I recently received a very insightful question about blogging from a respected coworker, now successful COO. I omitted a few details to preserve a time investment and confidentiality but I think this might be helpful for anyone with a similar question.
The question
I am not sure how we can utilize blogging to drive revenue in our business model. We have limited resources and have to utilize our time in the smartest way to get revenue.
Given the fact that our business purpose is to help small to medium sized companies accelerate revenue growth. We do this by refining their go to market strategies to increase sales traction, build high performing teams by utilizing our Holistic approach to recruiting, motivate and retain high performance individual by building word-class compensation programs, global expansion by utilizing tiger teams of highly experienced sales folk in specific regions. How would we employ a blogging strategy here?
My response
aloha XXXXX, great question, the idea behind blogging is less about blogging and more about becoming a thought leader in your niche. Being a thought leader enables you to connect with individuals and companies that otherwise might never visit your website or hear your message any other way.
A thought leader is the person we all think of when it comes to just about any area of life where expertise commands a premium. It could be that really great home builder or architect. It could the genius pastry maker down the block. The point is to share your wisdom through insightful articles that help people do their jobs, perform at the best and in your case, “help small to medium sized companies accelerate revenue growth.”
Blogs are the platform that allows anyone to easily publish what they have to say. Blogs push your content out to search engines more effectively than traditional websites. Instead of driving traffic to your website, blogs drive your content outwards where the people you want to attract are searching for it.
Blogs can be viewed as simple-to-use, personal publishing systems. They enable just about anyone the ability to quickly and easily publish their expert commentary, facts, advice, how-to’s and opinions to a large, virtually unlimited audience. Blogs often have a certain feel or trust when they come from the actual leaders in the company rather than the typical marketing machine.
Your writings can be very insightful for readers trying to learn whether or not they want to do business with you. Many researchers, analysts and people reading information on the web have a growing aversion to marketing dialog. That’s why they seek out information in the CEO/COO’s blogs or sometimes more importantly, customer’s blogs.
In fact, most people prefer getting their information from third party sources rather than directly from companies. For example, would you rather learn about that new car from the company that sells the car or from people that have purchased the car? Would you prefer to make a buying decision based on marketing material or reviews from car owners that are using the product everyday to haul their kids around? In your research as a consumer do get better insight from Ford.com or ConsumerReports.com?
I think the point is that we all like the option of having both. You can easily provide both by having your website and a blog. As more and more people use Google to research individuals and companies, opportunities emerge to have your message read in context when potential clients are reading.
Google considers blogs important due to the nature of blogs. Meaning, blogs are often updated 3-4 times a week and Google indexes fresh content more quickly. Content updates in the search results used to take a month and now your blog post can be found in a couple of hours or instantly through real-time blog search engines like Technorati. Portions of blog posts can be re-purposed in other sites like linkedin.com thus maximizing your valuable time.
Writing relevant and insightful articles to help your potential customers is also the right thing to do. People who read something useful on your blog will bookmark it, subscribe to your feed so they get updates each time your publish something new or better yet, talk about it with their peers. They may also comment on your blog post thus creating community.
These comments and or feed subscribers are part of the economy of blogging. For example, if I visit your blog and see that 20 people left comments, I’m much more likely to read what you have to say knowing others are also interested. XXXXXX, I already perceive you as a thought leader in your space. That’s why I brought up blogging after not seeing one on our site.
You asked very specifically how you could employ a blogging strategy based on your business purpose above. Here’s some specific suggestions that I think would be worthy of further consideration:
- Write A blog post with the top five things a company can do in today’s business environment to accelerate their growth.
- Define what you mean by a “Holistic approach to recruiting” in a blog post. Then cross-link that post to a paragraph you also write to support the definition for “recruiting” on this page at Wikipedia. Explain succinctly what this approach means. Link back to your post for more details ad additional reading. Links to your blog from Wikipedia articles are valuable.
- In a blog post on your blog, define the “Ten Essential Components of a World-Class Compensation Program”
- Write a new article defining “Tiger Teams” at Wikipedia. Link this article back to your website and blog page.
- In each of the posts above, include specific examples or links to case studies where you have already performed this service. Also include relevant resources you use regularly. These actions combined with the intention of helping people, will drive revenue in your business model by providing you with qualified leads for your service.
So you understand where I’m coming from, I’m much less of a blog advocate than a marketing consultant or business coach. I use blogs, social networks and web 2.0 tools to re-level the playing field for small businesses daily. I’m especially effective with companies that are working with limited resources and I’m always available for companies that keep me on retainer.
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