Using Blogs as a Source of Competitive Advantage over your Ecommerce Rivals
June 6th, 2007 by Mike Reining Read more about Blog Marketing, Creating Trust OnlineHow to use a Blog as a Source of Competitive Advantage to Boost Your Site Sales?
We’ve found that a blog can be a great source of competitive advantage.
Ever been in this situation?
You own a site selling a specific niche products - say dog food. There are 20 other sites competing with you. PPC costs are through the roof. How do you move miles ahead of the competition? You see, the top site always gets exponentially more than the competition.
It’s just like salaries in the NBA, the top players get so much more than the ‘also took part crowd’; take Shaquille O’Neal for example, in 2004/5 he got 28 million dollars, a whopping 10 million more than his nearest rival!
How can you get to #1? Getting there will not boost your revenue - it will EXPONENTIALLY grow your revenue.
The good news is, for many niche areas, there are no #1s. Who’s the number one expert on dog food? Who knows? But you can aim to be.
Believe me, this is such an easy tactic to pursue, and here’s the best part - 95% of your competitors won’t be using it. This was certainly the case for Joe. Joe wanted to position himself and his online store as the preeminent place for dog food.
A Strategy of Preeminence
Preeminence Defined
The word comes from Jay Abraham,who said
“Why do some entrepreneurs gain levels of success so much higher than others? Most often, it’s due to the fact that they have a better philosophical strategy.
They approach dealing with prospects and clients with a deep desire to really help and solve their problems.
They have an external focus of how they can serve and not an internal focus of what they can get. I call it the Strategy of Preeminence.”
If you value your customer and serve them like nobody else in your niche then you can set yourself up as the number 1 authority in your field. The more and more information you give the better your reputation will become and you’ll have established a healthy relationship based on trust and cracking information - browsers will listen to what you have to say and heed your advice. This is the purpose of your blog.
Here’s what Joe would do to position himself as the preeminent person for dogfood.
The obvious way is to write a book. But this is hard to do and requires a publisher. They other way- almost as effective is to run a blog.
This is the strategy we’re suggesting. Joe would create a blog focused on food for dogs. He would write about nothing else but dog food - various brands, nutrition articles, tips etc.
He would then link to his blog or position his blog on his ecommerce site.
Now picture what the prospective buyer sees. On Joe’s site the buyer sees the same products as the competitors site. But Joe had one advantage - on his site, there is a link to his blog (eg. feedmydog.com). Now all else being equal, the buyer would have a stronger sense of trust with Joe. Joe would know what he’s talking about.
He moves from being just a seller - to being an expert. His products get more credibility. And what he recommends is more desirable to the buyer.
Here’s how Joe would structure his blog
1) Focused Articles:
Joel’s an expert in his field, but he needs to let the world know this through great articles. He could write say:
“The Pros and Cons of Wet vs. Dry Food”
“Do Dogs Need Multivitamin Food?”
“What Ingredients should every dog have in their food?”
2) Creating a buzz:
OK, this BONUS TIP is a bit far fetched, but believe us gimmicks can work with great effect. Joe could put up a picture of his dog on his site and describe him as the official food tester. He could then have his dog ghost write and post reviews of all the products. This may cause a bit of a stir and really connect with their readers.
We tried this at MindValley - Ozzy the Labradoodle director of PR caused a bit of a stir. (read about it here)
REMEMBER - SERVE, SERVE, SERVE your customers
3) Link Articles directly to your ecommerce site
So you’ve set up your own blog with extensive,quality information and established yourself as an expert in your field - What does this mean for your sales site?
From this firm footing is an immensely powerful springboard from which you can direct bucketloads of traffic straight to your sales website by linking from every post. You can also have your own adverts pointing straight to your website. This is one surefire tactic that will rapidly increase your website traffic.
The Beauty of this Strategy
This is certainly not too stressful a tactic - Joe only really has to write one post or article every week to see results. If he uses SEO for these posts the results could become even greater. We’ll cover this in a later post.
The strategy of preeminence is one that we love and abide by at MindValley. By offering so much content on this blog and great information we strive to SERVE, SERVE, SERVE our browsers - we really have a deep desire to help and solve your problems. And from this platform we offer to you our INTERNET MARKETING COURSE.
Does it Work?
The Statistics:
We’re certainly using this strategy to sell our products.
We’ve found that at least 1/4 of our products sold are because of this blog. And many people who have bought our products have identified single blog posts to be the main reason for buying our products such as AdWords System Exposed and Chain Reaction Marketing.
Read More to:
Explore more on the strategy of Preeminence
For a more extensive blogging strategy read more on a:
Source of Competitive Advantage>>
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About the Author
Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype.
Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.
Check out other posts by Mike Reining
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Vishen Lakhiani
Hi. Great tips. I’ve used a similar strategy, but totally accidentally! And I can vouch that it works.
I have a small web design & consulting business in the UK, called Scratchmedia. I started writing stuff I knew about web design & usability on a site called “Web Design from Scratch” (http://webdesignfromscratch.com/) about 3.5 years ago. I was just writing stuff that I’d learned but hadn’t ever found in books on web design, and that I thought people would find interesting and useful.
Over 6 months, I wrote dozens of free articles and tutorials, and just let people find it.
Now, the site is visited by up to 9,000 people per day. I think they come because they find the content applicable and fresh. Recently, I have started writing articles specifically that I think people will link to, but not always. I just write what comes naturally, and because the site has a strong personality, it strikes a chord with folk, I guess.
The great thing is - Web Design from Scratch is now my company’s only marketing channel. Pretty much all our work now comes to us through this site. We spend nothing on sales or marketing, other than the hosting costs and time to manage the site. It has been so popular that we have had to take steps to reduce the amount of email traffic we get. I didn’t know this would be the outcome when I started (which is maybe one of the reasons why it turned out so well!)
The keys to success, from my experience.
1) Write unique content (i.e. write honestly and openly, let your personality come out)
2) Be specific: choose your niche and own it.
3) Be prolific
4) Don’t hold back, out of fear that if you write everything you know, people will take it and run!
That last point is absolutely crucial! I think of it like this:
1) People who are going to read your wisdom and apply it to their own situation were never going to hire you in the first place.
2) People who are specifically looking for an expert in your field are more likely to find you through your blog/site. And they’ll instinctively trust you if you talk plainly about your experiences… much more so than if you stood there and ‘marketed’ at them.
3) Another group of people may not need a consultant right now, but if they read your stuff and love it, come the time that they *do* realise they need to bring in an expert, who’s going to be the first guy that pops into their head? Exactly!
Best,
Ben
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