Stryde Blogging For Business eBook

BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS:The Start-to-Finish Guide For CMOs

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NEED A BLOG?

Blogging for Business: The Start-to-Finish Guide For CMOs

Does Your Business

It’s been a fairly slow process, but companies are starting to understand just how important and beneficial corporate blogs can be. They bring new traffic to your website and help your company build relationships with customers and other experts in your field.

According to a study, businesses with corporate blogs receive 55% more website traffic than businesses that don’t blog. Blogging is a powerful marketing tool and a cost-effective form of communication. It helps you stand out from your competitors, add value to your existing and potential customers and improve trust, credibility and loyalty with your customers.

Businesses with corporate blogs receive 55% more website traffic.

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http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5014/Study-Shows-Business-Blogging-Leads-to-55-More-Website-Visitors.aspx

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5014/Study-Shows-Business-Blogging-Leads-to-55-More-Website-Visitors.aspx


With this information, why wouldn’t your company want a blog? Or if you already have one, shouldn’t you be researching and taking notes on how to improve your current blog to attract more readers and get better results?

While it’s one thing to create a blog (creating a blog is really quite simple), it’s another thing to create a blog that keeps readers coming back, keeps your target audience engaging with your brand and portrays you as an expert in your industry.

From this guide, we hope that you’ll understand the essentials of blogging from inception to promotion.

Blog = POWER

Blogging For Business Is A Powerful Tool

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While blogs can be built on free platforms, you need to make sure your company is willing to invest the time, money and manpower necessary to design a blog, plan out an editorial strategy, hire and train bloggers, etc.

Creating and maintain a blog is an ongoing process. Blogging and content marketing in general is a long-term strategy, and sometimes it takes a few months before you start getting good traction.

An engaging blog is one of the best things you can do for your company, but it’s important your company knows what to expect and is willing to invest what’s needed to make it a success.

Read to take the plunge?

Decide If Your Company Is Willing To Invest What It Takes

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1 Form the Core Strategy2 Unify the Team3 Set Up a Comment Policy4 Solidify Promotion Strategies5 Select Measurement of Success6 Choose Bloggers7 Train Bloggers8 Implement an Editing Process9 Construct an Editorial Calendar10 Create the Content

IN THIS START-TO-FINISH GUIDE

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STRATEGY


Develop an Overarching

Once you’ve collected your data and have gotten the needed approval to proceed with the blog, it’s time to dig in and develop a strategy.

Your strategy needs to define the purpose of your blog and the direction you want it to go. It’s going to answer why your company is getting a blog, list what your goals are and state how you will measure the results.

Here are a three specific things to consider when developing your blog strategy:

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Before you begin writing, you’ll need to know as much as you can about your target audience. Talk to sales reps, service reps, current prospects, and current customers to identify their needs, pain points, questions and concerns so you can address those in your blog posts.

Identify Personas

1 Customer Attribute Identification2 Data Collection3 Segmentation

4 Persona Creation5 Keyword & Topic Identification6 Execution

6 steps to creating personas

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In order to stay ahead of the competition, it’s important to know what they’re doing. You’ll need to perform competitive research to understand the following:

Competitive Research

• What They’re Writing About

• What Content Is Shared The Most

• What Content Is Linked To The Most

• What Content Generates Discussion

• What Content Resonates Your Audience

Sizing up the competition

Using a tool like Open Site Explorer will help you find the data you need to make the best decisions and high performing blog content.

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An editorial calendar lets you plan out topics, list any keywords that should be used, when each post should be published, and any social promotion that needs to happen.

An editorial calendar is an essential step in documenting your blogging strategy.

These things don’t have to be set in stone when added to your calendar, but it’s a place to keep all your ideas and dates together. It lets you stay flexible but also keeps those involved with the blog organized.

We’ll dive deeper into the specifics of creating an editorial calendar in the “Create an Editorial Calendar” portion of this guide.

Editorial Calendars

B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective (66% vs. 11%)

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http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B2B_Research_2014_CMI.pdf

TEAM


Unify the

Getting all of the inside players aligned with your blog plans is crucial for success. You don’t want there to be any confusion or leave anyone out who needs to be informed about and involved with the blog plans.

