We’ve all seen it. The blog that started out with a bang. Weekly posts, high-quality embedded videos, creative photos and compelling calls to action. And then business happened. Weekly posts became biweekly, then monthly and then they trailed off to no set frequency. Then the videos and photos faded away. And the calls to action vacillated between nonexistent and cold, hard sales pitches.
Whether a robust, lead generating business blog has become a distant memory or your blog is on the brink of becoming stale and irrelevant, now is the time to revise your business blogging strategy and focus on making your blog consistently generate business ROI. Here are five easy steps to get you started:
1) Commit to a content calendar
While the process of carefully planning each month’s blog content – from the topics and keywords, to calls to action and channels for social sharing – may seem like a tedious process, it is critical to ensuring a consistent stream of audience-centric content is disseminated to your online audiences. When building your content calendar, remain cognizant of the blog-worthy opportunities occurring at your company on a daily basis – think tradeshows, info sessions and client appreciation events to name a few. Then focus on how best to share.
2) Leverage the sales team as a content generator
The questions your sales team fields when engaging with prospective clients makes great fodder for highly-relevant – not to mention search friendly – blog posts. Whether you convene your team for weekly brainstorming sessions, collect input via online or appoint a member of the sales team to funnel key questions and post ideas back to marketing, this is key to honing your business blogging strategy.
3) Invite guest bloggers
Diversifying the voices that comprise your company’s blog – and showcasing the depth and breadth of your network’s enterprise – can help to engage new readers. It can also help to further cement your company’s position as an industry authority and expert resource.
So who should you invite to submit a guest post? Think strategic partners, community leaders, referral sources and others who can bring high-quality, relevant content to your clients and prospects.
4) Incorporate premium content
While having a broad range of high-quality content on your blog is key to getting found by online target audiences, some forms of thought leadership and industry expertise are best-suited for longer formats such as whitepapers, toolkits and e-books.
Beyond being conducive to longer format content, these premium content formats also allow companies to use lead capture forms as a great way to grow their e-mail databases while learning more about the companies and individuals who visit their websites and consume their content.
5) Actively market your blog
It doesn’t matter how great your content is if you aren’t attracting the right readership. When considering how to grow your blog’s readership among prospective, existing and possibly even former clients, consider all of the channels that comprise your company’s marketing toolkit. This may include embedding key blog posts in your company e-newsletter and promoting posts through the company’s and key staff’s social media channels. For companies executing an ongoing PR program, it may even be appropriate to hyperlink to relevant blog posts in online news releases or sharing hard copies of posts as leave behinds after workshops and speaking engagements.
Regardless of the distribution channels you choose to employ, focus on reaching the right audiences at the right time with the right messages.
A well-executed business blog can be an invaluable lead generation tool for companies of all sizes. The key is generating a steady stream of relevant content that satisfies your audiences’ wants and needs.
Whether you are new to business blogging or a seasoned pro, remain committed to a consistent, audience centric, multimedia content strategy with clearly-defined KPIs and the ROI of business blogging will be yours to enjoy.
Take your blog to the next level by downloading 20 Tips for Better Business Blogging today.
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