Developing a business blog can be a wonderful way to provide value to existing customers, strengthen your company’s brand, and share information about your company with potential customers. But you need to be strategic when creating it if you want it to generate positive results.
Blogs Are Part of Content Marketing
Blogs use a strategy called content marketing. The smart people at Copyblogger Media sum up this perfectly, so I’ll use their explanation:
“Content Marketing means creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers. The primary goal is to obtain opt-in permission to deliver content via email or other medium over time. Repeated and regular exposure builds a relevant relationship that provides multiple opportunities for conversion, rather than a ‘one-shot’ all-or-nothing sales approach.”
It’s important to note that this content must always provide value in some form to the reader and should not be confused with a sales pitch. Hard sales don’t work with content marketing.
You Must Commit To Your Business Blog
Before you begin setting up your blog or begin thinking about what you want to accomplish with it, you need to be prepared to commit to the project.
Being committed means:
- You agree to stick with it for a predetermined amount of time. I recommend a minimum of six months, preferably a year.
- You give your employees time to work on it regardless of the initial results.
- You understand that not everything you try will result in 100% success. One of the perks of using the web for marketing is having the option to adapt your marketing plan as you go.
Like all marketing plans, it takes time to see results of blogging. You need to be prepared to be patient if you want the project to have a chance at success.
Identify a Purpose For Your Business Blog and How You Will Measure Its Success
After you’ve decided that you’re willing to commit to your business blog, your next step is to determine what its purpose is and how you will measure success.
Doing both of these things is very important. Without a purpose, the topics on your business blog will be all over the place, possibly confusing potential customers. Without a way to measure results, you will not know if the blog is useful to your business’ bottom line.
Most companies use their blogs to position them as experts in their field. They share expert advice and tips for customers to strengthen their brand. Others use business blogs to dispel common misconceptions and educating potential customers. Still others use them as ways to provide extra value to existing customers.
Decide which area you want your business blog to help you with. If you want to position your company as a leading expert, then most likely you will want to measure your success with how many extra leads you get online or how much more traffic your site is getting.
Develop An Editorial Calendar (And Stick To It)
Companies with business blogs that excel almost always have an editorial calendar. They use this to plan out topics, the frequency of posts, and types of articles (top 10 list, commentary on a current event, photo-centered post, etc.).
Following an editorial calendar gives your blog more structure and will give you a better shot at achieving your goals.
Develop A Plan for Driving Traffic To Your Business Blog
Unfortunately you can’t create blog posts, sit back, and watch traffic come pouring in. You have to use some Internet marketing strategies to generate traffic.
These include posting these articles to your company’s social media pages and using search engine optimization (SEO) tactics so that search engines can easily pick up on the posts’ topics. The good folks at Copyblogger have created a really nice whitepaper on this topic, which can download for free by clicking here.
Of course, there’s more to setting up a blog than what’s written here, but these suggestions will get your business blog off the ground.
Want to learn more about growing your business? Download a free copy of Building and Exiting a Desirable Business today.
