New startups often struggle because their ideal customers don’t know who they are.
Starting a company blog can help resolve this problem. Not only does content marketing increase organic traffic to your website, the right mix of content educates readers about your services, addresses potential objections, and builds trust in potential customers.
So, even though content marketing often takes longer to see a return on investment (ROI) than other forms of marketing, the benefits are worth it. If you’re ready to increase your brand recognition and revenue, follow these steps to start a blog for your startup:
- Define your blog’s purpose and goals
- Set up your blog
- Generate blog post ideas
- Write and edit your blog post
- Publish and promote your blog post
- Consider hiring help for content creation and management
1. Define your blog’s purpose and goals
Before you do anything else, you should know your vision for your startup’s blog. The answers you get during this step don’t just guide your content strategy — they help you create content that aligns with your overarching marketing and business goals too. Here are three areas to focus on:
Identify your target audience
One of the first things you should do is think about the people you want your content to attract. In most cases, the answer will be the target audience for your products or services.
It’s important to remember this because it will inform your entire content strategy, from what formats your content will take (blog posts, case studies, multimedia, etc.) to the topics you cover and how you write.
For instance, content written for a wellness-focused audience will differ significantly from blog posts written with project managers in mind.
Set goals for your blog
Just like with any other marketing initiative, setting goals for your blog is essential. Decide what you want your content to do for your business. Do you want it to attract and convert new visitors to your website? Build authority and brand awareness? Educate users and customers?
These choices will impact the decisions you make in your content marketing approach as well.
If you want your startup to be known as an authority in your industry, you might focus on thought leadership content that communicates your unique expertise and take on the industry. Alternatively, if your goal is to generate more leads, you might publish content that addresses your target audience's needs and pain points — like guides, case studies, and whitepapers that dive deep into solving their needs.
Create a content strategy
A detailed and complex plan for your content isn’t necessary when you’re just starting out. However, you will need a straightforward plan and know how to execute it.
Here are some questions to think about as you put together your content strategy:
- Who are you writing for and why?
- What common questions and concerns do your readers have about your industry?
- What are your content marketing goals? How will you know if you’re successful?
- What themes will your blog focus on?
- What actions will you ask readers to take at the end of each blog post?
- How often will you publish content?
As your content marketing operations grow, you can update and expand your strategy as needed.
2. Set up your blog
Add a blog to your website
If you already have a website for your startup, chances are the platform you use will easily let you add a blog to your site.
At this time, you’ll also need to choose your blog’s theme or template. Many blogging platforms offer free templates you can customize to match your company’s branding. These themes are designed to be functional and look professional right out of the box. If you decide to customize it, keep the overall design uncluttered and simple so readers can easily find the content they’re looking for.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a website yet, either. You can still use Medium, Substack, and other blogging platforms to publish your content in the meantime.
Create a content calendar
You’ll also need to create a content calendar (also known as an editorial calendar) to help you keep track of the content you create and publish.
This organizational tool helps you plan your blog posts, keep your content diverse and consistent, and streamline your publishing efforts. You don’t need complicated software to create a content calendar, though. You can easily set one up in a spreadsheet or a project management tool like Notion or Trello.
No matter what your content calendar looks like, make sure you include the following information for each piece of content you create:
- Blog post title
- Date of publication
- Blog post topic or target keywords
- Blog post author
- Promotional strategy
After you finish the following step, add your ideas to your content calendar so you’ll know what topics to write about for your first few blog posts.
3. Generate blog post ideas
Next, take a moment to brainstorm some blog post topics so you don’t have to come up with one every time you write a new post. Start with your target audience in mind — their goals, needs, wants, and pain points — and go from there.
Use the tips below as a starting point so you can create helpful and impactful content for your audience right from the start. If you’re still stuck, use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude for more content ideas.
Include evergreen and trending content
Ideally, you want to have evergreen and trending content on your blog.
Evergreen content stays relevant and useful to readers for an extended period of time. These topics are often educational for readers and helpful for ranking in search engines. Some evergreen blog post topics for an accounting software company might include “What is a profit and loss statement?” and “How do you switch to a new accounting software?”
Alternatively, trending topics cover recent events, news, and trends — this content is relevant and useful now but likely won’t be in the future.
These topics can cover the latest trends or news in your industry, new product or feature announcements from your company, and so on. Even if they don’t have much long-term value, this type of content can bring a larger-than-expected increase in organic traffic while the topic is relevant.
Use your evergreen content as the foundation for your content marketing strategy, but try to incorporate trending topics often to gain more exposure and brand authority.
