Corporate Blogging: What’s in it for you?
Corporate blogging is where the profit is. Traditional blogging is getting really boring.It’s sucking the hell out of bloggers who truly had good intentions when they first launched out the net.
If you’re a small business owner, this would be the most important piece of content that will re-engineer your mind back to what it really takes to grow a small business. The truth is that being in a business with 5 – 10 staff members don’t mean you should do small things. You can break the status quo. Yes, you will!
I strongly believe that starting small makes you dynamic and humble. If you’ve always wanted to push beyond the boundaries of lack/failure, this post will show you how to get more leads, turn those leads into qualified customers and make them come back for more.
What is corporate blogging?
The term ‘corporate’ as used here doesn’t necessarily mean that your business has to involve a corporation or belong to one. Though, if you’ve the muscle, go ahead. Rather, in the concept of generating loyal customers for your business, you want to do in such a manner as to leverage tools, networks, opportunities that most people haven’t discovered yet. In nutshell, corporate blogging is all about planning, attraction, activation and retention and profit. These are also the four elements that make up the growth hacking business model.
Every successful software product out there became so, because of the strategic marketing and the people behind it. Haven’t you seen a great product fizzle out even though a lot of people would benefit from it? Before I explain the 4 elements that make up corporate blogging and how it can help you grow better, here’s a perfect example; Software Company that does it well:
A perfect case study – leadpages
Leadpages is a platform that allows bloggers and internet marketers to create lead capture pages. I like their blogging approach because it’s quite different from what the traditional bloggers do. When I say ‘traditional bloggers’ I’m referring to those people who installed WordPress, started writing regularly, comment on blogs and later on add affiliate banners on the blog sidebar. As you can see, these people have no definite plan.
And that’s the reason for failure in business and life. Okay, back to our case study. Since leadpages already has over 15,000 paying customers, they decided to leverage that loyal network.
Here’s what they did:
Every other week, they publish a Blog RoundUp: highlighting the best landing pages from their current users/customers. And guess what? Users will feel special and a chain reaction takes effect. This active community will start to share the post, especially those whose blogs were mentioned. Eventually, the post will go viral and before long, hundreds of new users have signed up to try the landing page templates.
Don’t just ignore this strategy because it works so well. In fact, let’s analyze one of their posts to see how strong it’s going right now.
You can see that the post already received close to 200 likes on Facebook and 20 tweets. Those numbers may not look impressive, but that’s not the point. The focus is the ‘quality’ of prospects who will sign up (activation) at the end of the day. Take this seriously: blogging isn’t about waking up every morning to write articles and get hundreds of comment. It’s not about ego/prestige, but about making return on your time investment.
As a small business owner, when you implement the 4 elements of corporate blogging, you can grow your business guaranteed. Yes, I believe that you’ve good intentions and you want to help people – but there is supposed to be a definite approach to achieving a goal.
Planning
Don’t just take a step, do it purposefully. That’s what planning is all about. From the leadpages’ case study above, 87% of their posts were aimed at experiments that had worked for their users. Corporate bloggers avoid using personal opinions and manipulated stats. They’ve to verify data sources before using them. In your small business, if you’re already blogging – follow this pattern:
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-Don’t just write about the latest hot topic out there. No, you might never succeed at lead generation, let alone increasing sales by following that pattern.
-Instead, spend time to experiment and then share it publicly with your target audience and potential customers. It doesn’t matter whether you succeeded or failed, everyone loves a case study that speaks to them. Be prepared and plan to entertain your readers/prospects when they visit your blog. There should be something for them to learn/do after reading your post.
Attraction
Good. You’ve a well-mapped out plan, right?
I’m sure that your plan covers how to attract the right audience to your blog? Yes it should because not everybody out there will be interested in your topic. For example, if you’re going to be writing about ‘selling a digital product,’ most employees may not relate to that because that’s not their pursuit. It’s certain that they’re working hard to get a promotion at work.
