I’ve been thinking a lot about this blog lately. I have been writing on and off here for almost 5 years, which seems completely insane. I’ve kept going because a) I always need a writing outlet and b) I get such lovely comments from people who’ve read the blog. I’ve made some wonderful friends from this little space, and for the most part, I have loved it.
But, increasingly, I’ve been thinking about focusing my time and efforts on building a creative business for myself. I have kept my personal blog and my professional self quite separate. But why? I don’t work in a bank. I work in publishing – a wonderful, creative industry full of wonderful, creative people.
I wanted to bring everything together in one place, and did contemplate creating a brand new site, but that just didn’t feel right. This domain name isn’t ideal, but I don’t want to lose the traffic I’ve built up over the years or the articles I’ve already written. I also don’t want to create a ‘marketing’ website, where I blog exclusively about marketing. As much as I love it, that would instantly make me not want to write anything at all.
I thought a lot whether it mattered or not – whether it would be confusing for people to understand or if people would dislike the mishmash of content on here.
So, I did what I do at work. I thought about who my target audience is for the work I ideally want to start doing, and what they might want to get out of the site.
My ideal client wants to share the incredible book she has written, but lacks the confidence online to do so. Despite being able to create characters and stories from nothing, she worries that she doesn’t have the voice to be able to tell people about it. She wants to learn how to create her place online, find her tribe, connect with people, and ultimately, sell her book. I want to help her create an ongoing sustainable marketing plan that sells without feeling ‘salesy’.
She sounds great! Does she care that I talk about bits and pieces of my life as well as marketing? Of course not. If anything, I hope it would make her more likely to want to work with me, as she’ll know more about me than just my work experience. If it really puts her off, guess what: we probably won’t enjoy working together. Thinking about her made my decision for me, and as soon as I’d made it, I knew it was the right one. See – that’s why your target audience is so important.
So, the future is:
- More posts about mindful living, something I feel increasingly passionate about as I get older
- More posts about goals and planning
- Brand new posts with more of a marketing slant – these are written with authors in mind, but I hope they’ll also be useful for anyone with a creative business
There’s going to be a bit of a period of transition, as I figure out what works and what doesn’t in the marketing space. As much as I DO it all day four days a week, I don’t often write about it. I hope the rest of you will stick with me – I think you’ll enjoy the content, too. If you have any thoughts or ideas about things you think would be interesting for me to write about, I would love to hear them!
(ALSO PS: Do you match the description above? Get in touch! I would love to work with you.)
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