Let them know you’re launching a blog, when it’s launching, and provide them a copy of your blog strategy. The best way to get the needed support and approval is getting everyone on the same page with your blog goals and strategy.

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COMMENT POLICY


Set Up a

Your corporate blog isn’t a way for you to shove your company products, services and messages in the consumer’s face. It’s not about “YOU” the company. It’s about providing information that educates, influences, interests, engages and hopefully converts your readers. A blog needs to be a two-way conversation between your company and the consumer.

Allowing comments is a way to make that happen. Let readers share their thoughts, questions and opinions on your blog. Not having a comment section causes you to lose readers and their engagement. You should also urge your bloggers to post responses to comments. This keeps the conversation going, keeps your readers engaging with your blog and shows you care about your consumers enough to engage back with them.

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While you should allow for comments, you should also have a policy about what is and isn’t allowed. Allow and welcome positive and negative comments. Positive ones are obviously good for business, but negative ones can be as well. It gives your company a chance to correctly respond to those negative comments.

Your response could change someone’s negative opinion about your company or help them get their facts straight. Be sure those involved with the blog don’t use or allow offensive nor inappropriate language. Also ensure that spam comments are quickly deleted.

Foster Feedback

Listening to commenters

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STRATEGY


Form a Promotion

Many marketers wait until after content has been created to think about promotion. Don’t fall into that method of thinking. You could have the best content ever written on your blog, but if it’s not promoted correctly it won’t gain any traction.

Your target audience needs to know your blog exists and know when new posts are published. Therefore, it’s imperative to solidify your promotion strategies before you begin cranking out content.

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Here are three ways to help get your blog postsin front of the most eyeballs possible.

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These teams talk directly with your customers. They know their wants, needs, problems and questions. They can share their knowledge with your blog team so your bloggers can write topics around what your customers say they want.

But these teams can also direct the customers they talk with to your company’s blog to help answer their questions or give them more information. Have your sales and customer service teams send customers to the blog or at least inform those they talk with to use the company blog as another resource.

Sales and Customer Service Teams

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Social and PR Teams

These teams can really aid in your blog promotion, especially via the social platforms. Your company’s social and PR teams can announce the launch of your blog, and then the social team can share links to your blog posts through your company’s social media accounts. Encourage them to reply to readers who comment on or Tweet in response to any blog post links they share.

In addition to having a plan of distribution through the social channels in which you participate, monitoring via social platforms can produce valuable insights on future blog topics and any issues your customers might be facing that you can address through a post on your blog.

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Paid Social Promotions

Paid social promotion is a smart tool to use — but only when done right. When you understand how this process works, you end up spending a small amount of money but getting a big return.

Some of the no-nos of content promotion include promoting every piece of content, not hyper-targeting your audience and not optimizing for a goal. Use paid social promotions correctly and your content promotion efforts will be successful.

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http://relevance.com/5-deadly-sins-of-content-promotion/

PROGRAM


Design a Measurement

After you select promotion channels for your content, you can now select relevant measurements. Narrow down the specific key performance indicators that you will track for each piece of content. Doing so prior to blogger selection and content creation ensures that your writers know exactly what metrics will determine the success of a piece of content.

Moreover, if you don’t measure your blog’s data, you won’t know whether it was successful or unsuccessful. You should track blog and post views, comments, backlinks, RSS subscriptions, social mentions and whatever other data you think is beneficial.

Keep daily track of this information, and then put the numbers into a monthly report. These numbers show your blog team insights into what content topics, content types, keywords and promotional efforts worked and didn’t work. Your team can then use this information during your next editorial planning meeting.

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KPIs will vary depending on your firm’s specific goals for the blog and each subsequent campaign. However, there are two buckets, each with two sub-categories, that you should pull at least one metric from. This will give your measurement the most holistic approach.

