by Scott McIntyre

Last week, I considered which features of your blog itself can create a positive first impression and be welcoming to the offline customer.

To briefly recap, I suggested that it is of benefit to both you and the non-blogger if they feel at ease on arrival at your site. By making it as simple as possible to navigate your pages, the first-time visitor is guided to your best quality content. This is further helped if you file that valuable information into relevant, streamlined categories.

It is also worth avoiding the use of too much ‘blog jargon’ which can confuse and make the blog experience ‘difficult’. And don’t forget to tell the new visitor, in easy-to-understand terms, of the value in subscribing to receive your carefully crafted content!

If you are mindful of all these elements, you will be well on your way to ensuring that your online offering is a place where the non-blogger wants to return.

So, how else might you develop a successful relationship between yourself and the offline customer? How can you begin to involve them in your community of readers? I’d love for you to share your views in the comments section below.

As I mentioned last week, the comments section is where the exciting activity takes place. There, your audience is able to have a conversation with you. The reader can shape the very content itself simply by leaving a comment. It’s a very powerful idea. But, how best can you encourage the non-blogger to participate in this dialogue?

Today, I’d like to consider five methods you can adopt.

Involving the Non-Blogger in Your Conversations

Imagine for a moment that you have come across your blog for the very first time. You eagerly read the articles. Then, you notice that lots of people have left messages with their views. ‘What’s all that about?’, you might ask. Even more bewildering is that box at the foot of the article asking you to share your views. What is the non-blogger going to do? Here’s a few things you can try to assist them to add their voice:

• Don’t say it all.
  A comprehensive coverage of the issue at hand is one of the hallmarks of quality content. Your readers will be informed, educated, and provoked if you succeed in giving them the fullest background that they need. However, if every piece you write comes across as if you know everything about the topic, what else is there left for the non-blogger to say? Those other bloggers who leave comments know what commenting is all about. They are quick to join in. But, the non-blogger is likely to feel that their lack of expertise will not be considered valuable. If you leave enough words left to be said, then the non-blogger might just be brave enough to say them.
• Ask questions.
  There is no more effective technique of encouraging a response than to ask a question, is there? There will most certainly be areas upon which your non-blogging reader has much insight to share. How can you assist them to do so? Ask them. This was how I first came to make my first ever comment right here on Liz’s blog. The writer of that article asked a question about which I believed I could help answer: How to attract the non-blogger to your blog? If you’re not used to it already, why not try posing relevant questions in your articles? You may be surprised at who shows up for the party!
• Answer questions.
  One of the aims of your online offering might be to build your position as an authority within your niche. Being the ‘go to’ person in your industry can have immense benefits to your business. A good way of convincing your readers of your qualifications to be this person is your willingness to share your expertise with them. Ideally, either through your blog or via other communication channels, you can try to answer queries from your audience. There is, of course, a balance between doing this and the other demands on your time, but the advantages in your availability to reply to readers’ queries are considerable.
• Reply to comments.
  I realise that every blogger has their own approach to this. Whatever method you adopt for interacting with comments is perfect- if it is what your reader expects. Some of you might reply to each individual commenter, while others ‘batch’ reply to comments. And there are some bloggers whose names never appear in their own comments section. Which approach do you think might appear most welcoming to the non-blogger and convince them that you want them to be part of your community?
• Offer a friendly comments box.
  At the end of this article — and on yours too — there is the ‘Leave a comment’ section. From the non-blogger’s point of view, this can be a potential barrier to drawing them in. When you ask them to leave their email address, it is helpful to state that this will not be used by any 3rd party. When your comment box requires them to ‘Enter your url/ website’, some may leave their email address. I know that the majority of you have non-blogger friendly comments boxes, but with the addition of a few welcoming words, you might just gently nudge the offline customer into having their say.

As with any invitation to talk, encouraging the non-blogger to join in your conversations means making them feel that their input is valued. If you can help them to feel at ease with the idea of commenting, you both can strike up a long-lasting and fruitful relationship.

If you’re a blogger, leave a comment to let me know how you involve non-bloggers in the conversation? What might you do to encourage non-blogging customers to participate in your comments section?

