How A Single Blog Post Can Double Your Audience

photo by Wayne Large

So you’ve written your monthly post, clicked the Publish button, yawned, muttered, “Thank God that’s out of the way.” and now you’re thinking about lunch.

Chances are, the lack of comments and interest to your post are not disturbing you as you scan the take out menus.

If you are a creative person working in a creative organization such as Queens Council on the Arts, high-quality content on our blog is our most potent form of marketing.

You may be writing about how to get a grant to attract more artists to the Queens Arts Fund. You may be putting out a call for artists for an upcoming show. You may be promoting a workshop series for emerging writers.

Did you know that at the same time, your post can serve as an incredibly persuasive point for people to do something further?  Blog posts can do double duty as landing pages for Google Ads.  They can be places where people can sign up for a newsletter, RSVP for a workshop, donate, answer a survey, join a discussion….

And become active and engaged members of our community.

Valuable!

When you publish content, you want your reader to do something.

You want the work you put into your content to get your reader to take a specific action.

There’s a “secret” to making this work better … a secret that great copywriters have been using for more than a century.

Let’s talk about highly effective and compelling content

To create great content — the kind that gets shared, that attracts more readers, and gets people to take action — you need to do three things.

1. You need to write something incredibly useful.
2. You need to write something that’s easy to understand and easy to digest.
3. You need to make specific calls to actions for your readers.

Now, a couple of copywriting hints:

1. How are your headlines?
Are you uncovering the pain points of your potential customers?

Challenges of Working in the Arts vs. Tired of Being a Starving Artist?

2. Are you zoning in on the benefits of what you have to offer or are you still blithering on about features?

QCA Offers Professional Development Workshops vs. Eight Surefire Ways to Sell Your Artwork

3. Do you use the language of your audience?
No jargon.  Say things in a simple, clear and direct voice.

Instead of “building capacity”,  say “grow a business”.

4. Make your call to actions easy to follow.

Sign up here for immediate access to the coolest events in Queens.

In a nutshell, here’s the “secret” for content that works for readers and furthers audience building goals:

Create great, useful content that is enjoyable to consume, and that lets the reader know exactly what to do next.

Here’s a quick punch list for QCA power posts:

• Write a dynamic headline
• Always include an image or photo
• Write about things that are useful to the reader
• Include a link or two back to an older post on the QCA website or to featured artist or student
• End with a clear call to action

Got your own power blogging secrets? Link them up for us in the comments!