Hey y'all, it's Kaitlyn! You might be thinking, "What?! Two posts this week!?" and the answer is yes! Two posts this week because the lovely and intelligent Krista Rae of KristaRae.co is bringing you some valuable information. Krista is amazing at blog strategy - so please, read this post, download her workbook, and find her on social media (more info at the bottom of the post)!

We all understand that having a solid brand will work wonders in enhancing our businesses. On a similar note, having a blog strategy is also important in building a focused and profitable web presence for our small businesses.

In case you need a refresher, check out this post on 4 Ways To Improve Your Branding & Amplify Your Business and this post on 4 Benefits of Having A Blog Strategy.

While we understand that both of those aspects of our businesses are important, we often overlook how closely related the two are. So today we’re going to go over 4 ways that your blog strategy fits with your brand! (Hint: if you want to follow along with the branding side open up this post in another tab!)

To take a closer look at your own blog strategy and brand cohesiveness while reading this post grab your free 9-page workbook.

YOUR WHY & MEASURABLE GOALS

Your why fits in perfectly with your blog strategy. In fact, your strategy should be crafted around it.

The first step in creating a solid blog strategy is to define high-value goals. Goals that will focus you, speak to your audience, and bring your business where you want it to be. Then, everything on your blog including posts, sidebar and footer contents, calls to action, and more should relate right back to these goals.

Anything that strays is a distraction for both you and your audience.

For example, let’s say your why is to create beautiful websites that allow your clients to build their business on a platform that reflects their values, leading them to transition into a life they love. Your goals could be to gain clients for your web design services, offer valuable content through blog posts, grow your email list, and develop an engaged social media following. (Notice that the last 3 goals are important in supporting that first big one.)

If you focus your content, layout, and social media interactions around these goals you will stay true to your values while building up the following you need to create a profitable business.

Your sidebar and footer could contain email opt-ins with valuable incentives, social media links, and your most popular blog posts. Your blog posts could be action-packed tutorials for those who need help stepping up their blog design, containing content upgrades to grow your list. Your Contact, About, and Services pages could contain copy that speaks directly to your ideal audience and lets them know that you are the designer for them.

It all goes back to your why and the goals you form from it.

A DEFINED TARGET AUDIENCE

What should I write about this week? Well, what does your target audience want to learn about?

Should I include a picture of myself in my sidebar? Does your target audience need to get to know and trust you?

What kind of new services should I offer? What does your target audience need your help with?

If you’re making a decision for your blog and there’s a chance that it will turn away or distract your target audience, your decision is simple - don’t do it.

Instead, be sure to include things that will draw them in. Write that post they’ve been dying for. Create an opt-in incentive that will get them closer to their goals. Write a services page that speaks directly to them. Word your About page in a way that will build trust between you.

YOUR VOICE

Knowing how you communicate with your audience will make every part of your blog strategy easier. You’ll know how to phrase posts, what exactly you want to say in your newsletters, how your call to action needs to be worded, how to interest them in your services, and how you want them to feel after they finish up your epic course.

Your voice will also make you stand out against the competition and draw your ideal people in even closer.

So next time you write a blog post, add a new button to your site, or are fighting through a newsletter let it sound like you. Don’t try to sound like the people you look up to because that’s not who your audience wants to hear from. They want to hear from you!

COHESIVENESS

Cohesiveness is one of the most important parts of your brand. Just think, if you were scrolling through your favorite blogger’s site and suddenly an image popped up that didn’t fit at all with their colors, fonts, or voice, you’d be a bit thrown off, right?

The same goes with your blog strategy. As we talked about, everything in your strategy should relate back to your why and its related goals. Then, your blog posts, newsletters, social media updates, products, and services all need to relate back to those goals. If you do that, you’ll automatically have cohesiveness.

To take it a step further, the different parts of your blog should give your audience a focused path to follow. Maybe they start by reading your web design blog posts. Then they sign up for your email list to get a tutorial on how to create the perfect color scheme for their brand. Then they get your weekly newsletters on what it means to have a good blog design and end up signing up for your course on getting started with improving their blog design. And after that, they want to even more and you’ve got yourself a new client!

All those steps were focused and fit together perfectly. What if suddenly you were offering a course on how to host a webinar? Your audience would end up a bit confused and you’d probably lose track of your goals too. That’s why cohesiveness is so important. Surprise them with the value of your content, but not the overall topic of it.

DO YOUR BRAND & BLOG STRATEGY MATCH?

Take a look at your brand and blog strategy. How well are the two fitting together? What improvements can you make? Let us know in the comments!

Don’t forget to grab your free workbook to dig deep and find areas where your blog strategy and brand can work together more effectively!

Krista is a blog strategist and WordPress developer who helps female creatives elevate their business, increase conversions, and boost engagement through crafting strategic blogs. She uses personalized, goal-driven strategies to set her clients apart from the competition and highlight their unique offerings. Learn more over on her blog!

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YOUR EMAILS GET SEEN

The biggest difference that I point out to anyone that is thinking of switching over to ConvertKit is that the whole approach to emails is different. Programs like Mailchimp put a heavy emphasis on design, which as a designer, is great. Except that I spend like an hour perfecting this email, and then I send it, and then it goes into everyone’s Junk or Spam folder. I’m not an expert, but whatever algorithms decide if things are spam seem to think all the flash and images and hoop-la means it’s spam. I like hoop-la, but I really like my emails actually being read a lot more.

The idea of a "back to basics" email program might sound strange to you, but when you think about what you actually want and intend your emails to do - suddenly it makes sense. I now prefer the simpler design of my emails and enjoy getting others' more simplistic emails. What's that saying... content is king? Queen? Whatever. Content is what matters, not blinking lights and flashy things that distract from what I really want people to do with my emails.

