Blogging is where many a well-intended custom content strategy begins. It’s not hard to see why; blogging is an easy-to-jump-into and affordable way to reach out to customers online. Yet the success of corporate blogging largely depends on the tone of the blog. A right balance between informational, chatty and entertaining must be struck, otherwise a company is left with a bland blog that nobody wants to read. A global emporium of garden hoses, chainsaws and hardware, The Home Depot, is one company that has figured out the nuts and bolts of conversational blogging.
Who among us hasn’t wandered around The Home Depot in search of some do-it-yourself thingy? For the casual visitor, The Home Depot can be an intimidating place. Yet its friendly blog, The Apron, is anything but. The Apron has attractive and well-photographed posts primarily written for the home repair newbie. Storage solutions, how to build a simple wall organizer and winter gardening ideas are a few of the brand’s recent posts. Giving The Apron an easy-to-read, home improvement magazine style was a stroke of genius for The Home Depot. A store like The Home Depot should do whatever it can to convince regular Joes that they too can be a fix-it phenomenon, and this smartly-written blog helps with that mission statement for sure.
The tone of The Apron helps set the stage for success. Each post has a helpful (but not condescending) tone of “Why don’t you try this?” Also ingenious is how The Home Depot has kept the blog decidedly gender neutral. By appealing to men and women of all ages, the blog increases the potential customer base while smashing the idea that only guys fix bathrooms or leaky roofs. We talk over and over again in these pages about how important being approachable is in blog creation. This is especially true for brands like The Home Depot, which sell products or services that need some education and explanation. Instead of scaring readers away at the thought of learning something new, The Apron inspires them to go for it — and that’s a great blogging goal for companies of every variety.
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