So seek only those people who have indicated interest in your topic. And how can you pinpoint these exact people? Do a keywords research to find out the exact search queries that your ideal prospects/customers are using to find information that pertains to yours. So let’s just say you’re a small business advisor. Bring up Google Keywords Planner here and search for the term:
Targeting those highlighted keywords and several key phrases that are relevant will not only send you the right audience, but it’d position your brand as the go-to advisor for small business owners. In the ‘attraction’ phase, you may decide to do blog outreach in order to reach a new audience, which is great but that would only take you far. The ideal and proven strategy for long-term success is to giveaway highly useful and relevant information. Whether you do guest post or write for your own blog, make sure it’s the best all over the World Wide Web.
The type of content that no one else can produce in a hurry – an example is Brian Dean’s Google Ranking Factors and also Neil Patel’s guide on infographic design and promotion.
Activation
Corporate blogging is very effective. Sure, there are several pro bloggers who didn’t start out that way, but they’ve traced their way back. Readers must be activated if you want to achieve success. Imagine this guy who had always wanted to date a beautiful celebrity. Luckily for him, he stumbles on her and the both of them agree to have lunch the next day. After the chat, the guy embraces the Angel and off he went. He didn’t even bother to ask for a phone number. Isn’t it ridiculous? That’s exactly the pathetic step most traditional bloggers take. According to them, if the girl likes, she can drop her contact details or just leave.
No way, collecting email leads of potential prospects should be a “MUST.” The term “small business” can be misleading. It can send spikes of fear that you’re not qualified to love the girl or in this case, deliver value to readers. Stop and think again. Because you’ve all it takes. You’re muscular and energetic.
However, don’t just ask for people’s email address as though it’s your legal right. You’ve to be creative and infuse your corporate persona.
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Typical example:
Helpscout provides help desk solutions for small business owners. But before you purchase the premium solution, you can try it for 15-day absolutely free. In case you must know, their tool was listed among the top 50 crm for small business by queryletters.com.
And guess what, you may think that you’re just signing up for the free trial, but you’ve been added to their prospective customers’ autoresponder. How smart? Over the cause of 15 days, you’ll get follow up emails, teachings, videos and study guides that will further persuade you to spend money with Helpscout every month. Sounds cool?
Retention & Profit
How do you retain customers to your business? With your corporate blogging style, it’s very possible. All you’ve to do is give incentives, develop a culture that rewards new customers. For example, crocmint.com as a third party affiliate network usually rewards every user/affiliate who signs up to promote any of their offers.
New affiliates will instantly be credited $50 into their accounts and the money can be cashed once you earn additional commission. The truth is that the more incentives you give, the more people are going to stay and buy from you. Incentives will pierce people’s emotion and get them hooked. In fact, according to Walter Chen, BufferApp, “emotions are the key driver to make your daily decisions.”
Let me show you how to connect emotionally with your prospects/customers. Last month, I received an email from Moreniche.com. I signed up to the site in 2012 but later got busy with other side projects. The email was short but very touching.
- “We miss you Michael. Come say hi!”
As short as it may seem, I was under an obligation to do it. I logged back in and because I couldn’t say ‘Hi’ except on the forums, I ended up choosing another of their new health products to promote.
Their strategy for retaining customers who have long been inactive or gone is through email marketing. Tell me, what would have happened if the site didn’t capture my email address – would I still get their warmth message? The whole scenario played out here is a typical specimen of, “corporate blogging.”
That’s what I do. That’s where I live and Oh boy, it’s profitable and I wouldn’t imagine doing that traditional blogging again: wake up in the morning, think of a post topic, write a 500-700 word post, publish, and begins to wonder why no one cares.
Anyways, I care about you and your content that’s why I’ve invested so much time into this post. Change your blogging focus.
Up to you
If you’re in dire need of practical answers that can help your small business to stand out in the crowd, click here. But if you’re already stable and cruising on your own Yacht, write a comment below and share your views about the topic – “Corporate blogging.”
