You Need More than Writing Skills for Effective Blog Writing

By Rachel Parker

As we all know, art has a funny way of imitating life. In my case, my favorite sitcom is the ideal framework to discuss my evolution from confused startup newbie to an experienced, professional content marketer.

The popular British sitcom The IT Crowd was (and is) one of my favorites for a lot of reasons. The hilarious show (which you can check out on Netflix) is about a trio of basement-dwelling IT professionals and the daily indignities they suffer. Their leader, the utterly delightful and ignorant Jen, knows absolutely nothing about IT, computers, or the internet. My reason for loving the show initially is going to lead to a somewhat ugly confession: In 2000, I was Jen.

In 2000, I landed my first “dot com” job (how every tech company was basically defined back then). Immediately, I found myself thrust into a tech department by way of a staffing agency to “help out” the stressed-out and overburdened department director. To say that I had no idea what I was doing (my background was in film and theater) is an understatement.

Because my boss was patient (and quite honestly, desperate) and because I am inherently curious, a strong listener, and organized: I facilitated projects for his team for almost two years. Eventually, company directors and department heads decided that I had a more natural fit for the marketing team (they were right), and I changed roles.

Making the Transition to Digital Marketing

I never really left that team behind, though. While I started out as a Jen—disoriented, confused, and definitely ill-prepared—I left with a strong vocabulary about the internet. I also gained an unshakable knowledge about web infrastructure (having helped write up several project plans and research more than my fair share of partners and vendors). Lastly, I had a newfound confidence in my ability to digest a lot of information very, very quickly. As it turns out: Those are all ideal skills for a marketing professional, and my new career as a content marketer took shape.

For over 10 years, I had a successful career as an internal marketing communications and branding specialist. I worked alongside product engineers, CEOs, designers, sales teams, and even internal finance groups to hone and perfect corporate messaging. As content marketing evolved, I started creating blog content and content calendars as well (I’ve always had a solid side hustle as a writer).

Marcom folks have to (or at least should) interact with nearly everyone in the company. In all my jobs, and at every startup, I learned a lot about the pain points each confronted. I learned from product engineers about the awesome new bells and whistles added to products that needed to be communicated to our clients. I also often found myself in the role of the bad messenger. I was often the person who had to tell those same product teams that while those bells and whistles may have been innovative, none of the customers wanted or needed them.

Because of where I sat organizationally, and especially because I had to play catch-up in my career very early on: I have developed an unusual skillset as a now-full-time content marketer and blog writer.

I am sympathetic and invested in almost every single step of the product development and sales chain. Which is precisely what makes me a fast learner when I start working with our clients.

Content Marketing Requires Informed Listening

As a content marketer: Informed listening is the best skill to have. I can sit in front of almost any business leader of a small or large company and ask the right questions to educate myself and harvest that company’s unique narrative.

The challenge of corporate messaging strategy is how to carve out and communicate a company’s unique values, objectives, successes, and milestones, and how to deliver those messages to the right audiences in the right way.

Many writers do not have business backgrounds. Many of them study journalism (which is fine). Before it occurred to me that I could make a living as a blogs writer and content marketing pro: I had already logged over a decade of working in several industries. I worked alongside many CEOs (as both a consultant and direct hire), observed corporate culture from the inside, and served as a marketing director at several of them. That’s the kind of insight that helps me tell a company’s unique story today.

What Content Marketing Should Accomplish

Most companies face the same set of challenges, even if those companies are in different industries and sell vastly different products or services. The discoveries (that’s still how I think of them) I gain from clients that range from educational facilities to SaaS companies all follow a similar pattern:

• Your customers are your greatest asset
• Until you ask customers what they like and what they need, you’re just guessing
• All companies benefit equally from evergreen web content
• There is no one-size-fits-all content plan; what works for your company may not (and probably won’t) work for everyone else
• Content marketing is a vital component—but not the only component—of a tactical marketing strategy
• If you don’t believe your company has a story worth telling, you’re just not looking in the right places

A Content Marketing Agency: The Set of Unbiased, Third-Party Eyes You Need

A few years ago, I was sitting in a meeting with the leaders of a relatively new content management publishing platform, deciding whether or not I’d come aboard as their marketing consultant. I learned that the founder had developed the SEO strategy for one of the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailers. The problem? It didn’t say that anywhere on the company’s website. While that was hardly the point of the meeting, I discovered a value proposition that easily, and instantly, differentiated them from the dozens of other competing platforms in their market.

A skilled and experienced content marketer like me will instinctively root out your company values and facilitate tactics and programs that evangelize those values. Going back to our bulleted list above, a good content marketing agency will:

• Develop buyer personas based on your gold-standard clients
• Conduct effective market and buyer persona research that uncovers your company’s core values
• Create a customized, cost-effective content marketing strategy, and potentially an overall marketing strategy
• Execute a content strategy that includes appropriate SEO, social media, and push media (including email) that’s appropriate for your business
• Manage a content calendar and produce both timely and evergreen blogs
• Uncover your company’s unique and compelling narrative (trust me, you have one)

Your Success is Our Success

Anyone—literally anyone—can stuff keywords into a random article, plunk it on your website, call it a blog (it’s not), and spend thousands promoting it on social media. Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of our clients have experienced with content marketers by the time they consider whether or not to work with a qualified professional (of course, I mean us).

The only success that matters in our industry is your success. Fortunately, we have more ways than ever to measure whether or not our work for you is impactful. We can measure SEO results on SERPs, we can measure site conversions, we can measure clicks, shares, and so much more.

When you work with us, you’ll also work with a team that has real-life experience in a number of startup and corporate environments. We know the pain of the tech team, your devs, your sales folks, and your founders.

We also know how to turn that pain into something transformative, both for your internal culture and bottom line.

Speaking of pain points, this goes out to all of our IT folks in the house:

Until next time!

If you’re ready to start your company’s content transformation today, we’re here to help. Hit us up by email or phone at 314-276-6500.