Reaching Your Audience with a Corporate Blog
This article was a collaboration between two of our interns, Emme Leeker and Katie Zhang, will a little help from Rachel Parker. In it they capture the core idea of having a corporate blog to drive engagement and, ultimately, business.
With the recent shift to virtual work environments and increased internet usage, there has never been a more critical time to promote your brand online. If you haven’t yet invested any resources in content marketing, now is the time to start. Many marketers often ask us how content marketing, and a blog in particular, will increase brand and product engagement.
Blog content is an excellent way for potential customers to discover you. Consider what you do before purchasing a car. You get input from your peers, read about the mileage, and research other details of a model before you buy. Similarly, consumers and professionals read blogs before making any financial commitments.
Your blog is potentially one of the most cost effective tools to reach your target audience. Developing valuable, relevant, and consistent blog content that can:
- Engage target audience
- Drive website traffic
- Generate sales leads
- Position your organization as an expert
Your blog can be more useful for your company than you might realize.
SEO and Blog Content: How Businesses use Blogs in 2020
Businesses use blogs to build brand reputation and articulate their value proposition. However, developing content topics and copy that attracts readers, while folding in SEO, can be challenging. Experienced content writers:
- Understand what customers need to learn
- Know how customers execute their research
- Are experts in the constantly evolving search engine algorithms
Along with consistent blog content, you also need an effective, well-researched SEO strategy. In fact, statistics show that 72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO tactic.
By analyzing the relationship between your content and how your site visitors find you, you will gain insights into how to improve your content and increase user engagement experience.
Blogs also can help increase on site sales and conversions. Often referred to as sales enablement, blog content is used as a resource to help salespeople educate their buyers. Just like you make sell sheets available for download on your website, blog articles support the sales process by making it easier to convert visitors into customers. For example, a manufacturing company should share examples about how customers used their product to overcome daily obstacles.
Blogs also establish your business, or you, as industry thought leaders. Your blog should focus on educating the reader rather than hard selling. Good rules of thumb to follow for blog maintenance include:
- Posting new content consistently
- Sharing it in a variety of different forums (like social media)
- Maintaining a high standard of writing quality
When your articles provide educational resources to your potential buyers, the reader associates your company as an industry leader. The better the content, the more likely they are to return when they have questions. This not only establishes credibility for the company, but also keeps the reader coming back to your blog.
Measuring Your Blog’s Performance and ROI
Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you are not keeping score, you’re just practicing”? Keeping score is as important as measuring the effectiveness of your blog. Google Analytics is a cheap and easy way to evaluate your web traffic.
There are several key metrics that can tell you how well the blog is performing including:
- Pageviews: number of times visitors look at your blog page or pages
- Average time on a page: Total time visitors spend on a single page
- Average pages per session: Total pages visitors view in one session
- New visitors and returning visitors: Number of new and returning visitors to your site
- Goal conversion rate: Tracks when visitors respond to your call to action.
- Bounce rate: the percentage of visits in which a visitor leaves your blog page without browsing any further.
Analytics can also measure your user’s path through your website. Whatever tool you use, you should generate reports regularly to learn:
- Where your website visitors are coming from
- How they navigate through your site
- Where they exit
While analytics are critical, measuring engagement with your readers is also important. Keeping track of how often content is shared to other media platforms gives insight to how many readers found the blog helpful and are interested in the topic. The audience will view your website as a valuable and trustworthy information source when their questions are answered using your blog.
A reliable content marketing expert can set up and mange your website analytics, identify areas to improve, and benchmark your results against competitors.
How to Step up Your Corporate Blogging Game
To step up your blogging game:
- Do a basic SEO analysis and content analysis.
- Use persona research to find out who your audience is, and write for them.
- Create long-form, useful content.
- Follow a content calendar, and be sure you are published on a regular schedule.
- Pay attention to site flow—where should a reader go next on your site?
- Promote your blog and articles off your website (social media, reddit, etc.).
Buyer Personas
In order to create content, you have to know who your audience is. To provide content that will add value for your audience, use persona research and write for them. Create a few fictional representations of your ideal customers (and non-ideal ones as well) based on your data.
Long-Form Blogs and Content
Streamline and create long-form, useful content to attract customers and retain them. Blog posts ranging anywhere from 1,200 to 10,000 words are usually considered long-form content. Some examples are white papers and case studies. Long-form content increases reader engagement, authority and expertise, and online visibility. This will help build lasting relationships with clients and form genuine partnerships.
Create and Follow a Content Calendar
Following a content calendar and publishing articles on a regular schedule increases the likelihood for increasing your search engine page results (SERPs). Also, your readers enjoy consistency, so it is important to publish content on a routine basis.
Create a Path for Your Readers to Follow
Pay attention to site flow. All content should contain a call to action. This will drive the reader to contact the company, read the next article, etc. A blog should not stand alone. It should be a stepping stone in leading up to contact with the company sales team.
Include internal links to other pages on your site to engage the reader further, especially to highlight your products. The more information you give them up front, the further you push them through the marketing funnel and increase on site conversions.
“We’re Pretty Sure this Blog Thing is Not Working Out For Us.”
If you’ve had this thought, then here are a few of our ideas on how to revamp and use your blog with greater success.
Corporate blogs are only one part of an overall content marketing tool kit. There are numerous ways any company can promote to other businesses or consumers directly by producing content, such as publishing white papers, social media marketing, using infographics or videos, or newsletters.
It may help to republish that content on different sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook, or repurpose old blog posts to create graphics, presentations, or podcasts. Remember: it’s not enough to just produce content. Promote your blog and articles through channels such as social media, reddit, Quora, and other forums. Failing to do so is similar to printing magazines and then leaving them in the warehouse.
There’s no “one size fits all” strategy for content marketing. A corporate blog program may not be as central to your marketing strategy as promoting on social media or publishing an ebook, for example.
Your content strategy might include different priorities. But every company needs to implement a solid marketing strategy that dictates concrete marketing tactics with clear, measurable goals: plan, measure, adjust. Try something out, wait for the results over a period of 6-8 months, and adjust accordingly.
For every content marketing tool used, you should be asking, “How does this impact our strategy?” Include a budget and projected ROI in your plan to measure your goals, expectations vs. reality, and hard data.
Making Content Marketing Work for You
Using your blog successfully takes more time and commitment than just throwing up an article every once in a while. When executed professionally, content marketing can make a significant difference for your company. If this sounds like a lot to manage internally, you’re not alone. This is a role that most companies hire out for.
Working with a content agency will help save time, money, and produce better results. Contact us today, and learn how we can help you determine if your blog is really working for your company, and show you why or why not.
