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10 Ways Blogging Will Simplify Your Marketing Program

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hearst towerWhen marketers and small business owners consider blogging, they typically worry about added complexity. For a small team already managing many different channels and campaigns, content development can be a daunting undertaking.

It shouldn't be. A great business blog will actually help simplify your marketing program. Blogging is like elegant architecture -- it accomplishes multiple functional goals with minimal structural elements.

Consider an elegant building like the Hearst Tower in New York City. It manages to address various goals -- excellent workspace, environmentally sensitive construction and design, historic preservation and aesthetics -- with one simple, creative structure.

A business blog achieves elegance in the same way. It helps accomplish all of the goals listed below with a single thoughtful stream of content. A traditional marketing team would have to address each of these goals with a separate campaign:

1. Search Engine Optimization -- The best way to improve your SEO is to get more sites to link to your site. The best way to do that is to give people something remarkable to link to -- that means content, which means a blog.

2. Social Media Optimization -- If you're an active listener and contributor,it's not hard to build relationships on social media sites. But to get value out of these relationships as a business, you need to drive traffic back to your site from these sites. Your blog is the best way to do that.

3. Lead Generation -- This blog is one of HubSpot's most important sources of high-quality leads. People find this site because of the useful content, then they discover that we sell a related product. Many of those people request a product demo, and many of those people become customers.

4. Educational Value -- As part of the sales process, our sales team often needs to explain the inbound marketing vision. Fortunately, they don't spend too much time on that because the people who our sales team speaks with have read a lot about HubSpot and inbound marketing and understand its value based on what we've explained in webinars and blog articles like this one.

5. Thought Leadership
-- Every business wants to be a thought leader. It's a cornerstone of an effective marketing program. If people know you're leading the development of your industry, they'll gravitate to your business. Today you can't be a thought leader if you don't have a blog. The blog is where thought leadership happens.

6. Nurturing -- Nurturing is a critical part of any sales cycle. It's the process of educating your prospects and building trust with them until they're ready to buy. There are a lot of complex, expensive software applications that focus on lead nurturing, but few are more powerful than a simple RSS feed or email subscription to a high quality blog.

7. PR -- If you're writing arduous, multi-page pitches for news organizations, you're wasting your time. You should put your time and energy into blog posts that share new data, break news or offer unique new advice, then share that post in a quick email with your contacts at news organizations.

8. Brand Building -- Today great brands are built by a company's product and content. For example, at HubSpot, content and marketing education is a big part of our brand. These values are communicated almost entirely through the advice, data and media we publish on this blog.

9. Recruiting -- To recruit top talent, you need to be able to communicate your company's values and vision clearly. You can do that in an interview, but you can do it with far more depth and nuance in a blog. As a prospective employee, I'd feel a lot closer to a company that I can understand through 300 high-quality blog posts than through a single About Us page.

10. Company Communication
-- Many marketers overlook the internal value of a blog. If you want to make sure your entire company is up-to-date on domain knowledge and the current issues facing your industry, you should blog about them publicly. It's an elegant way of sharing information across your company. 

Yesterday New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote about a Great Inflection in the U.S. economy. He described it as a "mass diffusion of low-cost, high-powered innovation technologies ...transforming how business is done."

Blogging is a powerful, elegant technology at the core of this Great Inflection Friedman describes -- and one of the techniques that will help your business get through the Great Recession we're in the midst of.

Webinar: Advanced Business Blogging


Learn how to build your business blog into an inbound marketing machine.

Download the free webinar to learn how to create a thriving blog.


Posted by Rick Burnes on Mon, Dec 14, 2009 @ 07:30 AM

COMMENTS

Business owners are often puzzled when asked if they have a blog. Many still really don't understand that a blog can be a vital part of their business and significant benefit when approaching their marketing. Your list clearly defines many of those real benefits. Thanks.

posted on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 9:34 PM by Lindy Asimus


Blogging for business is a need to do, not a nice to have. 1. It helps you generate new customers 2. It makes your site sticky 3. It educates your prospects 4. It should include video of you and your customers 5. It gives you an opportunity to explain your "special sauce" to billions of people, some of whom are looking to buy your products or services.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 7:38 AM by Dan Tyre


If I had a dollar for every CEO that tells me they don't think "people read blogs" and they "don't see the value," I'd retire! Thanks for continuing to beat the drum about the true value of blogs and the many roles they serve.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 8:22 AM by Elizabeth Shea


The inherent SEO benefits alone should push people over the edge when it comes to the question "should we start blogging?" 
 