If you’re a non-blogger, tell them what they can do to make you feel part of their blog community.

Next week, I would like to take a reader’s question and discuss it a little further here. So, if there’s a particular issue you’d like me to explore that relates to connecting with offline customers or non-bloggers, please leave a comment and I’ll aim to write about it in the future.

–Scott McIntyre

Related

Week 1: Connecting with the Offline Customer: A Non-Blogger’s Perspective
Week 2: Targeting the Offline Customer: Do You Blog for Non-Bloggers?
Week 3: Reaching the Offline Customer: Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?
Week 4: Attracting the Offline Customer: Why Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?
Week 5: Top 10 Social Media Tips for Connecting With Non-Blogging Customers
Week 6: Welcoming the Offline Customer: Does Your Blog Create A Good Impression?

by Scott McIntyre

Last week, I suggested ways in which your blog could potentially benefit from participating on Social Media sites, and highlighted 10 Social Media tips for connecting with non blogging customers.

From your comments, it seems that this is an area of promotional activity which many of you would like either to develop more fully or to engage in for the first time.

I know that Liz herself is passionate about helping us all to better understand the reality of Social Media. Liz suggests maintaining a degree of perspective about Social Media and to think about whether your online offering is what people are actually searching for.

So, what might offline customers be looking for when they come to your blog, or website, for the first time? What would you like them to discover when they arrive? It would be great to read your views in the comments section.

Today, I want to look at those features of a blog which can influence how a first time, non-blogging visitor reacts to your site.
Ideally, you want to create a positive impression, to be welcoming. Make the offline customer feel ‘at home’ on your blog from the outset and you’re well on the way to connecting with them successfully.

Is Your Blog Appealing to the Non-Blogging Customer?

For all of you, I’m sure your blog is the result of much strategy development, planning, and hard work. You’ve invested resources- time, effort, and money- into developing an online offering to attract your target audience.

From the overall design to the little finishing touches, you’ve thought long and hard about ways to make your readers’ experiences as positive as possible. This can be achieved by addressing issues relating to usability and accessibility, amongst other factors.

But I wonder whether you’ve ever taken the time to see your blog from the perspective of a non-blogger? Perhaps you’ve asked a non-blogging contact to review your blog and give you feedback? If you have, you may have been a little surprised at what they told you.

As I’ve mentioned previously, there are still many people who either do not blog themselves or have never been exposed to the medium of blogs. This sizeable group of consumers represents a potentially lucrative target market for your online activities.

Of course, the nature of your online business will affect how much you need to be concerned about addressing the needs of a first-time visitor to your blog. If your product or service is aimed specifically at bloggers, you can safely assume that they will already have a good level of awareness about blogs.

If your market offering, however, is non-blogging based then you might need to pay a little more attention to making your blog as welcoming as possible to visitors who don’t blog.

Speaking from my own experience, when I first discovered blogs earlier this year, I was puzzled by the concept behind them. The more I read and researched, the more I gradually came to enjoy reading blogs and to understand their unique nature.

Blogs can be bewildering to a non-blogger…

So, how can you create that ideal first impression, and encourage the non-blogger to come back?

I’m going to briefly consider 6 points below, and would welcome your ideas on any other factors which you feel might attract or put off the non-blogger who pays your site a visit.

• Content

  Without doubt, providing first-class content is the main way to appeal to a non-blogger visiting your blog. Today’s information hungry consumer is bombarded with data noise on all fronts. Some of this information is brilliant, while much is of an inferior quality. If you can serve up useful articles which satisfy the needs of your target audience, the non-blogger will come back for more. By working hard to deliver regular content of a consistently high standard, you will set your blog apart from the countless other sites producing disposable information. In addition, both the style and readability of your content also plays a crucial role in how it appeals to the non-blogging reader.

  The style you adopt for your writing will be most effective when it speaks directly to your target reader and uses their language. The readability of your articles will affect how easy they are to make sense of. Non-bloggers are used to reading newspapers and magazines which use short and sweet headlines and break down text into bite sized chunks. They will likely expect this from your content too.

