Blogging offers so many benefits. You get to communicate regularly with your audience, drive more traffic to your site, and establish yourself as an expert online through your writing. One more thing that people often don’t realize is that your blog gives you valuable insights into how your target market thinks and feels.
People forget that blogs are social media. They’re supposed to be interactive. It’s not just you writing and broadcasting your posts to your audience. You should also be getting them involved. The more comments, interaction and engagement you’ve got going, the better. When your readers are involved, you can really get to know them.
Reading Your Comments
When people leave you comments, they’re providing you with a wealth of information. Even if they say something like, ‘nice post,’ what they’re telling you is that they’d like to see more of the same. When they get into real discussions, this is where you get to be a fly on the wall.
Clever bloggers round off their posts with a question. This is often a marketing research question in disguise. You can fashion your blog posts around this question and the information you want to receive. For example, if you want to know how to improve your security software’s usability, write a rant about how tough it is to use such-and-such’s program and then ask your readers if they have similar stories. You’ll get lots of feedback on what aspects of software program usability they really care about.
Follow up with Readers
You should always thank your readers for their comments or add your own two cents to what they say. You might also want to ask them follow-up questions. Maybe there’s something you’d like to clarify or you’d like to get more information.
Some bloggers choose to do this through private email rather than in the comments. There are a few reasons. First, it then doesn’t look like you’re soliciting information. Secondly, your readers may be more candid with you if it’s not public. This is also a great form of engagement that makes the experience more personal for them.
Spy on Your Rivals
Don’t stop with your own blog. Check out your competition’s blog as well to get information. There’s a good chance that your audience overlaps. See what they’re readers are saying and you can learn even more.
The Internet is absolutely awesome for doing market research. You don’t have to pay people to be in focus groups or conduct time-consuming telephone surveys. Just create a place for them to chat and hang out. Your blog can be that place. But with your blog as well as anything you do online, always have your ears open. They’re probably telling you exactly what they want.
Tony
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Remember no question is stupid only the one that’s never asked!