Machines and spiders aside blogging is a  
powerful way to show thought leadership in your industry and a great way to become the "go to" guys in whatever the vertical. 
 
Great Post. I'm going to pass this along to hesitant clients =)

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 8:22 AM by David Wells


Great post, Rick! In these tough economic times when companies are asked to do more with less (both budgets & personnel) this article will be a great help in convincing C-level execs that blogging is important.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:03 AM by Sharon Mostyn


If every business wants to get into all the social channels available today, they need to make sure whatever buzz they create is stacked along one thing which should be a blog, where you can connect with prospects and admirers.The points noted above are quite notable and can easily help people to integrate blogs in their marketing campaigns.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:06 AM by Akash Sharma


Good points...I will try to utilize them within my business. Thanks.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:57 AM by GetFreePublicity


Awesome blog. Blogging is Powerful! 
 
My business partners and I are actually giving away self-branded blogs for free in order to help solo-preneurs and business owners promote and grow their businesses through blogs. If you want to learn more about this or get a blog free to contact me.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 12:22 PM by Cory Shanes


Great post. We have just started using a blog and only recently forcing ourselves to take time and put out better content. All other points are worth keeping in mind as well.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 2:44 PM by Kevin Murray


We have been blogging for over a year now and it has been a fantastic addition to our business. As a real estate company we write about things happening in the industry, but also just general community events - it helps us to have an online presence and show that we are living & interested in the suburbs we sell in!

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 8:26 PM by Rachael Lord


A great blog about blogging that's worth tweeting!

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 9:52 PM by Melinda


I posted this on my PR community -www.theprdistinction.blogspot.com - blog! Trying to tell everybody ...I'm just saying.......  
 
 
 
Thanks.  
 
 
 
Pam Perry

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:48 PM by Pam Perry


Great post on the power of blogging. I especially like the fact that blog marketing, done effectively and consistently, is a great help in positioning yourself as an "industy-expert". Thanks for sharing.

posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:53 PM by Julie Weishaar


Great article! This is a must read for companies who are debating whether they should invest in a blog. All your points are very important, but I have found the last point about Company Communication especially so. By engaging with employees and current/potential customers, businesses are allowing individuals to see them in a different light and are able to shape opinions and perceptions.

posted on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 12:11 PM by PLANETwebfoot


Great post. Nothing better when answering a client question, then referring them to one of my blogposts.

posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 6:49 AM by Patty Knaggs


Just want to give feedback. This was a highly informative post. Thank you.

posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 3:32 PM by Leo Wilkes


This article hits the nail on the head while giving a clear explanation of the topic. With all the buzz going around it’s nice to see an informed piece on the subject. Please keep posting information on this. SEO Techniques 

posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 4:05 AM by SEO Techniques


I was stunned to learn that 1.3 million businesses in the UK don't even have an online presence. So that's just under 50% of trading businesses. What percentage of businesses have a blog? Being an avid social media'ite' - connecting with a large number of blogs over the past years - then I assumed that all businesses, by now would have caught onto the importance of how central a feature a 'blog' is. However, to many it's still very much unchartered waters. In my view - all businesses should have an online presence - and all online presences should include a blog! My article on how to get started blogging for beginner bloggers may prove useful... http://www.carvillcreative.co.uk/blog/20-tips-for-successful-blog-writing-from-a-relatively-new-blogger/

posted on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 3:47 AM by Michelle Carvill


In addition to your solid list, one thing blogging does: it forces you to THINK about your marketing program.  
 
As you decide your blog topics, you take a big picture view, look at audiences (internal and external), come up with a strategy for blogging, which dovetails back into the overall marketing plan.

posted on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 1:22 PM by Davina K. Brewer


Comments have been closed for this article.