• Ease of Navigation

  It can be a little overwhelming to find your way around the many pages which comprise a blog, if you’ve never browsed one before. There will be lots of good quality content within the structure of your blog which would be of great interest to a non-blogger. Most of it they will never have come across before. You can help to guide them to it by highlighting the very best of what you have to offer. This may be in the form of a section on your front page which points to ‘Best of’, ‘Favorite’, or ‘Popular’ articles. If you can instantly grab the non-blogger’s attention on their first visit, they will appreciate the value of the information you provide.

• Categories

  When faced with a wealth of content, the non-blogger will likely welcome a helping hand to find the topics you write on. It can be quite confusing to be faced with a long list of categories from which they have to select an article of direct interest.

  It can also be somewhat difficult to find the information you want when it has been filed away under more categories than is absolutely necessary. To assist the non-blogger, it is an idea to cut down or combine your blog’s categories into only the essential ones which best index the content within. When faced with the choice of too many places to find an article, an impatient novice blog reader may not be willing to invest their time in tracking down your excellent content if its hidden away from them on first viewing.

• Subscribing

  When you have successfully managed to attract the non-blogging customer back to your blog for the first time, once they are there what would you like them to do? One of your main aims might be to encourage them to subscribe and receive the content you have worked so hard to produce. The best way of convincing someone to do something is to clearly point out to them why it is in their best interests to do so.

  With subscriptions, this can mean highlighting your RSS feed and email options in a prominent place on your front page. But, a non-blogger is likely not going to have a clue about what RSS is, what a feedreader is, nor why they would benefit from subscribing to your blog above all others. You would be doing them a favor if, somewhere on your blog, you included information which explained these technical terms and the advantages of subscription to them.

• Comments Section

  One of the definite attractions of a blog is the ability to be part of an enthusiastic community. Unlike any other form of media, blog readers can interact directly with the blogger and each other, as well as letting them shape the very content itself. The comments section is one of the best bits of a blog!

  You can draw a non-blogging reader into your community by providing content which asks questions. If a reader feels that they have something of value to offer the conversation, they will be moved to leave a comment. From my experience, however, very few non-bloggers leave comments. It’s an issue I am keen to explore. Why do non-bloggers not contribute more to blog conversations? If you’re a non-blogger reading this, I would love you to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

• Blog ‘Jargon’

  As is the case with any community, individuals coming to it for the first time can be excluded by the overuse of ‘in-house’ language. The same is true of the new non-blogger visiting your site. If you are aiming to target offline customers, many of whom have had little or no prior exposure to blogs, excessive reference to blogging terms can be a little off putting. Why do you call it a ‘post’ rather than an ‘article’? What on earth is ‘link love’? Depending on your desired audience, too much ‘blog speak’ can make the fresh-faced non-blogger feel left out of the conversation. Balance and sensitivity to the needs of your readership is, as always, key.

Like the start of any beautiful relationship, creating the right first impression goes a long way to ensuring long-term success. By building a positive rapport with the non-blogger right from the beginning, you can develop powerful and productive partnerships that will benefit you both.

If you’re a blogger, leave a comment to let me know of the factors which you feel help create a positive first impression for non-bloggers? How do you make your blog appealing to non-blogging customers?

If you’re a non-blogger, tell them what they can do to win you over when you visit their blog.

–Scott McIntyre

Related

Week 1: Connecting with the Offline Customer: A Non-Blogger’s Perspective
Week 2: Targeting the Offline Customer: Do You Blog for Non-Bloggers?
Week 3: Reaching the Offline Customer: Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?
Week 4: Attracting the Offline Customer: Why Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?
Week 5: Top 10 Social Media Tips for Connecting With Non-Blogging Customers

by Scott McIntyre

Last week, I discussed the main benefits of building awareness for your blog offline– namely to enhance your own personal reputation within your niche industry, and to increase the visibility of your blog’s brand to the wider offline community.

Many of you are finding that word-of-mouth recommendation still can’t be beaten as the Number 1 way of bringing a whole new audience to your online businesses. Creating a positive ‘buzz’ is a powerful method of attracting customers to your products and services.

