Many businesses have a corporate blog set up on their existing websites, but aren’t quite sure how to use them to enhance the sales and marketing effort. Most of the time, this hesitation revolves around their blog content topics: “What on earth should we write about?”
When thinking of starting a blog, create a content ideas list. An outsourced blogger can help.
I have been serving as an Indianapolis blogger for my own site, as well as a ghost blogger /outsourced blogging resource for several clients over the years. Content idea generation remains one of the biggest challenges of the corporate blogging effort.
What would I love to tell those businesses that are hesitant to blog? It’s more important to say something on your blog than it is to say something spectacular.
What are some of the reasons I encourage businesses to blog?
- Provides fresh content for visitors browsing your website
- Gives search engines something new to index your site
- Allows your business to position itself as an industry expert
- Shows involvement in the community
- Provides a personality to your corporate brand
- Drives prospective customers to an inquiry or purchase
- Increases followers and fans on social media sites
- Supplements other marketing efforts
- Blog content can be re-used for other marketing purposes
When one of my clients begins a blogging contract with AimFire Marketing, we sit down and discuss a blog content strategy. This process helps to generate ideas for future content, and can help me guide the planning of the content calendar for the client’s blog posts. Even if the client team comes up with few blog post ideas, my job as the client’s blogger is to read industry-related news and content to come up with relevant blog posts that relate to the issues and concerns of the client’s industry and customer audience.
As part of my Indianapolis blogging packages, I also help my clients determine a blog frequency that makes sense for their budget. A daily post may be too much, but a monthly post may not be enough. For most clients, I recommend a weekly or bi-weekly post in order to maintain consistent communication. Blogs can be written and scheduled well in advance, or created on-the-fly to allow for commenting and responding to the latest industry news.
While you don’t want to post just anything on your blog, some content ideas include helpful tips, major news or event announcements, project examples or industry trends. Some important things to remember are to blog consistently, remain casual and educational in tone, and stay away from too much self-promotion. Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to becoming a well-known blog.