YOU AREN’T PAYING FOR DUPLICATES

Other email programs use the concept of lists to divide your subscribers. This is fine when you are starting out, because hey – it’s free! But what happens when you start having multiple opt-ins and the same people signing up through different ones? Well you get duplicates. And then you have to pay more for duplicates. And that’s not fair! It’s the same person, why should you have to pay twice for them?

ConvertKit alleviates that issue by instead using “tagging” and “segments” as a way of organizing your subscribers.

The thing is – say you sign up for every single one of my different offers… you’re on my list just once. But you are tagged as all the different things, through rules that I set up in ConvertKit's automations.

Let me explain further: You signed up for #1WkBrand a month ago, so you are in my list tagged as “#1WkBrand”. You also were automatically enrolled in the #1WkBrand course, so you started getting the emails right away (without me doing a single thing). Then, a few days ago, you saw me tweet about #BrandVixens, and you’re like “DANG I WANT IN!” So you signed up for that, too. Now whatever magical mystery science ConvertKit uses finds your email already in my list, and just adds the tag “#BrandVixen” to your already established subscriber-self versus adding a whole new subscriber. Then, you automatically got that welcome email, too!

YOU CAN GET SPECIFIC ABOUT WHO GETS WHAT

The real benefit to using things like tags is that when it comes time to send out an email. ConvertKit calls them Broadcasts, but it is basically just a one-off email you can schedule. When you are setting up that email, you can choose which tags receive it. When I launched BrandVixens I wanted to invite all of my subscribers – but not send an email to people who had already signed up for it. Why would I ask them to sign up, if they already had? That would be a completely pointless email to them. So, when I am setting up the broadcast there is this handy, and easy to use, window that I can say:

Send this to people tagged as “#1WkBrand” or “Resource Vault” but eliminate people that are already tagged as “BrandVixen”. Do you see what I did there? Anyone that was in my list and tagged as a BrandVixen wouldn’t get this email asking them to sign up (because they already did sign up). Talk about detailed. Then, if I sent that broadcast out and 85% of the people opened it, I have the option to easily resend it to anyone who didn’t open it a few days later. With the click of a button. Easy.

YOUR CONVERSION RATES WILL IMPROVE

People actually getting their emails will definitely help your conversion rates, but another really great thing about ConvertKit is that they basically layout a fantastic way to organize an email sequence that will result in higher conversion rates.

Their template for a “course” (what they call an email sequence, though it might not necessarily be something you call a course) has a pre-built draft of what days you should include super valuable content or a soft sales pitch. They’ve done the research and are just like “hey, this might help you, here.” Like no big deal, handing you an easier way to make money. I like making money, and I like when people make it easier for me to do so.

If you don’t know what a sales funnel is or want to learn more, between the help that ConvertKit offers and Femtrepreneur course “F* Yeah Funnels” you will be set. Sales funnels means making money, and once you have them set up, it’s just working in the background for you.

IT DOES IT ALL

At this point, I am using ConvertKit as my email system, my subscriber management system, and my landing pages/opt-in system. It does it all. Which is perfect, because all of those things work together.

Every opt-in around my website, from the slide ins to the ones in this blog post are powered through ConvertKit. Whenever you’ve seen a landing page for a webinar or something I’ve hosted, it’s been through ConvertKit. I’ve eliminated the need for a program that does landing pages/opt ins because ConvertKit does that for me.

Setting up the tech or back-end things is probably the least fun for me. I like creating content and being on Twitter MUCH more. But, with ConvertKit it’s really easy to set up all the opt-ins and automatic tags really quickly, and I am doing it all through one program. Meaning more time for doing the things I actually want to do.

THE SUPPORT TEAM IS THE BEST

I’m kind of hesitant about making decisions, sometimes. Like, convinced I’m doing it wrong, scared to click “save/apply/send” kinda-gal. So, that results in me asking their support team a LOT of questions. But, either they are all really good actors, or they are all genuinely really nice – and I am feeling like it’s the latter. Because they always respond quickly and always are SO NICE, even though some of the questions definitely deserve an eye-roll.

There is even now a Facebook group devoted to helping people out, answering questions, and giving feedback. So I’ve asked, “Hey, does anyone know how I can do XYZ” and had other users offer suggestions for how they would go about it. In the same vein, I’ve answered other people’s questions about ways I’ve set up my tags, or course structure, etc. I like that we’ve become a little family of people all helping each other use ConvertKit to grow our business.

If you are interested in ConvertKit, I’ll tell you this – better to do it now than wait until your subscriber list is huge and have to move everyone over. Yes, it’s possible, but you are putting more work on yourself in the future. I don’t have the largest list, but my thought was to start with the tool I knew I would end up on eventually anyway. This post does contain affiliate links (for ConvertKit + F* Yeah Funnels, but that doesn’t affect my opinions in any way, shape, or form. If I wasn’t obsessed these products, I would never promote it to y’all.

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What other questions do you have about ConvertKit? Did I miss something you are wondering about? Ask away in the comments and I will let you know if it is a service they offer, something I've used, or my honest opinion about it! If you want to know my other top tools, you can click here!

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Hi! I’m Kaitlyn!

I believe that you can create a life and business you love by listening to your own inner guidance system. I think there's plenty of strategies + hacks to learn and a ton of “how to” content you can consume but ultimately you are your best guide, the best guru, the best compass, and the best source of inspiration! I’m here to help you learn to trust that voice inside, step into your incredible power, and create YOUR dream business + life.

4 Ways Your Blog Strategy Fits With Your Brand