Nearly every purchase today begins online. In those situations, customers need support to make decisions. A well-designed company blog is key but those fresh, helpful insights don’t just happen. It takes a solid content strategy to make an impact.
The benefits of a company blog are powerful:
- Establishes your business as an authority
- Drives traffic to your website
- Converts traffic into leads
But so many companies have trouble figuring out what they should say on their blog. They begin with some good ideas but they often hit a wall on creativity. I’ve had many marketers tell me they “just can’t write another post about {the product}.”
The root of this challenge is the lack of defined content strategy. Starting with a solid foundational plan mitigates running out of ideas.
A well-cultivated content strategy is like a GPS for publishing helpful information that attracts target customers.
A written content strategy defines:
- Who you are as a brand
- Why people choose you over your competitor
- Who your target customers are
- Where your target customers spend time
- How you’ll attract more customers
- What your specific goals are
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Relevant, holistic content attracts and engages today’s modern, hyper-connected buyers.
The following 10 content strategy tips will improve your company blog process and jumpstart more of its benefits.
1. Illustrate Examples (Stories) of “Why Buy Here”
Stories move people. Persuasion is the centerpiece of sales and a good story can often influence a buyer’s decision.
I was just listening to Alec Baldwin’s podcast, “Here’s the Thing,” where he’s interviewing the great director, William Friedkin (French Connection, The Exorcist). Mr. Friedkin tells a story of how they were able to film the chase scene in French Connection when no one at the city would give them a permit. The podcast was recorded live and you can hear a pin drop during his telling of the story. (If you get a chance, take a listen here).
A good example of “Why Buy Here” can be told via your customers’ experiences. What stories can you tell?
Pro Tip: Spend a week just witnessing those opportunities. Put no pressure on yourself to “fine one.” The following week, that intention to witness will still be there and with practice, stories will begin to present themselves.
2. Offer up “Problems We Solve”
When you pinpoint a handful of specific, common problems your customers have and solve those with content, it helps them think through their purchase decision.
Offer a “Problems We Solve” tab on your site and write a post solving each one. Your customers will appreciate your thoughtfulness and show gratitude by inquiring further.
3. Use Clickable Headlines
Let’s face it, good headlines rule the school. I’m not talking about click-bait headlines that trick readers into something unworthy of their attention. I’m talking about headlines that make the customer say, “Wow, this is exactly what I need, they must have been reading my mind.”
There are many different ways to create a clickable headline and I’ve found this formula works great:
Number + Adjective + Keyword + Rationale + Promise
(Example: 6 Savvy Facebook Marketing Steps to Increase Engagement)
4. Focus on Hyper-Local Content
Hyper-local content is that which is created from the happenings within the “four walls” of your business.
You’ve most likely heard a lot about transparency.
The situations and events of daily operations may not seem very exciting to you, but to your customers and prospects, it’s a way of peeking behind the curtain to assess just how authentic you are.
People are looking for answers so that they feel more comfortable about their decision. Improve your company blog by publishing hyper-local content that engages customers’ in your brand.
5. Require Employee Engagement
An integral part of hyper-local content is your team.
In today’s sales process, salespeople are teachers. Their experiences with customers are valuable and establishing a process to capture those moments is powerful. Improve your company blog, by engaging employees in content creation.
Before you start though, review company culture. Never start any employee-participation program if your culture isn’t ready for the klieg light of the Internet.
Here are 6 tips to encourage employee engagement:
- Establish WIIFM (What’s in it for me)
- Encourage growth of personal brand
- Weave participation into job duties and pay plan
- Recognize and reward 4-5 star reviews
- Make content submission easy
- Reinforce the value of their participation by showing evidence of its effect
6. Unearth Customer-Generated Content
“A brand is no longer what we tell consumers it is. It’s what consumers tell each other it is.”
When prospects witness other customers having positive experiences, it adds another layer of credibility and trust.
Common examples of customer-generated content are online reviews and customer testimonials. Leverage both of these by building a “review funnel” to capture your happy, loyal customers’ feedback.
A well-designed review funnel will also recover unhappy customers before they vent online.
Improve your company blog by creating posts around the specific 5-star experiences your customers describe.
7. Optimize for Search
The web is driven by quality content and the more you understand how to optimize your posts, the better chance you’ll have of Google recognizing them.
The WordPress plugin called Yoast SEO is an easy way to analyze and optimize your posts. It provides guidance and best practices for optimal results.
8. Publish Regularly
Be consistent. Pick a comfortable frequency and stick to it. If you can swing twice a week, great. If you can only do once a week, that works too.
As time goes on, you’ll find inspiration in different places and that will influence your publishing frequency.
Pro Tip: Use a content calendar to plan out your monthly posts (including social media). A content calendar is invaluable, especially if you have two or more contributors. It’s a touchstone for planning and publishing, and helps keep things moving forward.
9. Consider a Video Blog
Let’s face it, writing isn’t for everyone. If you or someone on your team feels more comfortable using video, go for it! Even if it’s foreign to you, video does gets easier with time.
Video content is ranked high on social media platforms so be sure to upload directly to those channels.
10. Syndicate on Social
Publishing your blog posts on social media increases your reach and readership. Social is one of the main factors that search engines use to determine authoritative content.
Consistent clicks on your posts from social to your website increase your ranking with search engines and do wonders for your visibility online.
Pro Tip: Facebook is pay to play. Use Facebook Ads to boost your blog posts so that more people see your awesome content and engage with it. Set your ads to target ideal customers and spend $5-$10 per day (only for a day or two to start) to increase engagement and clicks.
As always, some great tips here – thank you! I particularly like the idea of using a customer testimonial as the basis for a blog that explains why the business is different from others, how it works and why customers love it! Great idea to put into practice – thank you!
Hi Julia, I’m glad to hear you’re going to try that customer testimonial idea! I’d love to know how it works out for you 🙂