BLOGthenticity

Butler Sheetmetal Ltd is a small business with a small customer base.

We probably only serve twenty customers a year on average and not normally all at the same time. All of these people we talk to on the phone or face-to-face. The vast majority also don’t have internet connections. I can think of one who even struggles using a fax.

The particular industry sector we’re in is distinctly low-tech. So why on earth would we even consider utilising a blog?

We certainly don’t need to. I only know of one customer who reads it and the rest probably don’t have the means to be able to read it.

We also don’t have a blogging strategy to speak of other than what I see fit to do. John and Matt are hardly chomping at the bit to understand the workings of Wordpress and to incorporate it internally. They’d probably struggle attempting to spell the word blog. If we’re being honest, we still have the odd drama over email.

I decided to utilise a blog as a means to draw in potential customers and to have a chat with them. Or more precisely, to let them know exactly what type of company they might be dealing with. It was also a bit of an experiment if truth be told.

It serves as a great tool for sorting the wheat from the chaff. It’s not about getting every sheet metal enquiry known to man, but about getting enquiries that relate directly to our line of work.

It’s quite a high risk strategy in certain respects. If they like you - all well and good, but if they don’t then there isn’t much chance you’ll get a look in. But, you’d much rather have one person who’s delighted with who you are and might deal with you for a considerable amount of time than ten people just kicking tyres.

And does it work? You bet it works.

The biggest problem is that it possibly works too well. We don’t have the company infrastructure to always deal with everything that comes through. If you have the means to double your workload then you’d better have the means to react to it.

However, we have taken on somebody else and John and Matt are looking at moving into bigger premises. It’s either that or seriously curtail our web activity. In essence, that means stopping the blog.

You might think I’m being a touch vague and you’re probably wanting to know the secrets, but there aren’t any.

It only needs a little technical knowledge, a bit of inspiration, a great deal of graft and an adherence to the core values of blogging.

The only thing you won’t find on BLOGthenticity is the graft.

That’s up to you.

Filed under: Business Blogging, Paul, Why Blog?