Leigh Simpson
Your blog should be one of your company’s most valuable sales and marketing assets, and blogging is a cornerstone of Inbound Marketing.
Blogging builds trust with your customers, generates leads, educates readers, builds brand awareness and drives sales. In short, great blogging grows businesses. Learning how to improve your blogging can make a big difference to your bottom line and your career.
The best company blogs are engaging, deliver learning for your audience, and align your customer’s challenges with your solutions. They add value to your customer’s life and become a valued reference point.
But it can be hard to think of great blog ideas, commit to paper, hone your content and get it found online and ultimately read. Here are a few tips that will help you get it right.
- 1 - Capture That Blogging Idea
When you are asked a question or see, read, or watch something interesting or relevant to your customers, capture that idea. Dictate a memo into your phone, send yourself an email, take a photo or video, or jot down the idea on your iPad or notebook.
Pretty soon, you will have more blog ideas than you know what to do with, and it will drive you to start researching them and fleshing them out.
- 2 - Get Your Reader’s Attention
A great title will get your blog post noticed, and a sales headline will switch most people off. Remember, people use the internet to research for solutions to their problems and challenges, so write a title from that perspective - “How to”, “Tips for”, “Why do” headings suggest solutions and are suitable for piquing curiosity.
- 3 - The Intro
So, your killer headline has caught their attention, now what?
Tell your reader what you are going to tell them upfront and clearly. Explain the value of your post to them. Your reader could be your next key account, and this could be the start of a beautiful relationship, so the opening section of your post needs to get the idea over to the reader in 30 seconds or less.
Take time to get this piece right, build suspense, create intrigue, make your reader feel compelled to read your post because it will be of value to them - as an individual!
- 4 - Address Your Audience
Good blog posts are aimed at a specific audience. So, before you start developing content, identify the solution you are covering and who is likely to need it.
Take time to understand your potential buyer’s pain, empathise with it and write about the possible causes and solutions available. Research the subject matter deeper and take on board different opinions, the latest learning and new technology.
Your reader is intelligent; they will know if you switch to sales mode and likely disengage. So, keep your content about them, not about you.
Focus on building credibility as an expert who understands your reader’s issues and someone who may have a solution - this will build trust.
- 5 - Teach, Don’t Sell
You want to educate your reader. If your posts are helpful and informative, they will generate a steady stream of traffic to your website and sales leads.
As you develop content, ask yourself, “do I find this useful or informative? Will the reader find this useful or informative?” These two questions should always serve as your guide.
Don’t promote yourself on the back in your blog posts, bragging about what you know about your industry. Let your blog visitors find the value in your content from their perspective. The goal of your content is to build trust with your audience, and you do that by positioning yourself as an expert in your industry.
- 6 - Call To Action
Remember, you are ultimately writing your post to generate leads that you can convert into sales. Ask your reader to engage with you, call or email you for more information, go to a landing page to download more content, retweet, or share your post to increase reach.
Suppose your website is integrated with your CRM system, something like HubSpot. In that case, you can capture your leads automatically and keep informed about when your prospects re-visit your website, giving your sales team the heads up about new sales prospects.
- 7 - Optimise Your Content For Search
Mastering SEO best practices will make your content more relevant to targeted search engine users and get it found on the internet for years to come.
Follow proven search engine optimisation (SEO) rules for great results: the use of keyword optimised titles (H1, H2 tags), a healthy keyword density ratio, keyword anchor text, the use of your targeted keywords in the first and last sentence, alt text in images, keyword in your SEO title and a clear message in your meta tags.
If you are blogging in WordPress, the Yoast SEO tool will guide you through the SEO process in a simple, no-nonsense manner.
- 8 - Grab a Cup Of Tea, Walk The Dog
Before you hit the Publish button, take 5 to clear your mind. Get lunch, walk the dog, make a cup of tea and grab a slice of cake or a biscuit.
Now, once the excitement of writing your blog has eased off a little, re-read it, get a second opinion and then make those minor adjustments that will make your post zing.
Now you are ready to publish!
- 9 - Promote Your Post
Now you’ve written a fantastic piece from your customers perspective and offered solutions to their problems. Great. Well Done. Now you need to get it to read.
The obvious route is to get it posted onto your social media platforms - remember to hashtag to improve search. Use scheduling tools like HootSuite or Buffer to automate the distribution process.
Submit directly to industry curators and traditional media; a quick covering email to editors will usually do the trick. Remember, these guys are hungry for content for their websites and magazines. Ensure that your note is personalised to them and explains why your post is relevant to their audience.
Finally, ask influencers if they would be happy to share or retweet your content. Look for the number of followers for an indication of their influence.
Useful for your Blogging?
If you found these tips helpful and interesting, please share this article with your network to help them with their blogs and Inbound Marketing or Content Marketing strategy.
Best of luck with your blogging, and let me know how my tips have helped you grow your business.
Read More:
- Increase Sales With Content Marketing
- Use Your Blog To Build Your Building Products Brand
- 3 Easy Tips To Boost Your PR In The Construction Media
About Insynth
At Insynth we deliver a predictable flow of leads, customers, and specifications for building product brands through our inbound marketing approach, proven to reach a technically demanding audience.
We use the latest marketing techniques such as construction inbound marketing, to equip building product companies to grow sustainability in this era of digital transformation.
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major in construction marketing. We have a proven formula of bringing a variety of functionalities together including CRM Implementation, Web Design, Sales Automation, SEO, and Email Marketing to achieve your ultimate aim: Growing your business and gaining new specifiers and customers.