I recently conducted a short questionnaire asking female small business owners about blogging for small business. I wanted to know if female business owners are blogging regularly, what their challenges to blogging regularly are, as well as their general thoughts and feelings on outsourcing blogging tasks.
Most of the women who responded to the survey are solopreneurs and are running their business alone. Personal branding is often key to their marketing strategy.
Here’s a quick snapshot of what female business owners told me as part of the Blogging for Small Business questionnaire:
Q: What are your main challenges when blogging for business?
There was a clear winner with the answer to this question! Nearly everyone who responded said lack of planning and focus.
Interestingly, I got the same answer from women who already blog regularly as from those who don’t blog for small business. This shows that even those business women who seem to have got their blogging act together still feel that their planning & focus could be improved on.
As you might expect, the next most popular answer was finding the time. (That’s one of my main challenges!) So, it seems that a theme is emerging as these challenges are all related to being organised and planning your time productively. As with most things in business, even a rough plan of action will save you heaps of time.
Get help with getting organised – download my free Blog Calendar & Image Information Template
Q: How long do you spend on blogging for business each month?
Most of you said 1-3 hours a month but those of you who blog for business regularly as part of your marketing mix, spend up to 6-10 hours.
The time stated is just writing time. It doesn’t include outsourcing images or sharing blogs on social media. Add this one and you are looking at spending any where in the region of 4-10 hours a month just on blog writing and management.
It doesn’t sound like much but it all depends on how many hours you work per month. Are there better ways you could spend this time that would help you generate income for your business? Try a cost/benefit analysis to see if you’d be better off outsourcing blogging for small business.
Q: Would you consider outsourcing blog writing management?
Those who said they would consider outsourcing blogging for business said their two biggest considerations for choosing an outsourced service would be price as well as finding someone who ‘gets’ their brand voice.
This is so important – finding someone who understands your brand voice is key. The ability to nail what your business is about, what your audience want to hear and how it should be written is a key skill for a freelance blog writer. And it is a skill to be able to tweak your writing style – it’s not something everyone can do.
Which brings me onto the next consideration – price. Wanting a skilled copywriter but being concerned about price is a contradiction. I understand that we all need to watch our marketing budget but if you want someone who is skilled enough to understand your brand voice and can adjust their writing style to it, then you’ve got a massive asset to your business! This doesn’t (and shouldn’t) come ‘cheap’.
Conversely for these who wouldn’t consider outsourcing they felt that as the expert behind their business/personal brand they really should be writing their own blogs. This is great if you have the ability to do so. But remember blog writing isn’t just about being able to write well. You also need to consider writing for SEO, sourcing images and sharing on social media and blogger networks. Writing can often be the quick part – it’s redrafting, editing and doing all the above tasks which suck up the time when blogging for business.
Q: Which blogging subjects would you like to learn more about?
I asked which blogging subjects you’d like to learn more about so that I can write about them for you. Nearly everybody said they’d like to learn more about writing for SEO. It’s on my list ladies! In the meantime, (In Blue Peter tradition) here’s one I made earlier. Read: 5 Ways to Make Your Blog SEO-Friendly
The other main things you want to learn more about is planning & organisation along with time-saving tips and shortcuts that will save you time when blogging.
Big thanks to you all and the winner is…
Thank you to everyone who completed the survey. The answers have been so useful to me to find out what your blogging for small business challenges are, so now I can go away and work out how to help you address them!
There was a prize draw for all participants and the prize is a £10 Amazon voucher. The winner is… Hollie Ellis from Hollie Ellis Designs! Well done to Hollie and thanks to all who took part.
Do you need help with Blogging for Small Business? Then check out my range of packages that will save you a ton of time and stress so you can get on with running your business.
