Blogging

B2B Marketing has come a long way over the last decade. With everyone staring into their mobile devices and laptops all day long, it’s only natural for content to become a crucial part of all B2B Marketing strategies. Blogging is a key part of this evolving game.

In a nutshell, blog posts are a way to convey messages. These pieces of text are usually around 900 words long, but they can also venture past the 2000-word mark. What’s the right way to do it? Even the “Google Experts” are divided. But one thing is for sure. If your blog posts have been written poorly, are littered with typos, and have no clear message, they will probably damage your brand. In extreme cases, your target audience will blacklist you and refuse to give your website a second chance. So how do you avoid such situations? Let’s take a closer look at what’s needed to get on the right track.

Before even getting started, you will need to optimize your blog. This means that your blog must have a “Subscribe Now” button, which helps in building an audience. Communication tools include comments sections, tweet now widgets, and social media sharing buttons.

The Editorial Calendar

The editorial calendar is a crucial part of any blogging operation. You many have the best writers, but you won’t get far without proper research and planning. Firstly, you will need to research your competition and decide what added value your product brings to the table. Once you have established that, you will need to define a target audience. Only when this is done, you can create a solid blogging strategy that covers top-of-the-funnel content to bring in traffic, along with bottom-of-the-funnel content to engage and make them try your product (or move to other webpages).

Writers

This may sound pretty obvious, but having the right content writers is vital to having a successful blog. Many organizations today have good and talented writers. But are they the right ones for the job? More often than not, this is not the case. Unfortunately HR managers are busy finding the right social fit, while the professional aspect is completely neglected. A good writer should be an avid reader. He/she should also be able to ask the right questions before even getting started. Only experienced writers, as weird as they may be, can provide you with optimized and targeted blog posts. Pick wisely.

Distribution

Managed to create great content and put up impressive blog posts? Splendid. But who is reading your content? With more and more organizations focusing on putting out new content on a weekly basis (sometimes more), you will need to distribute your blog posts to the right groups for optimal exposure.

Post Frequency

How many blog posts a week? This question is very popular in B2B Marketing circles and it doesn’t have one answer. How big is your company? How large is your target audience? How many writers do you have? Are they in risk of burnout? There are many things to be taken into consideration here. That being said, most experts believe that your Blog section needs to be updated at least once a week with an optimized content piece that is showcasing your product or educating your target audience. Only blog posts with added value will help you create and build a dedicated audience of potential leads.

Analysis

Ok. You are putting out impressive blog posts, your CEO is praising your blogging efforts, and you are feeling happy. But how are your blog posts really doing? Google Analytics needs to be installed to give you actionable insights about your blogging performance metrics – unique visitors and time on page being the most crucial ones. It’s highly recommended to break down the data and make the required tweaks to your Editorial Calendar on a quarterly basis. Only a proactive approach will eventually help your organization become a thought leader in its space and take your brand performance to the next level.

The Bottom Line

Blogging isn’t rocket science. But it needs to be done correctly to create a positive effect on your lead generation, brand awareness, and conversion metrics. Never be afraid to reach out to professionals with proven results, in-house or freelancers. Many organizations don’t feel the need to supplement their on-premise teams with skilled digital agencies or freelancers. But this can prove to be a costly error. Having a consistent blogging pipeline with a unified tone can be the difference between a good year and a spectacular year with endorsements from internationally-recognised influencers in your field.

Now is the time to be proactive.