Create useful blog posts and properly them to increase brand awareness. Photo credit: Sean MacEntee
Content marketing is a popular marketing strategy – and for good reason. By creating and marketing worthwhile content, organizations can increase brand awareness, lead generation, engagement and sales. Ideally, organizations create content that’s helpful to their audience and distribute it through websites, social media, guest blog posts and other means.
Blog posts are often a pillar of a company’s content marketing strategy. A well-developed blog post can attract thousands of visitors who may share the post across social media. While content marketing has become pervasive, the quality of the content and the quality of marketing that content is uneven. Some organizations produce blog posts that garner thousands of page views and are shared across social media.
Jeremy Duvall of Zapier talked to several content specialists with successful blogs to learn their secrets and how they overcame content marketing challenges. Here’s of synopsis of key recommendations.
Focus. Focus on a particular niche. Buffer found that its blog initially failed to gain traction due to a lack of focus. Its posts covered a wide range of topics. Its solution was to concentrate on social media and content marketing.
Readers should be able to discern your blog’s area of expertise when they glance at a few recent blog posts. If they can’t figure out our blog’s niche after seeing the last five posts, you have an identity problem. Brands spread across different topics can create separate blogs for each. Buffer’s second blog covers transparency and workplace culture.
Create value. Provide practical advice and detailed research. The goal is to create a post that someone would email to a friend. While posting frequently and posting high-quality posts is challenging, Buffer’s head of content Courtney Seiter recommends aiming for posts with undisputed substance.
The killer B’s. Groove decided to revamp its blog after it failed to generate leads for its helpdesk software. It discovered that its most popular posts either challenged one of three B’s: behavior, beliefs or belongings, or solved a “burning problem.”
The company’s blog posts now try to delve into one of those areas. Its post, “How We Got 1,000+ Subscribers from a Single Blog Post in 24 Hours,” falls into the deep, “burning problem” category by exploring the challenge of attracting email subscribers.
Its blog is now the company’s top growth driver.
Link to products. Jimmy Daly, head of content at Vero, recommends blog posts that relate to your company or its products in order to drive conversions. It’s better to merely refer to a product, and avoid posting content that’s sales focused. For instance, in a post on tips to improve emails, Vero didn’t cite its own email services, yet the post was a perfect fit for the business’s email marketing services.
Controversy. Don’t be afraid to be controversial or write posts that run counter to current trends, says John Collins, managing editor of the Intercom blog. One of its most popular blogs was titled “The End of Apps as We Know Them.” Another was “Growth Hacking is Bulls hit.” They are thought-provoking posts written by industry experts — not click-bait meant to boost page views. But make sure the writer is qualified to tackle the subject and has arguments to back up their positions.
Repurposing Blog Posts
Repurposing high-quality blog posts, not posting more frequently, is the key to building your audience, other experts say. Will Blunt, in an article for HubSpot, suggests ways to repurpose published content.
Email newsletters. Instead of just announcing company news or sending sales pitches, repurpose blog content through email newsletters. A short introduction from your most recent post with a link to the blog can significantly increases blog readership.
Social media. Share posts on social media, but don’t repeatedly share the same heading from the original post on every network. Also, try social media tools, such as HubSpot or Buffer, to help schedule tweets or posts in bulk.
Templates. Create a check list in PDF form that lists recommendations of a blog post, while subtly including your branding message. Readers will have a downloadable, printable file and will be more likely to follow the post’s recommendations.
Bottom Line: Creating useful blog posts and properly marketing the content can increase brand awareness, lead generation, engagement and sales.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
