For those from the business world, Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) is going to sound familiar. Basically the roots of the approach are fairly old and inherent to continuous improvement practices.
PDCA basically involves the four steps in the name and is circular. You start, but you never end, thus the continuous improvement.
The principles of PDCA can be applied to most aspects of business and life in general, and blogging is no different.
Haphazard blogging can yield haphazard results.
PDCA "forces" you to have some discipline to your blogging and monitor your results.
In the simplest terms, the four steps are:
Plan: What is your market? What topics SHOULD result in making your phone ring? How often will you post? Is there a niche you can work?
Do: Follow through on your plan. Post to the topics in your plan.
Check: What are your results? Getting views? Are you getting consumer contacts? Do you actually do as much as you committed to? Have you had enough time for your blogging to work?
Act: Take what you've learned so far and make adjustments. Loop back into the Plan stage and correct any false assumptions or activities that aren't giving the desired results (assuming you've allowed adequate time for results).
Our blogging today is NOT what it was when we started almost six years ago. We've added topics, removed others, changed frequency and changed the target audience. Specifically:
- We dropped our monthly foreclosure report. We do still keep up on the trends, but stopped broadcasting the information. There was no business to be had in them as the only purchases would be direct from sheriff's auction. Or the buyers that were interested in them would want to ONLY buy foreclosures on the market, and that's not our target audience. Low priced homes in bad condition are NOT a great use of our limited time.
- Fewer local event posts. When we shifted from 10+ posts to just one a day, those posts became more expendable.
- More real estate search related posts. Subdivision and long tail housing type search posts that drive traffic to our IDX pages.
- More posts about new construction, especially when the news involved our niche of patio homes and condos.
- Fewer posts intended to gain interaction with other Rainers and more posts straight to the consumer. Comments are nice, but they don't make the phone ring nor pay our bills. We make an exception on Tuesdays for our AAA series as a way of hopefully making this community stronger. The community wins, we all win.
Like we said, it's a continual process. What works? What doesn't? Adjust as needed. We operate with the best available information.
You don't have to be an engineer like me to put engineering principles to work with your blog.
And yes, you're still allowed to write "for fun"! Who knows, that post about the puppy, cat, flower garden or your charity work might be the one that resonates with someone and helps them decide you're THE ONE for them!
One last tip, and it falls in line with PDCA. If you've been blogging regularly for months and months and your posts are decent quality and not filled with typos, and your phone is NOT ringing yet, it's time to reevaluate what and how you're blogging. Need help assessing? Just ask!
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help!
Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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