This is another one of those subjects where I’ll forgive you for reading the title and saying huh? The question should really be – when you look back over the blogs and social media posts you’ve written, do they all sound like you? When you keep things consistent you’ll get better results from your marketing and your life will get easier.
Getting to know you
The phrase ‘know, like and trust’ comes out of my mouth with alarming regularity. That’s because it’s one of the key things you should focus on as a small business owner. It’s rare for people to see an advert or a post and respond immediately. Generally speaking, you need to build a relationship with your audience.
You’re probably already well aware of the importance of consistent visual branding. Using the same colours and fonts makes it easy for your customers to spot you in their news feed. It’s the same with your copy. People stop and read because they know what to expect. If your posts are generally chatty and fun a sudden run of bland and boring ones will be a real turn off.
Easy outsourcing
Do you have brand guidelines? That sounds very formal, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s basically having a strong sense of how you want to come across. I use the same colours throughout my marketing and choose images that I hope my audience will like. I also aim to write in quite a natural and friendly way. All of my guidelines are in my head but if I was working with a graphic designer it would be quite easy for me to brief them on the style I’m aiming for. They could also get a pretty good idea from looking at my social media feeds.
You might not be ready to outsource your design or writing to anyone else yet. But having a clear idea about how you want to come across will really help when you are ready. You can send a brief that says “I aim to appeal to professional women and want my copy to be chatty and friendly.” Simple, right?
Consistent shouldn’t = boring
The last thing you want is to send your customers to sleep. Just because they want to know what to expect from your posts doesn’t mean they all need to sound exactly the same. Just because you mostly talk about light hearted things it doesn’t mean you can’t throw in something serious now and again. If anything, it gives the serious stuff more impact.
You can keep things varied by telling your customers something surprising. Cover the same topic in different ways. If you find that all of your posts start with the same few words, try some different ones. As long as it still sounds like you, it’ll be fine.
Review your marketing
Are you good at keeping your tone consistent? To find out, one of the best things you can do is to review what you’ve already done. When you read your blogs or look through your social media feeds, do they all blend into one? Maybe you’ve gone in the opposite direction and everything sounds as if it was written by a completely different person. This can be a problem in bigger businesses where content is often written by lots of different people, but sometimes it can just depend on what mood you were in when you wrote it. When you’ve finished, think about how you actually want to sound. What will work for your audience?
If you’d like to get back to basics with your blogging and make it sound like you, no matter what you’re talking about, join me for my last ever blogging workshop on 4th June. All of your refreshments are provided and you’ll have time to write so you’ll go home with a finished blog and a plan for more. Along with a renewed sense of your own ability to put your personality into your marketing. Click on the image to book your place!
Further reading
If you need to do some work to help you work out who your marketing needs to talk to, start here.
I’m going to say something that might make you go a bit twitchy. When you’re marketing your business you need to decide who you want to target then focus on them. It sounds fairly logical, doesn’t it? Yet small business owners everywhere get very nervous when they hear it. They say things like ‘but I might make someone feel excluded’, ‘what if I lose a customer because they don’t think it’s for them?’ or ‘but I can sell to anyone’. I understand the worry. As small business owners we need to work hard to attract new customers and build trust. The idea of putting people off just seems counterintuitive. However there’s another important factor to consider. We have limited time so we need to spend it wisely. When you get to know your customer you can do just that.
There are three questions I always hear when I talk about blogging. One of them sometimes isn’t a question at all, just a statement. “I would write a blog but I don’t know what to write about.” (The other two questions are ‘how long does my blog need to be?’ and ‘how often should I be blogging?’ – we’ll get to those another time.) When it comes to finding topics for your blog, there are hundreds of different ways to go about it. I’ve written about a few in 
Blogging is wonderful as a business marketing tool and a creative outlet. If you’re writing a blog to promote your business it’s important to know what’s going to appeal to your audience so you can tailor the content to them. You can also air your personal views via blogging. There’s loads of scope to talk about whatever you choose.
It’s easy to think of storytelling as being something you do with your children. You can cuddle up at the end of the day and send them off to sleep with a lovely bedtime story. Mine are still young enough to watch CBeebies so we sometimes get the added bonus of a tale read by Tom Hardy. (I even know people without kids who tune in to watch him anyway!) If that’s how you think of storytelling you might be forgiven for having dismissed it as an effective marketing tool. Actually, it’s one of the most effective approaches you can take.
What springs to mind when someone suggests you should write a blog? Do you think of all of those influencers that you see on Instagram getting wined and dined in return for a good review? Or maybe you think it’s something for professional writers or marketing agencies? It’s true that you can pay a professional to write your blog for you (me for instance). You could even do some blogger outreach to get product reviews or more social media exposure. But there’s absolutely nothing to stop you from writing your own blog if you want to. There are lots of misconceptions about blogging. I’m going to tell you about a few of them – are any of these getting in your way?
You know that you need a content strategy which aligns with your goals (and if you don’t read my last two blogs