In 2010, New York City startup, Birchbox launched a blog about beauty
products before it had any customers. The beauty sample delivery
service – and its blog – exploded in popularity.
Today, to keep up with its readers’ appetite for content, Birchbox
employs multiple editors and publishes half a dozen posts a day, along
with an online magazine. According to compete.com, Birchbox.com traffic
grew 6,500% in 2011, to over 110,000 monthly unique visitors at last
count.
But raw traffic data doesn’t tell the whole story about the value of a
publication. Birchbox’s blog drives customer acquisition and retention,
which means its readers are loyal enough to become subscribers,
followers and customers. At last count, the company had 44,000 Facebook
Likes, 14,000 Twitter followers, and 9,400 Youtube subscribers. New blog
subscribers – people who had willingly opted in to Birchbox content –
pile on every month. (The company declined to release hard numbers on
total blog subscribers).
Ironically, the hit-based nature of social media means many blog
owners have difficulty cultivating long-term loyalty from their users.
It’s easy to get excited when the occasional “viral” post brings in a
spike of traffic. But often that traffic melts away as quickly as it
arrived.
Brian Clark, CEO of CopyBlogger Media, says a building a quality blog
following means “attracting the right people in order to accomplish
your specific goals.” In other words, he says, “you’ve got to put
quality ahead of quantity.”
So, how do upstart blogs like Birchbox’s build such voracious
followings? Here are six tips to attracting readers who stick around
longer than the click of a StumbleUpon button:
1. Turn Existing Customers Into Readers
Current customers can be an excellent source of quality readers for a
new publication. Often, they already identify with the target
demographic. And they’re already familiar with you.
Whether it’s getting a customer to subscribe to a newsletter, blog,
or Twitter feed during a signup or checkout process, or requesting they
subscribe in a follow-up email or call, happy customers are highly
likely to become readers. Turning customers into readers gives you the
opportunity to reach other potential customers – your readers’ friends –
through social media.
Birchbox benefits from this virtuous cycle as new readers become
customers, new customers become readers, and readers share with friends.
2. Skip The Misleading Traffic-Boosting Techniques
Pageview-racking slideshows and catchy-yet-misleading headlines are
commonplace in the blogosphere; many publications use them to increase
traffic (and therefore advertising revenue).
Unfortunately, however,
these techniques often don’t result in quality readership growth.
“Headlines should be descriptive and tell readers what to expect,”
says Chris Spagnuolo, Founder and Publisher of guyism.com, an
independent men’s lifestyle site with 3.5 million monthly unique
visitors.
Slideshows skew page views-per visit stats, making it more difficult
to accurately gauge traffic stickiness; misleading headlines may put
your content in front of new, unsuspecting readers, but those readers
are less likely to stay, and may even have negative reactions to being
tricked.
“We’ve always believed that the best way to get good quality readers
is to create good quality content,” says Ben Lerer, Co-Founder of men’s
city guide Thrillist. Lerer says Thrillist’s experiments with slideshows
or tricky headlines never yielded valuable reader growth.
3. Speak to a Very Specific Audience
Casting a wide net can be good for generating traffic, but with a
glut of reading options on the web, passionate blog followers gravitate
toward hyper-specific publications. That’s one of the reasons many niche
media sites are growing while mainstream publications bleed readers.
Thrillist benefits from targeting a niche audience, Lerer says,
rather than broad categories like “New Yorkers” or “men.” The
publication focuses on 20- and 30-something, nightlife-loving urban
males, and it speaks to them as peers. Knowing its readers completely
allows Thrillist to connect with them more effectively.
Often this means targeting a niche in which you – the blogger –
already belong. “We [are] really writing for ourselves,” Chen explains.
“And we never talk down to our readers.”
4. Guest Post and Use Guest Bloggers
Allowing guest bloggers to post on your blog brings twofold benefits:
more content for your blog, and new reader exposure for your site.
Guest bloggers often point their own followers to posts they’ve written
for other publications (and you should encourage them to do so).
Ideally, those readers start to recognize your blog and eventually
subscribe to you, too.
“Our uniques have increased every month, in large part because we’ve been … using more guest bloggers,” Chen explains.
Likewise, guest posting your own content on relevant blogs in your niche can help you attract new audiences.
“We’ve built a number of valuable partnerships with brands and other
publishers who have helped us educate other guys about Thrillist,” Lerer
says. “But,” he adds, “we know these guys wouldn’t stick around if the
quality of what we produced on a daily basis wasn’t top notch.”
5. Encourage Loyalty Through Consistency
Giving readers something to expect helps them work your blog into
their daily or weekly routine. As your audience grows, you should
increase your content frequency; however, from the beginning, publishing
on a consistent schedule will help build loyalty.
“We try to post between 6-10 times a day … to keep people coming back,” Chen says.
Consistency also has to do with presenting readers with a unified
voice or consistent approaches. Clark says fostering a quality audience
means, “taking an editorial stand for what you believe in, rather than
watering things down to avoid offending anyone. This doesn’t necessarily
mean you have to try to be controversial. In this day and age, simply
taking a position and standing behind it will bring people who agree,
and people who don’t.”
Clark continues, “Don’t be afraid of those who don’t [agree with
you]. They galvanize your supporters who do agree, which turns them into
fans instead of luke-warm traffic.”
6. Be Timely And Relevant
Blog to connect with what’s currently on your readers’ minds. This
way, you’ll not be interrupting them; instead, you’ll enhance their
routines.
“Be relevant, interesting, and digestible,” Chen says. “By giving
people stories that are easy to click and share … you’ll instantly
increase your reach.”
It’s all about social relevance, Spagnuolo says. “Think, ‘Will one of
my friends from high school think this is worth sharing on Facebook?’
If the answer is yes, that’s a good start.”
Shares, followers, bounce rates, and conversions can indicate whether
a blog’s readership is engaged or simply transient. Any blog that’s
tuned in to its audience can increase the above and grow loyal readers.
“To us, a quality reader is someone who stays or shares,” Lerer says.
“If they’re engaged, they’ll be more likely to come back. If they’re
sharing, they’re creating value. Either way, those are the two best
kinds of readers.”
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