12 Days of Christmas … 10 things to blog about this Christmas season

10 things to blog about this Christmas

10 things to blog about this Christmas

Even if you’ve managed to successfully blog all the way through the year, it can be heard to know what to blog about in this seasonal time. We’ve put together 10 things you could blog about with your Christmas content.

 

Your best bits

Christmas and New Year is a time we all naturally reflect on our lives and what has happened in the past year. So looking back on your best bits of the year will not only be quite therapeutic for you. But will remind your customers of the good things you have done. The challenges you have overcome. And why they became a customer with you in the first place.

Some good starting points might be what company successes have you celebrated? Has your company grown, or moved offices, or won any awards? Have you had any personal successes in the team such as promotion, marriage or cute newborns? Or has your team really gone the extra mile this year, and took part in charity events, or volunteering projects?

Once you get started, you will probably have a lot more to talk about than you think.

 

What is coming in the New Year for you

If you are making any changes in the New Year, now is a good time not only to inform your customers. To get them excited about it, and ready to embrace the changes.

Consider if you will be offering new services or products in the New Year. Can customers get money off if they refer to a code given in the blog? This may increase shares of your blog, and visits to the website. Resulting in more organic sales, as well as people taking advantage of the offer in the New Year.

Are you moving premises, or changing your opening hours? Now is a great time to inform your customers to save confusion when it comes to January.

 

Industry relevant Christmas/New Year preparation

If people are regularly visiting your blog, or find your blog within search results, they are most likely interested in your industry. So posting industry relevant festive content is something your readers may be interested in. And helps to keep your 80:20 ratio of informative content, to advertising, in a time where it is easy to slip into heavy sales.

Not sure what you would write? Well if we look at our blog for example. This very post in fact. It is an informative post, relevant to marketing, that is based around the festive period.

If, for example, you run a HR blog, why not look at how to act appropriately at the office Christmas party. If you run an accountancy blog, why not look at how to get your finances in order for 2016. These are simple ideas, but it can be easy to overlook them when panicking about what to write when you are more deadlines than normal looming.

 

Seasonal Industry News

Following on from advice in your industry during the festive period, is there any relevant industry news that affects you during this season?

Retail blogs have a lot to work with here, such as looking at best buys for the season or how Black Friday has affected you.

Marketers, we have new Christmas campaign after new Christmas campaign that we can critique. To look at how these could be improved, or how much profit was gained by running a certain campaign.

Security blogs can look to the news of the latest crime statistics. In a period of time where many people have high value items sitting on show in their cars and houses. What are people saying about it? And what can people do to stop themselves being part of the story?

Again, this is looking at keeping your blog content informative, and useful for the reader at a time where most content is focused on selling.

 

Acts of Goodwill

We touched upon this in an earlier point, but as this is the season of goodwill and charity, it is definitely a subject to talk about.

If your team has been involved in charity work, fundraising or volunteering, then talk about it. What did they do, why were they doing it and how did it go? Not only are you showing the employees who took part that you are proud of what they have achieved. You are also showing your customers that you care about these causes, and it’s not all about just going to work each day.

Are you planning more fundraising next year? Let people know, or ask what charities they would like to see you support, or what events they would like to see. Engage with people now. So when the time comes, your customers can see that you have followed through on your word.

Or if you have not had time. Or are not in a position to fund-raise yourselves, why not look to other examples of goodwill to talk about?  Social media is full of examples of this. Of individuals, as well as charities, passing out coats, gloves and scarves to the homeless. Of people starting a pay it forward gesture at a coffee shop, where they pay for the next persons coffee. Or of school children putting together shoebox’s of gifts to be sent to other children across the globe. There are plenty of examples out there of people doing good, so to share and celebrate their achievements is a great thing to do.

 

Your most popular posts of the year

If you blog regularly, now may be the time to recap on what have been the most popular posts. This is something you will see on our own blog in the near future, as we post twice a week, readers can miss out on the occasional post!

Use analytics tools to find the top read blogs for the year, and then link them all together in one handy post. This gives readers a chance to refresh themselves on content they may have forgotten about. New readers a chance to catch up on what has been going on. And it’s a great exercise for you to see what has been well received by your potential customers. So then you can use that information to build on next year’s posts.

 

Things you have learned as a business this year

This can be done in two ways, extremely silly or serious reflection. That’s really up to you and your company.

Silly side, you can have learnt that perhaps some of your colleagues shouldn’t be trusted to make a good cuppa. Or that you need to call to check outfits as people have turned up in the same thing. Maybe you have learned that once one person ordered in food, that means the rest of you cave in too and it turns into a full on food session? Just remember to keep it appropriate, and not too personal about your colleagues. This post should definitely be a light hearted one.

If you’re looking for a more reflective post, perhaps you can look at how you managed to conquer your social media fears. Or how it was a great move to get your website updated. Maybe you changed your location, which worked really well. Or you learnt what your customers really love.

Whichever you choose, this is an opportunity to give your readers some insight into you company, what you value, and what sort of people you actually are.

