What to blog about to win clients?
You’ve written a blog post. You’ve published it, added it on Twitter and LinkedIn. Now what? If you are like most lawyers, accountants and consultants I know, you probably leave it there. Thereby missing out on most of the value of your blogging work, limiting your chances of monetising your efforts, and winning new clients with your blog. This post is going to look at exactly what you need to blog about and then what you need to DO with your blog post in order to get the most amount of value (and client wins) out of it.
You don’t need to be an SEO genius to win clients with your blog.
Firstly, you don’t need to think like an internet marketer. Of course, you can win lots of clients through an in depth knowledge of keywords and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). But, you can win clients through every single blog post you write without being an internet expert. Yes, seriously, leave the technical aspects of internet marketing to the internet marketing folk. Everything I am going to tell you in this blog can be done by any lawyer, accountant or consultant who can use a word processor and an email programme.
It all starts with writing the right content.
As the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. If you just rush off 500 words without much thought as to WHY you are writing the blog post and HOW it will help your business development efforts, then you are limiting your ability to win clients right from the start. WHAT to blog is as important as what you do with your blog post after writing it. So, when you are thinking what to blog, what type of content works best? It depends on your route to market, how “distressed” a purchase your service offering is, and the buying journey your clients need to buy from you (or your competitors). For example, if you are an insolvency lawyer or litigator, then articles with a topical or strategic focus work very well. E.g. Insolvency trends, and articles based upon recent headline news. Regardless of your route to market or the nature of your service offering, blog posts that educate your potential clients into realising they have a problem often work very well. Consider it the professional form of ambulance chasing. One of my former clients, who are specialist auditors, get the best results when they slightly scare their readership into realising that they need help to fix a problem they didn’t know they had! Another way of deciding on the right type of content is looking at your business development process. Where are prospects dropping out of your funnel? Or are they not getting in at all? Or where are there common objections to working with you? Then create some content to address these problems. For example, one of my clients often lost potential clients because his prospects were concerned about damaging important relationships if they used his services. So he built a raft of content around this to allay his prospects fears. As a result he stopped losing prospects for this reason.
Take the time to distribute your blog content properly.
As I mentioned at the top of this article, most professionals don’t properly distribute their blog post after they have written it. It doesn’t matter whether you plan to blog weekly, fortnightly or monthly, you need to get the most bang out of your buck for writing your article. Let’s assume that you’ve done your homework and you’ve decided on what to blog. In other words the content of your blog post is pitched in the right place to make a difference to your business development efforts. Now what? Here’s what you can try:
- Add your blog post to your social media channels (Linkedin, Twitter, etc.) and ask your colleagues to help you distribute it. Don’t just stick up a link, think about introductory sentences to compel people to click through. After all, there is no point in posting up a link if no-one can be bothered to click. Consider creating several introductions for the link so you can post it multiple times on Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Go through your contact list and identify who would really value the content you have written. If you have lots of contacts that would find it valuable, prioritise the main ones, those people you really need or want to stay in touch with. Think: intermediaries, key clients, internal firm contacts, prospects. Then, write a personalised note to each person (and I really mean personalised) with a link to the post. You could ask for their thoughts on the post, see how the information in the post affects them. You get the picture!
- Create an email for the blog post, which you then send to your contacts in the firm who have clients who would find the post useful. Remember it doesn’t always need to be you who has to do the sending.
If you blog more than once a month, then don’t send every one to the same people. Cherry pick the best of your content or the most relevant of pieces to send to your contacts.
Be consistent with your efforts.
Sometimes it may take time for a blog post to turn into a client-attracting asset, but keep plugging away. Consistency is the answer when it comes to blogging to win new clients. As one of my clients found when he stopped blogging: his pipeline started to empty 3-6 months later.
Take your blogging further.
If you want to find out more about how blogging and social media can help your career, read these other posts. And remember to download your free career kitbag, it’s packed with useful tools and information. You can also download my free e-book Blogging Made Easy. How to write great blog content How your online footprint helps you sign new clients Keeping the faith with your business development Avoiding the feast and famine cycle
