Seven Reasons NOT to Blog

In my last post, I shared Ten Reasons Blogging is Good for Your Sales. But that doesn’t mean blogging is for everybody. (Nothing is for everybody.) However valuable blogging can be for your business, there are some perfectly good reasons not to do it. Such as…

1. You have no strategy
Any sales or marketing effort you engage in should be strategic. It should have a specific goal and a specific plan for reaching that goal. It should also be part of a larger overall strategy. If you’re not clear on your strategy, your sales and marketing activities will be largely ineffective.

2. You have no time
There’s no way around it, blogging takes time. If you simply can’t add one more thing to your schedule, a blog is not for you.

3. You can’t do it consistently
To gain a loyal following, a blog needs to be updated regularly. Which means you need to devote time to it on a consistent basis. It can be daily, weekly or even monthly, but it needs to be consistent. If you can’t commit to a regular writing schedule, there’s no point in doing it at all.

4. You can’t write
There’s no shame in not being a good writer. Writing well is a skill not many people possess. But people will judge you and your business by the quality of your writing. So if your wordsmithing isn’t up to snuff, blogging can do you more harm than good. (Although you could still do an audio or video blog.)

5. You’re looking for instant results
Like most sales and marketing tactics, blogging takes time to produce measurable results. It’s an investment for the long haul, not a quick fix. If you’re focused exclusively on boosting sales right this minute, blogging won’t help you.

6. You’re all about self-promotion
A successful blog is about your readers, not your company. While it’s fine to occasionally slip in a post about your new showroom, your latest product, or your upcoming sale, if you’re going to attract regular readers, your blog needs to provide information that can enhance people’s lives. If your blog is nothing but self-promotion, nobody will read it.

7. You have nothing to say
For your blog to be effective, you need to be able to come up with interesting, useful and/or humorous things to say on a regular basis. And that might not be one of your strengths. Everyone’s creative, but in different ways, and if your creativity isn’t suited to blogging, that’s okay. Figure out where your creativity is best applied and do that instead.

Blogging is a great sales and marketing tool, but it isn’t ideal for every business. If it’s not for you, don’t feel pressured by people who say you should do it because everyone else is. There are plenty of other sales and marketing tools at your disposal that also work well. The key is finding—and using—the ones that work best for your business.