 

Gift Guide

This will only work with some businesses, so think carefully before using this. B2C businesses have it a little easier here, and can use this as a little promotion for your own products. Talk about your products, why they’re great, and why people have bought them already.

If you don’t necessarily have products that can be sold at this time, maybe you could look at a light hearted version of this post. Collate the worst/most random/most ingenious gifts you have seen around. You could run a “the 10 worst things you could buy your loved one” or perhaps “the 8 gifts that have got us excited for Christmas in the office”. Try and keep it still relevant to your business, make sure it still has a clear purpose and always make sure it’s appropriate.

 

Your best customers

As well as looking back at what your company has done, and what you have achieved. Now is a great time to look back at the lovely customers you have had, and have supported your business this year. This may work slightly better for B2B companies, than B2C. As you may have worked with a particular client or customer repeatedly over the year.

Talk a little about the work you did together. How it has benefited that company or person. And why you loved working with them.

This is a great post, not only for promoting and saying thank you to your customers. But it’s also great for getting your post seen by new audiences if your customers share your post. Meaning you may gain a few more customers from the post.

 

Merry Christmas Message

Number 10 in the list is probably the most obvious one. But a really nice one to put up. Wish your readers a Merry Christmas, thank them for their support, and inform them of your business opening hours over the Christmas season.

Work with some lovely graphics to make it this a nice visual post you can share. Then work on some mince pies and hot chocolates because it’s Christmas and you’ve worked hard.

 

It really is a great time of year on a business blog to add in more humour. To be more personal. To provide more insightful information for your readers. So take advantage of the topic ideas above, and let us know if there is a topic you love to post about at this festive time.

Take a look at the rest of our countdown to the 12 days of Christmas, for more advice, how to’s and examples of marketing during this festive season.

Why should I be blogging for business?

Why should I be blogging for business

Why should I be blogging for business

There are plenty of articles out there giving you advice about blogging for business but why exactly should your business be blogging? And does it really make a difference anyway?

The short answer is yes blogging does make a difference! There are also a number of reasons why you should be blogging for your business and the benefits it can bring which we’ll cover in this post.

 

Help your target audience

‘How-to’ type posts are very popular and help your customers get the best out of your products and service. It will also encourage your audience to use your blog as a helpful and trusted resource.

Helpful blog posts also show that you care about your customers and are going the extra mile to help them get the most out of your products and services.

 

Engage with customers

Like Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, your blog is another opportunity for you to talk to your existing and potential customers through comments left on your posts.

Before you set up your blog it’s worth talking about what you will do if you receive a negative comment. The general rule is that if it’s a customer complaining about your product or service you should reply to the comment informing them of the best way to get in touch to resolve the issue.

It can be tempting to delete a negative comment but doing so will only further annoy the person who left the comment.

 

Boost search rankings

If you are regularly producing high quality, interesting content containing some of the keywords you want to rank for, you will begin to see your search rankings improve. The changes won’t happen over night and it may take weeks before you see a difference but if you persevere with producing high quality content it will make a difference to your rankings.

Depending on the quality of the content on your website you may find that your blog posts rank above your website, so it’s important to make sure that everything you post is of the highest quality and will make a good impression on anyone seeing your website, brand, products and services for the first time.

It’s important to make sure that your blog is on the same domain as your website. For example your blog should be at www.yourbusiness.com/blog rather than www.yourbusinessblog.com.

Keeping your blog on the same domain as your website improves usability and means that your website and your blog will not be competing with each other in search engines.

 

Share your expertise and knowledge

Your blog is a good place to share your knowledge and expertise in your industry and prove to your readers and customers that you know what you are talking about, which can help you build up trust with potential and existing customers who will view you as knowledged and experienced.

 

News

Your blog can be used to put a more human face on your business by sharing news about your business.

For example, our customers love The Marketing Dogs and often ask us how they are. Last year George had to have an operation and the phone was ringing off the hook for days with customers asking for the latest update, so we began to update our blog with news about how George was getting on.

If you don’t send out a newsletter to your customers to let them know what’s going on, your blog is a great place to keep them up to date on the latest news, promotions, offers and new products.

 

Promotion

Talking of promotions, your blog can be used to promote your latest offer, product or service.

 

Yes! Blogging really does help.

A HubSpot study found that both B2B and B2C businesses who blogged at least 15 times a month received five times more traffic than businesses who didn’t blog at all.

It also found that B2C companies who blog one or two times a month will generate 70% more leads through their website than those who don’t blog at all.

 

It’s hard to find time to blog sometimes and when you’re busy it’s usually the first thing to be pushed aside. Try and make time each week to sit down and write at least one blog post, and if you find you have more time one week write another one so you’ve got a post ready and waiting if you find you’re too busy one week.

Alternatively we can manage your blog for you by writing blog posts and posting them to social media, or if you haven’t got a blog we can design and implement a blog into your website for a seamless experience for the user.

To find out more about our blog management services, call us on 01543 387 047 or fill in our online contact form.