5 Reasons to Encourage Your Sales Team to Blog

It makes sense. As marketers, we already have full plates. The thought of adding an entirely new responsibility to the mix would seem pretty daunting.

That said, a commitment to blogging can yield some pretty powerful results , and while it is -- yes -- a commitment that takes some time and effort, there are ways to lighten the load. Enter: sales team.

If you have a sales force, don't underestimate its ability to create content. In fact, asking your sales staff to contribute blog content can have quite a few advantages.

Tom Humphries, owner of a commercial signage company called 360 Signs, has had a lot of success with this tactic. Tom, who was recently featured in a case study about 360 Signs' success with inbound marketing and HubSpot , says he aims to publish two blog articles per week on the 360 Signs blog, and he has even incorporated blogging into his sales reps' job resonsibilities. As a result of his commitment to content creation, Tom has generated double the number of leads since he started using inbound marketing.

Advantages of Blog Content Contributions From Sales

We've compiled a list of advantages to asking your sales team to blog, based on Tom's input and from our own experience at HubSpot.  

1. Drives More Content: More contributors means more people to create content, which is a good thing because research has shown that keeping your blog fresh by publishing content regularly leads to better blogging success.  

2. Divides Responsibility: More contributors also means the responsibility of producing a steady stream of new content can be divided among multiple people, meaning the burden doesn't fall on just one person within your organization. Three cheers for the division of labor!    

3. Offers Unique Perspectives: One of the major benefits of Sales' blog contributions is diverse content from different points of view. Multiple perspectives can help make a blog more dynamic and interesting.  

4. Improves Sales' Industry Knowledge: Tom pointed out to us that because his sales reps blog, they learn more about the sign business in order to craft effective blog articles. As a result, their increased knowledge of the industry has helped them to become more effective salespeople.  

5. Generates More Leads and Sales: Tom also notes that his sales team has really bought into the concept because they've seen firsthand how blogging can generate more leads and sales. Seeing the results of their efforts motivates them to keep blogging.

A number of blogging platforms and tools today, such as HubSpot's Blogging Tool , make it very simple for multiple users to collaborate on a single blog as well as measure the effectiveness of blogging in general.

So how can you get your sales team to buy into the concept of blogging and contributing content? Try offering incentives such as making a contest out of it and offering rewards to reps who contribute top articles, or consider evaluating their blog contributions in employee performance reviews.

What techniques have you used to encourage Sales to blog, and what results have you experienced?

Photo Credit: David Friel