Use your blog to get clients for corporate writing work

Editor’s note: — Michelle

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By Susan B. Weiner, CFA

<a href=”https://plus.google.com/u/0/106084241393019409250/?rel=author“>Susan Weiner</a>

Blogging can be a great way for writers to attract corporate clients. My Investment Writing blog has helped spread my name among prospective clients.

Based on personal experience, I have developed a three-part approach to using a blog for marketing.

Here’s how you can apply my approach to building your business as a corporate writer or content producer:

• Write about topics that interest members of your target market – or their target market.
• Use your blog’s content to feed an e-newsletter. This gives you a way to capture your readers’ email addresses.
• See where your blog takes you in terms of new business opportunities.

1. Pick the Right Topics and Audience

You need the right information to draw potential clients to your blog. If you’re seeking clients who’ll hire you to write about, say, health care, then blogging about that topic is an obvious fit.

There are less obvious slants, which I discovered as my blog evolved.

I started blogging about investments because my clients are mostly investment and wealth management firms. However, my focus shifted after readers responded well to my posts discussing how to write about these topics. Now instead of covering investments, I use my blog to discuss how to write about investments.

There’s also the issue of whom you address in blog posts. I’m typically hired by marketing and communications managers, but my blog focuses on financial advisors and similar professionals. That was an accident, which stemmed from my blog’s origins, but it has served me well because many clients hire me to reach advisors.

Let’s go back to the health care example. If you want to write for pharmaceutical companies, showing that you can reach doctors looks like a great fit.

2. Capture Email Addresses

You need to stay in front of prospective clients because there’s often a long break between when your prospects discover you and when they’re ready to hire. This is why I suggest starting an e‑newsletter. A newsletter can be something simple, perhaps teaser copy with a link to a blog post. A newsletter’s purpose is to pop you into your prospects’ email inboxes – with their permission – on a regular basis. This becomes a gentle reminder of your availability. To build up your newsletter mailing list, offer a special report as an incentive to subscribe.

Many times over the years prospects have called me within 24 hours of receiving my newsletter. On the other hand, one subscriber hired me seven years after our initial contact.

3. Let Your Blog Take Your Business in New Directions

My blog has expanded my business beyond freelance writing. It inspired my writing class, “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A Writing Class for Financial Advisors,” which is tailored to financial planners, wealth managers, investment managers, and the marketing and communications staff that supports them. It’s a virtual class, which I offer using free or inexpensive resources, as I describe in Technology tip: How to create a low-tech virtual class.

I developed and tested many of the class materials on my blog. Plus, students have come almost exclusively from subscribers to my blog-driven e-newsletter.

More recently, I turned my blog-inspired writing class into a book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. This self-published book walks financial professionals through every step of writing blog posts, from brainstorming ideas to writing to spreading the word about their blogs. While much of my advice applies to any blogger, investment and wealth management professionals will benefit from examples specific to their profession. The book will be available as a .PDF and a print-on-demand paperback.

Keep your eyes open to readers’ responses. They can take your writing business in exciting new directions.

Susan Weiner, CFA, is the author of Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients, which is tailored to financial planners, wealth managers, investment managers, and the marketing and communications staff that supports them. Read her blog or follow her on Twitter or the Investment Writing Facebook page.