So you run a business. And you’ve heard (again and again) that if you want to get any sort of results from your content marketing you have to blog. But blogging takes time! Or, if you decide to hire a content writer (like me) to write those blog posts for you, it’ll cost money. And is your time or money worth spending? Are you going to get a return on your investment? What is the real value of a blog post?

What do I mean by ‘value’? 

First thing first, what am I talking about here exactly? What do I mean by value?

Well, I certainly don’t mean price, i.e. what a blog post may cost you, either in terms of time or money. The value of a blog post is what that blog post delivers to you and your business. Ultimately, the reason why we’re all spending time or money on content marketing is to sell. So what I’m trying to establish here is how much a single blog post may be worth to you in sales. I.e. money!

But there’s no one single (or ‘right’) answer to this question. And it’s not a straightforward one to answer either!

So follow me…

One single blog post isn’t going to cut it 

You may get lucky. You may create one piece of content, and it might make you money. Just like that.

But that’s quite unlikely. So while I’m talking about the value of a blog post here, I don’t believe that writing just one blog post (or one posted once every blue moon, for that matter) is going to make a splash in your business.

However, if you commit to creating and sharing content on your website regularly and consistently, it’s possible that one particular blog post (or a few of them!) actually makes you money.

Let’s see how.

It depends on what you sell

Let’s say you publish a blog post that resonates with a prospective client. You promote that blog post on social media, and that particular client sees it. They read it, they love it, they spend some more time on your website checking out your services and your prices, and they decide to get in touch and take the next step to work with you.

You could say that that particular blog post made you money. In other words, a way to measure the value of your blog posts is to look at how much you’d make if that blog post guaranteed you a sale. 

This exact scenario happened to me with this blog post: How can a Content Writer replicate your writing voice? So I know this is possible. And I’ve had clients who received enquiries and closed sales as a direct result of specific blog posts I wrote for them.

But the truth is, how much I can make from one of my blog posts may be different from how much any of my clients might earn.

This is because:

• We all sell different products or services – the cost of a 90-minute one-to-one with me is very different from the cost of having a website designed for you from one of my clients.
• Different businesses package up their products or services differently. While my one-to-ones on Business Blogging are one-off sessions, my blog writing packages and my podcast re-purposing packages are a recurrent service.
• We sell products and services at different price points. If one blog post wins me a client, I might make hundreds of pounds. But when a blog post wins one of my blogging clients a client, they might make thousands of pounds.

So while the end product is the same – it’s a blog post – the value attached to making a sale at the back of that one blog post is different to everyone. It depends on:

• what that blog post helped you sell,
• on how much of that product or service you sold,
• and on the price of that thing.

It depends on how much you value your time

Some pieces of content can save you time. And if you’re strategic about it, you can write a whole range of blog posts that will do just that for you. In other words, you can measure the value of a blog post by looking at the amount of time it saves you.

So how can a blog post save you time?

Here are a few things you can try:

• Write about your processes, so you don’t have to explain them to your new customers or clients again and again. I did this with the blog post: What happens when you hire me to write your website copy?
• Answer questions at scale. If a prospective client asks you a question, you can be sure someone else at some point will have that same question. Write your answer up, turn it into a blog post, and share it every time you need to. Here’s a blog post I share with my clients all the time: How to create an Editor login on your WordPress website for your writer.
• Blog about the things you find yourself repeating all the time. If you have to say it twice to two different people, write a blog post about it, and you won’t regret it. This piece of content is something I share with my podcasting clients quite often: How to turn your podcast episodes into blog posts.

Once you have a little library of the right type of blog posts up your sleeve, they’ll do some of the talking (and selling) for you. Think about the time you can save during discovery or sales calls, while onboarding a new client, or while you’re working on a project. And imagine getting all that time back and be able to spend it doing something more productive, profitable, or enjoyable (your choice!).

What is the value to you of getting all that time back in your diary? What is time worth to you?

As you can probably tell, the answer is going to be different for each and every one of us.

Visibility is priceless! 

The scenario I shared earlier, where one single blog post was directly responsible for a client picking up the phone and deciding to work with me, wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been sharing and promoting content on social media for years. And that’s because creating regular content (whether it’s through blogging or social media updates) keeps you visible.

And let’s face it. In 2020, if you’re an online business owner without an active website or a social media presence on the platforms where your prospective customers and clients hang out, you don’t exist! So you have to be visible!

Staying fresh in people’s minds is no small feat though. It requires consistency and hard work. It requires showing up week after week, month after month, and even year after year. But the good news is that it works.

A lot of my clients are people I’ve either met in real life through events or networking or who I’ve come across online inside memberships or via social media. I may have met some of them years ago. And they may have never expressed an interest in working with me. But years down the line, they get in touch and ask me if I have the capacity to take on a new client.

Why? Because they’ve seen me. We may have not talked or interacted, and they may have never even commented on my social media posts! They’re watching, and I simply don’t know they are. But when they do get in touch, they tell me they see and enjoy my content. And the minute the felt ready to hire a content writer, they immediately thought of me.

Now, this definitely proves that one blog post isn’t going to make a difference for you. Not in this way. But the compound effect of showing up by producing regular content does make a difference. Because content allows you to be visible. And visibility brings you sales.

But this is pretty impossible to quantify, don’t you think?

Selling the ‘by-products of blogging’

You can argue that being visible is a by-product of blogging. But here I’m talking about other tangible deliverables that can come from your blog posts. Because if you’re serious and strategic about your content marketing, then you’re most probably re-purposing your content too.

The content of a blog post can be turned into:

• Shorter social media updates.
• Video content.
• A podcast.
• Graphics – infographics, images for social media, etc.
• Teaching content – presentations, talks, workshops, one-to-ones, etc.
• Guest posts on other platforms.
• Lead magnets – cheat sheets, quizzes, one-pagers, ebooks, email courses, etc.
• Newsletter content.

Honestly? When you adopt a re-purposing mindset, the possibilities are almost endless. I did this with my 5-part blog series on how to save time blogging (which you can also access as a FREE 7-day email course – just click below and sign up).

Over the course of a year, I used the content from my blog posts for presentations, talks, workshops, and one-to-ones. And I’ve earned money from them. But none of this would have been possible had I not sat down to write these blog posts in the first place.

What about referrals? 

And last but not least, what happens when people start talking about your content and refer you and recommend you to others. I have been referred to some of my existing clients by people who never even worked with me! But because they see and read my content on social media and on my business blog, they trust me. They see me as an expert, and they find my content useful and helpful, so they happily mention me to others. They bring people to me. And my content is what prompts them to do that. Without the content, this wouldn’t happen.

So, again, what value do you place on your brand awareness? On being seen as a reliable professional in your field? If a single blog post grabbed the attention of the people in your networks and gained you leads and clients, how much would that be worth to you?

When you look at it like that, do you feel blogging is worth spending time or money on?

Do you need some help with your blogging? 

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that you can’t measure the success of your blogging efforts or get a return on your investment from one single blog post. The key to blogging is to create content that ticks all the right boxes regularly and consistently. If you’re serious about your content marketing, you have to be strategic about it. You have to be sure to pick topics that work for your audience, for SEO, and for your business.

If you don’t have the time to do that yourself (and I’ll tell you it’s really quite hard to make that time!), I can help. And I won’t promise you that you’ll make money at the back of every single blog post. But what I can promise is that your investment and your commitment will pay off over time, and you’ll get plenty of value from your blogging. So if you want to have a chat about how I might be able to help you, drop me an email at hello@sarabussandri.com or use my contact form to get in touch.