of several websites and blogs who are leading for certain keywords but their competitors have their websites and blogs monetized better and have a more flexible layout.

    Unless some bloggers are in the game just for fun and not to make money, having a backup plan for selling is a must. That means if your followers are not willing to purchase your items ABC then they need to be moved or the copy wright may need to be greatly enhanced. The point is you have to be willing to make moves.

    Thanks KJulian

  9. That was a great post and it really help. thanks for sharing.

  10. Hi Amy!

    Great post! and certainly without taking risks you can not be succeeded in any business and in blogging you have to test few things to check which one is working well but for that you should have proper strategy and research of what you are going to do.

    Anyhow, It was a great post and thanks for sharing. :-)

  11. I was just wondering how to sell or present products over my blog. I will be better with this post :)

  12. Nice tutorial about blogging :)

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