The sole aim of this ‘buzz’ is to drive people to your website and then to encourage the individual to take specific action- whether this be to purchase, read, or subscribe.

Increasingly, the ultimate place to generate ‘blog buzz’ is through the use of Social Media. Effective participation on these websites now plays a crucial role in any successful marketing campaign. Social Media is where the ‘It Factor’ is at!

Did you realize that non-bloggers are participating in social media too?

Over the past few months, I have become an active participant on several Social Media sites.

Some — Stumbleupon and Digg — I am particularly fond of. For example, by only being concerned with sharing the best quality content with the community, my Stumbleupon profile has a Google Page Rank 5. Reader recommendation sites such as these allow me to enjoy my own community and to establish authority and trust.

I am beginning to explore others — Twitter, Mixx, and the social bookmarking sites Delicious and Reddit — and become more involved to see what they offer a non-blogging reader.

During the fantastic times I have spent Stumbling and Digging, I have become familiar with how best to interact with these Social Media communities and to maximize the mutual benefits to both myself and my fellow members.

Today, I would like to suggest 10 key tips that will help your blog benefit from Social Media. As the topic is vast with so many facets to cover, entire blogs are devoted to exploring the subject. You might use what I write here to reach more non-blogging customers or to explain social media to folks just beginning to explore how to get more from their blog.

I intend to cover the more basic points below, and would be delighted to write a follow-up article to address any questions you have. It would be great to read your views in the comments section.

Using Social Media: What’s the Buzz About?

“Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and ‘building’ of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories, and understandings.” (source: Wikipedia)

Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Plurk . . . these are but a few of the Social Media mega sites that are defining today’s Internet and shaping our online behaviour for tomorrow. Quite simply, Web 2.0 and the concept of social community IS the Internet.

This is the arena into which your online business can enter if you want to compete effectively and win the attention and dollars of today’s quality and cost savvy customer. And, even if your primary goal isn’t to generate money, engaging in the Social Media environment has massive potential to expose your blog to a new audience of enthusiastic readers — some of whom may have little experience with blogs.

At its most fundamental level, any specific Social Media website is a gathering of like-minded individuals who have interests in broadly the same range of topics. Furthermore, the community members are motivated to share the best information available with each other.

So, how best can you get involved with Social Media? Here are my Top 10 Tips (they’re in no particular order because each one is important in its own right).

Top 10 Social Media Tips for Connecting with Non-Blogging Customers

• Tip 1 Develop your Social Media strategy

  Without a focused plan of engagement, there is a danger that your use of Social Media will become a time and money resource draining activity. Many people use Social Media channels for fun and enjoyment. It’s a brilliant way to discover entertaining and useful content from all corners of the Internet. Many of the pages that come your way, you most probably would never have found on your own. That’s the incredible feature of Social Media – the community finds and delivers hitherto far flung information right to your browser.

  However, as a business you need to decide your aims for using Social Media before you embark upon this as a promotional activity. Your goals may be varied and interconnected- to enhance your reputation in the industry; to put a more ‘human’ face on your business; to generate sales; to increase your subscriptions, etc. Whatever you want to gain from Social Media, it is crucial to set out a framework to guide your efforts before you begin.

  In our case, it would be to find non-blogging customers, colleagues who work with them, and information about how to connect with them and their habits online.

• Tip 2 Select the most appropriate community for your business

  The first step before you launch into any Social Media community is to check out whether what you offer is what the members are likely to want. Explore some of the sites out there to get a feel for the kind of content that is considered worthy of sharing.

  Each Social Media site is geared towards a particular type of user. For example, while generalizing slightly, technology based news stories tend to do better on Digg because those users like that content, while in-depth and lifestyle articles fare better on Stumbleupon because this appeals to stumblers. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules on what goes down well with these respective audiences.

  Good quality and intrinsically valuable content will do well on any Social Media site if promoted properly and along the lines of these 10 tips I describe here.

  We can choose the sites where our customers are most likely to find information they’d want to know. Keep in mind that non-blogging customers get to social sites via search engine as well as via word of mouth.

