Lately, we've been recommending blogs to a wide range of clients and potential clients. And in all kinds of businesses: B2B, retail chains, non-profits, restaurants, furniture. There's a different strategic reason for each one. Which is to say, if you haven't considered making a company blog part of your marketing mix, you probably should.
For one thing, blogs offer you a chance to show your thought leadership and give potential clients an insight into how you think. It's an opportunity to be helpful and share your knowledge with others, which is one of the fundamentals of social media. This is especially true in business to business companies, because you get a chance to show how your smart people can help other businesses with their ideas. If you are a consulting or service oriented company this may scare you, because ideas are really the product you sell. It shouldn't. When you help a company solve a problem they've been having through an idea in your blog, they will remember you fondly when they need deeper help. Or they may find that they can't pull it off on their own and will hire you to show them how to do it right.
Blogs are a great way to engage in conversations with both your current clients and potential clients. As outside people begin to comment your posts and your people comment back, conversations are started. This may lead to deeper dialogs through other channels. Or it may just become a way for people to feel a connection to your company and the people in it. Either way, you are now talking with potential clients you'd never have gotten to speak with and talking with current clients in different ways that may lead to deeper engagements.
Also, a blog is a great SEO vehicle. It gets your name showing up in search results. The search spiders love blogs, For one thing blogs are mostly text based with pictures and videos attached. Also, they have fresh content showing up on a regular basis. You won't get a ton of traffic right when you start your blog, but it will grow over time as more people find you and you have more content that will appear in "long tail" searches. This is one of the reasons you should start your blog now, so you can start building your content library. Eventually that will drive traffic to you through search. The Yaffe Group owns five different websites related to our business. This blog gets more traffic than the other four sites combined. By a lot. A good percentage of that traffic comes from search – people looking for something on Google, Yahoo, Bing and the rest. So, a lot of people who never would have come to our company related sites, discover our blog daily. You can put that to work for you, too.
People want to know what companies are all about these days. Are you operating green? Are you a good corporate citizen? How do you look at the world? A blog gives your company a human face. By having different people in your company contribute to a blog, readers start to think of your company as those real people, rather than as some cold, faceless entity. It humanizes the company and shares your corporate culture with others. So, if you have a fun company/product like a restaurant chain, you can do fun things with your blog to put that culture forward. If you're a serious consultant who helps with million dollar problems, you can put a very thoughtful, serious and intelligent face on your company through your blog.
Finally, in his article "Recruit a Virtual Sale Force With Your Blog" Mark Stevens talks about how your blog readers become virtual salespeople for your company by recommending your blog to others. Every day his marketing blog gets thousands of new readers. Most of those came there because someone else shared a link with them. He talks about how as these people become part of their virtual family, some of them eventually need or want services his company offers. He gets hundreds of people he didn't even know were reading his blog showing up at their site each year looking for services.
So, what are you waiting for. Figure out what blog strategy works best for you and start using one to help your business today. Need help figuring out that strategy? Well, you could be one of the people who read our blog and showed up asking us for that service. You know, just to prove Mark's point.
Mike McClure, Yaffe Blog Editor & Strategist
Nice post Mike!I think this might help answer the concerns of attorneys and other professional service providers.
Thank you, Lori. Yes, it’s an issue that marketing and consulting firms like ours have to deal with as well. But, once you realize you can help someone with your thought leadership AND that can help you get more clients in the long run, it gets a lot less scary.
Great stuff, as always, Mike.
I was pretty torn on starting a blog, but since Google has introduced Video Sitemapping, I feel like it’s no longer an option for someone doing video (if it ever was).
I hadn’t thought about sharing as being a virtual salesperson… there’s a lot of strength to that concept.
Thank you, Matt, for your kind words. I think the virtual salesperson is something that can’t be ignored.
Looking into the Google Video Sitemapping stuff – thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Mike
I will be asked to do everything the best I think! Can read your blog with my own than I found too much difference! I admire you!
We do indeed have a no shoes policy.Guests are advised in advance to bring their slippers if they choose.I grew up in Canada where lines of shoes and slippers by the door was the norm.