Answer frequently asked customer questions
Your blog is also a great place to answer customer questions and address the concerns of potential buyers.
For example, if customers often have questions about a particular product feature, you can create a how-to guide explaining how to use it in detail. If shoppers are unsure whether your offerings can help them with a specific problem, create content that walks them through the tools you provide that help solve their issue.
Building your content around your audience’s needs and pain points strengthens your relationship with your readers and shows them you care about solving their problems.
4. Write and edit your blog post
Although blog posts are the building blocks of a strong content strategy, writing each piece of content is the most challenging part for many founders. If this sounds like you, use the tips below to make writing blog posts easier.
Start with an outline
Always start with an outline before diving into your first draft.
Having an outline for each piece of content is like using a map to get to your destination — it helps you stay on course so you don’t have to worry about getting lost or wasting valuable time and effort. Creating an outline also helps you clarify your thinking and lay out the framework and flow of your blog post beforehand.
To create your outline, use a bullet point list. Write each idea out in its own bullet point rather than in paragraph format. Under each main idea, outline your supporting arguments and add context or evidence to support your reasoning. Organize your thoughts in a way that makes sense for the topic, with each idea logically flowing into the next.
Edit with your reader in mind
When you edit your content, keep your target audience in mind. Too often, companies publish content that prioritizes their interests — blog posts intended to educate readers on a topic might instead focus on the company’s product offerings, for example.
However, this kind of content doesn’t provide value to your audience, resulting in low engagement and a loss of trust from your readers.
Instead, build your content around your reader's goals, needs, and challenges. Aim to provide them with valuable and actionable information with every piece of content you publish. Give them takeaways they can implement in their own lives.
Consider your reader in your word choices as well. What background do they come from, and how do they usually talk?
Avoid using complex sentences and jargon they don’t know. If jargon is essential to the topic of your blog post, fully explain what each term means before moving on to the next section of the post.
Use editing tools for support
Editing is crucial because publishing content with unclear arguments, rambling sentences, or glaring grammatical errors can make you look unprofessional and unknowledgeable to your reader. The problem is, sometimes, you don’t have a second pair of eyes to look over your work.
Luckily, various tools have been designed to help you through the editing process. Grammarly and Hemingway are two of the most popular tools writers use to write more clearly and effectively. When you’ve been working on a blog post for too long, these apps catch mistakes you might miss and strengthen your writing.
Content marketing is a huge endeavor, especially if you’re a founder with limited resources. To make the process easier to manage, take advantage of tools that help you create better content easily.
5. Publish and promote your blog post
Promote on all marketing channels
As an early-stage startup, the truth is that most of your target audience won’t see your hard work unless you promote it. So, once you’ve published a blog post to your website, make the most of your efforts by getting it in front of your target audience.
Post it to your social media accounts, along with a catchy hook or insightful information. Make sure to send it to your email list too, as your engaged subscribers are the people who are most likely to read, interact with, and share your content.
And since many small businesses say these two marketing channels have worked well for them, there’s no downside to promoting your content on these channels.
Repurpose content
People engage with and absorb information differently, so consider repackaging the content in your blog post in various formats and promoting it on your marketing channels.
Not only can you reach new audiences by repurposing your content, this strategy allows you to get the most ROI from your content and extend the lifespan of your blog posts.
Try repurposing data or actionable information into an infographic to post on Linkedin or Instagram. If you have a podcast, repurpose a blog post into a podcast episode and promote the episode to your social media followers and email subscribers. You can combine a series of blog posts on a specific topic into an ebook or whitepaper for your lead generation strategy.
As you can see, quality content can be used and reused endlessly. You’re only limited by your imagination.
Consider hiring help for content creation and management
Once you’ve established a workflow for writing and publishing your blog posts, you may want to hand off this work to people who specialize in writing and content marketing. After all, as the founder of your startup, you provide the most value to your organization by focusing on your strengths and leading your team.
For founders just starting out with content marketing, hiring a freelance writer or an agency instead of a full-time employee would be your best bet.
If you prefer a hands-off approach, a content marketing agency acts as your startup's external content marketing department. They provide end-to-end content services, from strategy and ideation to writing and publishing content. On the other hand, a freelance writer is ideal if you want more control over the process and know what your content should look like.
Of course, hiring freelancers will entail some management on your end. Reduce the workload that comes with managing a freelance roster with Warp’s payroll software. With our platform, you can onboard and pay your independent contractors in just minutes. To learn more, request a demo today.