• Tip 3 Fully research the Social Media community

  As mentioned above, any given community is a gathering of individuals with similar tastes and interests in online content. To plug into the collective consciousness, it is necessary to get to know what the people respond well to and what they reject out of hand. By knowing these rules of engagement, you can tap into the demand for your kind of material.

  While this talk of ‘collective consciousness’ may sound very new-age, really it is just a case of going where the audience you serve or want to serve is gathering and delivering your work to them.

• Tip 4 Create an attractive, unique profile

  Striving to build a professional looking and trustworthy profile is something which will differentiate you within the Social Media community and encourage other members to view you as a source of good quality material. Translated into action, your credible profile will lead individuals to opt into following you – or befriending you. By doing this, these people are indicating that they want more of what you are sharing. The key is to leverage this support sensitively into spin-off benefits for your business.

  To achieve the best results, you should try to reflect either your own personal brand or that of your online offering in your profile. Every aspect of your Social Media profile contributes to your branding efforts – from the avatar or image you display and the type of pages you share to the comments and reviews you make on these pages.

  Keep in mind that non-blogging customers might not be up on the social media vernacular. Though some key words will help bring search traffic to you, too many will confuse the non-bloggers who come.

• Tip 5 Build your network of like-minded mutual friends

  Any advantages from engaging with a Social Media community will only be fully realized if you search out members who are interested in the value you can offer. The whole rationale behind Social Media is in its social nature. People are there to share.

  By regularly using the website’s search facilities and by visiting the profiles of your fellow community participants, you can gradually build a network of like-minded contacts who want to derive mutual benefit from collaborating with each other online.

  Ask questions about connecting with newcomers and nonbloggers. Offer advice about the same subjects and the people will see you as someone who cares about that group of customers.

• Tip 6 Participate! Participate! Participate!

  As with any gathering, people flock to those individuals who actively get involved in the proceedings. They might entertain us or make us think twice. They might give us a unique insight into an issue or provide us with advice that no one else can. The same principles apply to Social Media communities. Members are keen to follow those who give value back to others. Your online offering can do all these things.

  When applied to the Social Media setting, this means always working to discover the highest quality content and introducing it to your community. It also translates into helping your fellow user to assess the value of that content by indicating your approval of it by judicious reviews and comments. Be obsessed with being a filter of quality material.

  Be sure to share content that non-bloggers will value and content in which they recognize themselves and their situation.

• Tip 7 Think not what the Social Media community can do for you, but what you can do for it

  No one especially wants to hang around with, or follow, someone who is all take and no give. The same is true of Social Media participants. It may be that, for perfectly valid personal or business reasons, you are unable to commit the resources to pursuing a Social Media strategy. If this is the case, it might be better to wait until you can before engaging in a half-hearted way. You need to make regular, value-laden Stumbles, Diggs, Tweets and Plurks before people notice you.

  Ask questions about how you can help others connect to businesses just entering this marketplace. Get advice from people who are obviously engaged in doing what you want to do.

• Tip 8 Engage on a deeper level with your network

  Being surrounded by a group of like-minded individuals provides a tremendous opportunity for networking. If you invest in becoming familiar with their specific interests, you can identify potential new contacts to do business with – either as a provider or a supplier.

  As is true of developing any mutually beneficial networking relationship, one should approach it with tact and diplomacy. Look out for indications on someone’s profile that they are willing to be contacted, perhaps via a communication channel outwith the Social Media site. If they have a blog of their own, consider becoming a genuine and valued contributor. You should have the attitude of giving value, without asking for anything in return. Adopting this attitude to building any relationships in life, brings great rewards in itself.

  Offering to schedule a limited time — 15 minute — phone call to explore ways that you might be useful in helping each other often works. Context is important when reaching out, work from what the other person knows.

• Tip 9 Offer and share only your very best content

  Every so often, it is fine to submit your own content for approval by the wider Social Media community. However, you should only do this once you have invested a significant amount of time and energy in understanding what is acceptable. Above all, you need to have built up a respected reputation (see Tip 4 above).

