I still find it somewhat astonishing that, even in 2019, blogging for business purposes is still so underused and under-appreciated; especially when the research shows how valuable it is to building website traffic. The statistics themselves don’t lie, and I’ve noted some of them on my own content marketing page, but as we go into 2018, blogging is one aspect of content marketing that’s not going anywhere.
Get Started Blogging for Business in 2019Whether you’re selling direct to clients, or a business-to-business operator, blogging still matters. According to Hubspot research B2B companies posting over 10 blogs each month receive almost three times the amount of traffic as those blogging only once or less. Meanwhile, B2C companies writing over 10 blog articles per month received four times the amount of leads of those posting only four to five times a month.
Blogging is a long-term investment for your business. The content remains there, and stays indexed for years to come – and it still works. Hubspot examined their own lead generation tools, and found that 90% of their leads came from old posts!
So what do you need to do to start blogging for business in 2019?
Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
Only around half of businesses have a defined digital marketing strategy. This is mind-boggling. Even many businesses who are engaging in digital marketing are doing so without any kind of strategic focus.
Can we just pause on this for a moment?
Marketing matters.
If you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve with your marketing, and don’t know how you’re going to achieve it, then what are you doing? It doesn’t matter where your business is at right now, even if your books are full, it’s important to have a marketing strategy in place. Those books aren’t always going to be full, and I have seen how quickly things can change. You need to have a digital marketing strategy in place, even if it is just to maintain the status quo that you’re currently in.
Know your Blog Topics
There are two things that I have found to stand out in conversations with clients when I ask why they aren’t blogging for business as much as they should: time and ideas. Time management is one thing that we can all struggle with, (and of course, if you simply don’t have the time to write for your business, that’s what I’m doing here!) However, actually knowing what to write about is just as much of a struggle for many people.
There are plenty of ideas and suggestions for topics to blog about, but before you go examining those, here’s a few questions that can help you get started for yourself.
What questions have my customers ever asked me?
What is the value of my products or services?
Why did I start doing this business? What motivates me?
What are some of the more quirky or unusual aspects of whatI do for a living?
What do I wish people knew about what my products / services can do for them?
This is just a handful of things to get you starting to think about things that you could share on your business blog. Start mulling these ideas over – even use the voice record function on your phone, and start talking about them as if someone had literally just asked you one of these questions, and you’ll find that you have a wide selection of topics to write about for your business blog.
Plan It Out
Just like doing your digital marketing without a strategy, blogging for business without a plan is always going to leave you struggling. Once you have a series of topics and headlines, lay out dates that you’re going to actually publish those posts. This is a great time to get yourself started with each one by simply jotting down a few sentences about what you’re going to write about in that post, so that you have at least some kind of foundation to build on when you’re writing it.
I log each upcoming blog into my task management software, and then create a paragraph of what that post is going to be about. This includes creating the headline, and a short paragraph on what that post will be talking about. If I’m feeling really inspired at this point of creation, I may even go through the structure of the post by including subheadings and / or dot points – anything that will provide a stronger foundation to build on when I come to write it in full.
And then it comes down to actually writing it. This, of course, requires time and effort, and that’s something that we all struggle for in the world today.
So I want to ask you a question:
What would it mean to your business to quadruple the number of leads coming in each month? How much additional revenue would it bring in? How would it change the way you do things?
Writing eleven or more blog articles a month, though, requires time, and that’s something that we’re all in short supply of, especially in the business world. If you’re writing all the time, when are you servicing your clients and selling your products?
Contact Josh Mitchell today for an obligation-free discussion about how I can help you increase your new leads by blogging for business. Let’s talk, and then let’s watch it all grow!