Those of you who are in the marketing field will be very familiar with the 7Ps. For those who have no idea what I’m babbling about, the 7Ps are the marketing mix, a kind of roadmap that marketers adhere to, or a code of conduct they swear by.

The 7 Ps – price, product, place, promotion, physical presence, service provision and processes included the modern marketing mix that is particularly relevant in the service industry, but is also relevant for any form of business where meeting the needs of customers is has been given priority.

Reviewing the principles of the 7Ps got me thinking about how I can modify and apply their good values ​​to blogging. I started combining different management techniques and business theories and came up with the 5Ps and 5Ws of blogging.

1 planning

As with everything we do, planning is a critical phase to ensure that our work starts off right, meets what it sets out to achieve, and reaches its ultimate goals on time. Blogging is no different, and there are too many examples of failed blogs that started without proper planning and eventually fade when the novelty wears off.

In the planning phase, you need to ask yourself some tough questions and prepare to give brutal and honest answers. That’s where 5W comes in, I’ll move on to 5W later.

2. Point

Does your blog have a specific point to highlight? A message that you want to convey to your audience? If not, what is the point of blogging? Do you understand my point?

3. Passion

I’m sure you will agree with me that blogging is a lot like journalism, except in a less controlled environment. Journalists are passionate writers, writing is, after all, their livelihood. To write quality content on your blog, you also need passion to write. If you don’t have a passion for writing, why should anyone bother reading your posts? Your passion, or lack of it, will eventually shine through in your writing.

4. Perseverance

To be clear, blogging is hard work. It becomes particularly difficult if you have to hold a full-time job and have a family to take care of at the same time. I am talking about real life experience. Blogging isn’t just about writing, it’s more dynamic than that. Unless your blog has a team of writers, you are basically the writer, designer, marketer, and PR manager for your blog. All of this takes time, passion and above all, perseverance to execute, and we are not just talking about the first three months. Are you prepared to get your hands dirty in the long run?

5. Preparations

Once you’ve set your 5Ws, the real work has just begun. There are thousands of things to prepare before launching your blog. From naming your blog, to registering the domain name, to figuring out the technicalities of web hosting and blog design, there are many critical factors to consider and important decisions to be made. Once you take care of these tasks, you can turn your attention to researching and writing your content.

Earlier, I mentioned the 5 questions, questions you need honest answers before you even think about starting your blog. Here are the 5Ws:

1. Who?

Who will write the blog? Will you be the solo author or will there be a team of contributors? Who is your target audience? Determining your target audience will drive the content of your posts and the way you write them.

2 What?

What is your blog about? Is it going to be a personal blog, a specialized blog on parenting, technology or sports, etc.? You have to focus on your topic in order to target the right audience.

3. When?

Blogging experts generally recommend a minimum of 2 to 3 times the posting frequency per week. Depending on your level of engagement, decide on the posting frequency and correct it. It could be one post per day or one post once a week. Establishing a routine early on will not only help you better manage your time in researching your topics, but it will also create rigidity so that your readers know when to expect new posts to be published.

4. Where?

Where do you want your blog to go? In other words, what is the goal of your blog? Set goals for your blog and plan how to get there. If your blog doesn’t have a “there” to go to, it’s probably going nowhere!

5. Why?

Why do you want to blog? If you can’t satisfactorily answer this question and convince yourself, you probably shouldn’t even start.