Think Blog, Not Slog

Think Blog, Not Slog
Still not sold on blogging? Think it’s too difficult, too old school or too “consumer-y” for your organization? Think again.

New research from marketing firm Hubspot found businesses and professional organizations that blog just once or twice a month garner 70 PERCENT more leads than those who don’t. If you can post more frequently—say several times per week—researchers found you’ll generate on average 5 TIMES more web traffic than competitors who don’t have blogs.

But wait, there’s more! Unlike many other online marketing tactics, blogging is scalable. For instance, researchers found that doubling you posting schedule to 21-plus times per month from 11 to 20 times per month resulted in a 45 percent boost in traffic.

As we mentioned last week, a new survey by the Custom Content Council and ContentWise, found that brand content (aka brand journalism, sponsored editorial or thought leadership content) is getting a bigger slice of the marketing pie: a 13 percent increase in spending for the last two years.

But, you have to be relevant

What’s hard for many organizations to understand is that blogging isn’t the same as email blasting. It’s not the same as aggregating, scraping, tweeting, pinning or Facebook posting, either. You don’t have to be a seasoned journalist. But, you do have to commit to your own point of view and you have to be relevant. Why else would your time-pressed clients and prospects take time out of their busy days to read/watch/view what you have to say?

Be a thought leader

Blogging is about being a thought leader. You don’t have to be first with the news. You just have to put an authoritative spin on it so you can showcase your expertise. You want to be arrogant. You do want to give readers short nuggets of intelligence that can help them solve a problem, unlock a new opportunity or make their jobs easier.

There’s no ideal post length and no ideal frequency. Just commit to a schedule and volume that you and your colleagues can consistently maintain. But, if you take shortcuts and put out stale, over-used content your numbers will suffer and your reputation as well.

First impressions

According to the good folks at Gadzoog you have about 10 seconds to capture a potential customer’s attention before they click “back” and move on to your competitor. There has to be something of value offered to keep them not only interested, but coming back. Whether it’s an informational video, blog post, or a free consultation, there should be some element that helps you stand out from the crowd.

They want to find as much out about you as they can, before the commit to a phone call, demo or in person meeting.

Remember, your prospects go through a due diligence process before making a final decision about you. This time should be seen as an opportunity to inform, engage, and most importantly, offer value to your prospective audience. This poses a major advantage over the competition when considering that most businesses with a website usually lack a blog and the ones that do have a blog, rarely maintain it.

Conclusion

Blogging is not a magic silver bullet. But if done even reasonably well and consistently, it will elevate you above the clutter. It’s pretty simple to do, but just hard enough to separate the thought leaders from the pretenders. Just remember to be relevant and make sure you integrate blogging with your other marketing initiatives. You’ll be glad you did even if you don’t get the same boost in traffic (or leads) that researchers claim above.

Time after time, clients tell us the process of blogging gave them a great new idea for a presentation, video, brochure or new product that wouldn’t have occurred to them otherwise.

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TAGS: Gadzoog, blogging, Hubspot, Custom Content Council