A great blog serves as a strategic tool for vendors to attract new clients, generate social media content, and boost SEO effects; yet, often, event professionals simply don't have the time to run an effective and regularly updated blog. Additionally, there's no way to get around writing when it comes to blog posts, so it can be challenging for business owners who don't feel confident in their writing skills.
Fortunately, you don’t need a blog to make a splash in your market. While it might be a helpful marketing tactic, there are ways that you can earn qualified web traffic without a blog.
Here are a few steps to optimize your marketing funnel without committing to a blog.
Create a robust FAQ page to answer visitors’ questions.
Many industry pros use their blog to answer questions and ease concerns about the planning process. However, you don't need to break down this information into separate blog posts—a comprehensive FAQ page can provide users with everything they need in one place.
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You might already have an FAQ page with a few anticipated questions, but it must factor in questions that you get asked regularly. I recommend performing an audit of your inbox, social media DMs, and project management software to parse out the real FAQs from real prospects and clients. Once you populate your website with these crucial questions and answers, it will serve as a resource for attracting new clients and managing current clients.
In the future, be mindful of new questions worth adding to your website. Not only will this keep your FAQ page updated with timely information, but it also supports SEO as Google re-indexes your page based on new content.
Develop core content pages to provide valuable information.
While your FAQ page is for common questions, your website should also house a few core content pages that speak to your products or services. For example, suppose you operate a venue. In that case, you may want to have a landing page with a virtual tour that highlights each space's top features. You'd then want to develop a web page for each space that includes a thorough description, detailed information, photo galleries, testimonials, and pricing details. Providing all of this information up front gives your visitors exactly what they're looking for and will drive them closer to inquiring.
Use these core content pages as platforms to tell your venue's story and what sets it apart from competitors. Don't limit yourself on the word count; these pages should be robust and filled with valuable information. Put down as much information as you can possibly provide.
Now, this might seem like blogging at the start when you're writing and refining all of this content. However, this is ultimately a one-time endeavor, whereas blogging requires regular attention. While you will want to revisit your core content pages quarterly (or annually, at the very least) to ensure the details are up-to-date, you don't have to worry about recreating the wheel every time you have new information to share.
Promote your website on social media.
Once you have a website full of evergreen content, you can begin drawing traffic to these pages through social media. Yet, when you visit the average wedding professional’s social media feed, you’ll usually see photo after photo of real weddings shared with the audience.
While it is important to create a brand aesthetic that appeals to your ideal client, buyers ultimately need more than pretty pictures to make a final purchasing decision. You cannot expect followers to make the leap from feeling inspired to actually inquiring and booking your services. Instead, you need to guide them.
Since your website is chock full of juicy tidbits and information essential for booking, I recommend posting call-to-action posts on social media regularly to encourage followers to check out your products and services and look at your gallery, and inquire with you. The idea behind this approach is to coax visitors to visit your website and vet your business. While social media is a great platform for inspiration, people also need concrete information to book.
To take it a step further, you can begin buying social media ads to build traffic and gather audience information about visitors. When someone visits your website, you can engage them later with retargeting ads encouraging them to take the next step and inquire. Since you already know they've looked at your products and services, you can simply guide them further down the funnel. You can also create a lookalike audience on social media based on your existing traffic, allowing you to reach more people who fit into your target market.
You might not have time to blog every week or two, but that's not to say you cannot drive qualified traffic to your website. While you will have to do some work up front to develop core evergreen pages, you can rest easy knowing that content will work for you month after month.
