Masters of Marketing students have now been charged with the running of the Marketing Matters blog. It’s a daunting task for many, but it doesn’t have to be so scary! Writing a blog is easier than you think.
Simply follow these five steps as outlined in this magic formula and you will be on your way to being a seasoned blogger in no time!
Step 1: Know your audience
Before you start to write, have a thorough understanding of who your target audience is. What do they want to know about? What will resonate with them?
Before you start to write, have a thorough understanding of who your target audience is. What do they want to know about? What will resonate with them?
Step 2: Choose a topic and working title
Before you even write anything, you need to pick a topic for your blog post. The topic can be pretty general to start with. For example, my topic for this post was very original. I called it ‘Blogging’. Since then I’ve had a number of working titles that I’ve changed from, ‘How to Write a Blog Post’, followed by ‘MoM’s Guide to Writing a Blog Post’. I will probably change it five more times before the end of the article. You just have to feel it as you go.
Before you even write anything, you need to pick a topic for your blog post. The topic can be pretty general to start with. For example, my topic for this post was very original. I called it ‘Blogging’. Since then I’ve had a number of working titles that I’ve changed from, ‘How to Write a Blog Post’, followed by ‘MoM’s Guide to Writing a Blog Post’. I will probably change it five more times before the end of the article. You just have to feel it as you go.
Step 3: Write a captivating introduction
The most important thing is to grab the reader's attention. The first few sentences are paramount because if you lose the reader in the first few sentences, they will stop reading. Writing captivating introductions is quite simple. Telling a story or a joke works really well, be empathetic, or grip the reader with an interesting fact or statistic. Then describe the purpose of the post and explain how it will address your reader’s problem and help them improve their work/lives.
Step 4: Organise the content
The main thing you want to avoid is information overload. That’s why it’s necessary to organise the information so readers are not intimidated by the length of the content. This can take multiple forms -- sections, lists, tips, whatever's most appropriate for the type of blog post.
The main thing you want to avoid is information overload. That’s why it’s necessary to organise the information so readers are not intimidated by the length of the content. This can take multiple forms -- sections, lists, tips, whatever's most appropriate for the type of blog post.
Step 5: Stop procrastinating and start writing
For novice bloggers, probably the hardest step is actually writing the blog post. You may feel inclined to spend hours researching but to be honest, you need to set yourself a limit and just write.
Write about what you already know, and if need be, do additional research to gather more information to support what you have already written. Like examples, images, and data to back-up your points, providing proper attribution when incorporating external sources - for images too! You don’t want to accidentally plagiarise, do you?
All this being said, it’s important to remember that everyone has their own style and there is no right or wrong way to do it. Just don’t forget what the goal of the blog is and of course, the most important thing - your audience!
Alyce Brierley
Graduating student from the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School.
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