Blogs can be a great marketing tool for companies – allowing them to share ideas and insights via a relaxed online journal. According to a recent webinar by QuartSoft, companies that blog have 55% more visitors to their websites and B2B companies that blog generate up to 67% more leads per month. And in a competitive environment, companies are constantly seeking any and all avenues to get their messaging and value proposition heard.
A good blog can be worth its weight in gold.
While it’s fairly easy to grasp the benefits of blogging (i.e. lead generation, brand building, and SEO just to name a few,) it’s not always easy to create a good blog.
For a blog to be successful, it needs to be
1) informative 2) useful and 3) enjoyable to read.
No matter how sophisticated or tech-savvy your audience is, if your blog does not meet these three criteria, it’ll be nothing more than a waste of time.
Blogging Best Practices:
Select the “right” personality. Identify people in your company that are good communicators (whether they’re in senior management, sales, or product development.) You know who those people are. They’re typically easy to talk to, relatable and knowledgeable about your company and its customers. Your blog will reflect the personality behind it.
Create value. For people to read your blog on a consistent basis, it has to benefit them somehow. Blogs that focus on ‘How to or Best Practices’, contain Helpful Tips, or provide an exclusive insight into current trends or industry news, will resonate more strongly with your audience. It is certainly right to tie in how your company’s products and/or services play a part, but avoid using your blog as a pure product feature.
Make it visual. In today’s Digital Age, everything is micro visual. From websites to social media posts, images are what capture the eye. As a general rule of thumb, blogs should have at least three photos. Incorporate images or videos into your blog that either relate to the content being shared, an anecdotal story, a recent trip, etc.
Engage the right talents.
Many feel daunted with the task of taking on a blog. Blogs require an investment of time, which can make finding the ‘right personality’ for the blog even more challenging. A mistake a lot of companies make is thinking that the person who will author the blog has to be the one who actually writes it, schedules and coordinates the blog. And let’s face it, not all of us are great at putting our verbal communication on screen. That’s why it’s just as important to put a good team together to produce and publish your blog. If staffing internally, assign at least two people: (1) to tell the story and (1) to write it.
Lastly, once your blog publishes remember to promote it.
- Make it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog.
- Leverage all of your social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.) to drive traffic to your blog.
- Look at creating a marketing campaign around the promotion of your blog (ex. email marketing, online ads, etc.)
- Tease your blog: include a link in all company email signatures; link in company newsletter; all company electronic communication; company on hold phone messages; etc.
- Use the blog as a touch point opportunity with sales prospects; and make your key media and analysts aware of it as well.