  The main focus of your community activity ought to be on contributing value to others. If you are passionate about producing knockout content for your own blog or website, some other quality-minded member will always want to share it.

  Again, share the content that’s meant for the customers and colleagues you want to attract.

• Tip 10 Assess the success of your Social Media strategy

  And so, it is time to review how effective all your efforts have been in providing benefits to the bottom-line results for your online business. This is why it is critical to have mapped out your strategy before you embark upon any exploration of Social Media as a means of promotion, as outlined in Tip 1 above. You can find out more about how to analyze the impact of your strategy in Liz’s article on checking Social Media’s return on investment

Effective participation in Social Media communities can benefit your online business greatly, if you approach it in a carefully planned manner like any other promotional activity. Social Media-astute small businesses can level the playing field and take on the big boys in their industries. We can be fleeter of foot and react to the subtle changes within the Social Media community much more quickly than larger enterprises with their marketing / operational departmental bureaucracies.

Not only can you connect directly with blogging and non-blogging customers and attract new ones, you can also build very useful and productive working relationships and forge strong strategic alliances within your niche.

If you’re a blogger, leave a comment to let me know of your experiences of using Social Media? What advice would you give to use these tool to reach non-blogging customers?

If you’re a non-blogger who uses Social Media (and there are are many), tell them what they can do to engage with you via your Social Media community.

–Scott McIntyre

Related
Week 1: Connecting with the Offline Customer: A Non-Blogger’s Perspective
Week 2: Targeting the Offline Customer: Do You Blog for Non-Bloggers?
Week 3: Reaching the Offline Customer: Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?
Week 4: Attracting the Offline Customer: Why Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?

by Scott McIntyre

In the first part of this series, when I shared my perspective on connecting with offline customers, it was clear from your comments that this is an area of business activity which many of you are keen to develop.

I was also very interested to learn that some of you have already adopted this as a business goal, and are taking steps to focus in on attracting this particular audience – a group that is, I would suggest, waiting for you to find them and to address their consumer needs.

Helping you to grow your online business by reaching out to non-bloggers, is a subject close to Liz’s heart. She previously hosted a lively session on blogging outside the blogosphere with Wendy Piersall which opened up the debate.

Today, I would like to explore a little further the issues behind whether your online business could be profitably served by aiming for customers outside the blogosphere.

The Nature of Your Business: Is Your Audience Bloggers?

Let me ask you whether there are people within your own network of current, or potential, contacts who either (a) don’t read blogs or (b) are not bloggers themselves?

I would hazard a guess that there are.

At first glance, the vast majority of blog readers would appear to be other bloggers. Or, at least, that is the impression I get when I read the comments sections on almost every blog I have visited. The vast majority of commentators have links to their own blogs in their signature.

Either other blog readers without a blog are few and far between or else, as I suspect, they are reluctant to get involved in the conversation.

It’s a missed opportunity whichever way you look at it.

Are other bloggers your ideal target audience?

The nature of your online business will strongly influence any decisions you make as to whether you might usefully channel resources into targeting offline customers as your primary marketing strategy.

If your product or service is aimed specifically at bloggers, it seems entirely appropriate for your business to be aiming for customers within the blogosphere.

If your market offering, however, is non-blogging based then it might be best to look for potential customers offline.

To focus only on bloggers as your target audience is to miss out on an army of potential customers — people with money to spend — who are not aware of blogs (yes, they do exist!) or who do not blog themselves.

Next week, I will be looking at some of the practical methods and communication channels you can use to spread your message to this potentially lucrative, offline market segment.

If you’re a blogger, leave a comment to let me know your views on whether it’s right for your business to target offline customers. If you’re a blogger already targeting customers outside the blogosphere, what are your experiences in trying to attract this audience to your online business?

If you’re a non-blogger, let them know what they need to do to get your attention.
–Scott

Scott McIntyre is a freelance writer based in Scotland, who only recently discovered the wonders of the blogosphere. He’s a writer on a personal mission to live a colorful life, and to write about it along the way. You can find out more at LinkedIn, or be one of the first to follow Scott on Twitter.