Putting Your Audience in the Mindset of the Sale: The Importance of a Customer-Centric Blog

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By now we all know that blogging is one of the most powerful tools available to digital marketers. From emotional considerations like building a connection with customers, to technical imperatives relating to SEO, a quality blog delivers wide-spanning value. But while there are several rules that can help make your blog more successful, oftentimes not enough attention is paid to customer-centric blogging.

What Is Customer-Centric Blogging?

Customer-centric blogging involves – as the name portends – creating a blog that is focused on the customer rather than the business. It’s about writing content that places the reader at the center of the experience.

This can be easier said than done. It’s not hard to see how a business blogger could fall into the trap of constantly writing about the business itself, extolling its virtues and pushing its products. There is a time and place for this (which we’ll get to in a moment), but these days placing the emphasis on the business feels too much like advertising, and modern consumers want to be wooed, not sold.

More and more business leaders are recognizing this. In a recent survey by Econsultancy, for example, it was found that digital leaders from around the globe consider a customer-centric experience to be more important than any other factor when it comes to establishing a company’s online presence. With 58% of respondents saying it is the “most important” characteristic, that means customer-centrism beat out innovation, technology, and even data.

How to Make Your Blog More Customer-Centric

There are a variety of methods for making a blog more customer-centric, but here are three fundamentals:

  1. Provide value more than you sell.

You can tell people how great your business is all day long, but that’s not going to seduce them into the sale. A good blog places emphasis on providing the customer with genuinely useful information rather than bombarding them with selling points.

For example, if you run a law firm, instead of writing about the services you offer and your various achievements, focus on producing blog posts that address the legal concerns of your audience.

That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t ever write about your business directly. Of course your blog is a great place to announce news, sales, events, new services, etc. But keep the 80/20 rule in mind: 80% value, 20% selling.

  1. Know what your customers consider valuable.

To provide value, you have to know what your customers find valuable. Sometimes this is common sense, but to learn what they really have on their mind, you have to find out what issues they consider most pressing. To do this, find out what they’re searching for.

Keyword research is about more than good SEO. It’s a tool for finding out what concerns your customers find most pressing. Their searches are a barometer for what’s important to them, and you need to shift your blog topics with the weather. So find out what they’re searching for, and speak to that.

  1. Use “you” language.

Point of view matters. I could have written this whole piece in the first person, as in “the way I make a customer-centric blog is…” But I don’t want you thinking about how I will do it. I want you thinking about how you will do it.

When you write with an emphasis on “you”, you get your customer thinking about themselves and how they relate to your business. This is significantly more powerful than simply speaking from the viewpoint of your business. “I” speech keeps your business at an arm’s length, while “you” speech makes a connection and draws the reader in.

An Example of Customer-Centric Blogging

At Lincoln Digital Group, we’re careful to use each of these techniques when developing a client’s blog.

Take, for example, the blog we created for the luxury jewelry store H&H Jewels – we attend to the 80/20 rule and deliver value over offers, we conduct careful research to determine what the audience is searching for, and we write “you” centered posts that place the reader in the driver’s seat.

As a result, H&H connects with customers by providing answers to their most pressing concerns. This not only drives their SEO and acquires new customers, but it keeps existing customers engaged and returning to the site for valuable information.

Ready to create your customer-centric blog? Contact our digital marketing agency online or call (561) 815-5015 today.

 

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