Marketplace Success Tips: Best Practices For Using Blog Posts

Mar. 16, 2018 10:01 AM ET7 Comments10 Likes

Summary

• Seeking Alpha Blogs are a useful tool authors can use to market their Marketplace services and their Seeking Alpha content in general.
• Blogs are an effective way to build community, increase your following, and convert readers to Marketplace subscribers.
• We created this best practices list with Marketplace authors in mind, but all authors can use these tips to gain more visibility and followers on Seeking Alpha.

(Editor’s Note: “Marketplace Success Tips” is a monthly series dedicated to helping Marketplace authors, and all Seeking Alpha contributors, get more mileage out of their presence on the site by offering useful tips on gaining visibility, building a following, fostering reader engagement, and creating thriving communities and stimulating conversations. Robyn Conti is Marketplace’s Contributor Success Strategist, and in that role, she is focused on working with Marketplace authors on driving the success of their subscription services through improvements in their marketing and content strategy efforts.)

SA Blogs are a frequently overlooked yet valuable tool in your “marketing arsenal” for your Marketplace service. They accomplish a few important things:

1. They cultivate a sense of community and engagement even before someone signs up as a subscriber,
2. which makes it easier to bridge the gap and convert readers from followers to subscribers, and
3. provides an opportunity to bring in new readership if you’re consistent with publishing them.

Another key benefit is your real-time followers get email alerts whenever you publish a Blog if you’re on the Marketplace. In essence, that means you can “reward” them by giving them an opportunity to get a “first look” at the content you’ve posted there.

Some Marketplace authors have successfully built their following, drawn attention to their services, and grown their subscriber base using Blogs. Based on their success, and our knowledge and experience of what works, we came up with a list of best practices to share with you. Please feel free to leverage these, and consider posting your own Blogs to generate more interest and awareness for your Marketplace service, and hopefully, take your business to the next level of success.

Without further ado, here are the best practices:

1. Consistency of publication is key: At minimum, aim to publish a Blog 1-2 times per month. That said, a few times a week offers opportunities to bolster your visibility and stay top of mind with readers.

2. Transparency is important: Blogs are a great way to offer readers:

• Key insights about your investment approach
• Your thoughts on the markets
• Explicit investment ideas
• How your service works
• Portfolio updates
• Snippets/excerpts of offerings previously only available to subscribers, etc.
• Spotlight your Author’s Picks

All of these are key opportunities to generate interest in your Marketplace service and pique readers’ curiosity about what they’re missing out on if they’re not a subscriber.

3. It’s better to strike a balance between value-add content and pure promotion: Using Blogs to provide additional value to readers in the ways described above is far more effective than using them as a promotional tool alone.

You can boost readership and followers, and potentially entice readers to subscribe by showing how the content is related to your service and the expertise you offer there:

Whenever you post a Blog, ask yourself:

• How does this post relate to my service (beyond promotion)?
• Am I giving away something here that “rewards” real time followers?
• What value am I adding here?
• How does this showcase my investment approach and/or value proposition and unique expertise?