Blogging KPIs

Measuring Sentiment Measuring Cents

Consumption Metrics Lead Generation Metrics

Sharing Metrics Sales Metrics

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BLOGGERS


Choose Your

Before you select your bloggers, decide if your company’s blog should have one voice or multiple authors. Many larger companies and those with various products and services have several bloggers. Even when you have multiple bloggers, it’s fine to select one employee to be the sole blogger who writes about company news, industry reviews and product-related updates.

The ultimate goal of your blog will determine how many bloggers you need, what topics each bloggers should cover and whether or not your CEO should write blog posts.

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When choosing your bloggers, it’s also a good time to decide if you want your company’s CEO to blog. When a CEO participates in the blogging process, it can add aspects of trust and accessibility to your brand. However, with everything that a CEO must do, scheduling time to contribute to the blog might become problematic. Weigh the pros and cons for your own corporation, and make the best decision for your situation.

The ultimate goal of your blog will determine how many bloggers you need, what topics each bloggers should cover and whether or not your CEO should write blog posts.

Blogging from the C-Suite

BRANDfog suggests that social CEOs (i.e. CEOs that blog) are better leaders. These CEOs strengthen brands, build trust, demonstrate brand values, and convey accountability.

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BLOGGERS


Train Your

Anyone who wants to blog can do so, but only a handful can blog really well. Once you’ve selected your bloggers — who may be the best writers you’ve ever met — you need to train them on the best practices of blogging and promoting a blog, as well as provide writing tips.

The training period is also a good time to share your company’s blog policies to help avoid any future problems.

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Here are a few points to discuss and train your bloggers on:

Blogger Training Topics

The company’s voice

Humanizing your company for the readers

Showing personality

Optimizing posts

Linking to other posts and landing pages on the company’s site

Company writing style

Writing with a professional yet conversational tone

Being a storyteller

Including keywords in headlines

Using relevant images, video and audio with blog posts

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http://www.stryde.com/structure-writing-evoke-emotion/

http://www.stryde.com/8-tips-help-write-dang-good-headline/

PROCESS


Implement an Editing

Another thing you need to decide is your editing process. Some companies don’t require their bloggers to send their posts over for editing before they’re published. They just let the blogger write and publish. Some companies have an editor available if a blogger has questions or wants their blogged reviewed before they publish it

Implementing an editing process doesn’t mean you don’t trust your bloggers. We’re human, we all make mistakes. A fresh pair of eyes to review a post is always a good idea. An editor helps catch little mistakes the blogger may have missed and/or can give new insights on a way to phrase an idea or format the post.

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Here are four possible editing processes you can implement for your company’s blog:

Editing Process Paths

Blogger

There’s no question you need an editing process. But the editing process you choose depends on your company, bloggers, blog goals and the time available. You may have two editing processes so when certain posts are more time sensitive they can be published sooner.

Publish

Blogger Editor

Blogger

Blogger Publish

Publish

Editor Blogger Publish

Editor Blogger Editor

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CALENDARAs we alluded to earlier, a terrific way to ease your bloggers’ workload and keep everyone and everything organized is with an editorial calendar. Researching and writing a post takes enough time, and if each of your bloggers had to think about and search for every one of their post ideas and then get it approved, it would become a longer process than necessary.

Once everything is put into the calendar, bloggers know what they’re writing and when it’s due so they can work more efficiently. It also means the entire team is kept up to date with what everyone is doing. An editorial calendar keeps people organized and makes each person accountable for their tasks.


Create an Editorial

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Editorial Calendar Must-Haves

Have an editorial planning meeting once a month, or as often as you think is best, so the blog team can brainstorm ideas. Teamwork makes the dream work, right? During your planning meetings, you can discuss blog topics and any upcoming events or product launches that can be worked into a blog.

After ideas are presented and decisions are made, you can add the blog titles, keywords and publish dates in your editorial calendar.

• Blog Post Title

• Publish Date

• Keywords

• Buyer Persona

• Buyer Persona Outcome

• Workflow Assignments

What to include in your editorial calendar:

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CONTENTWe’ve reached the fun part! Regardless of what specific bloggers you’ve tasked with certain assignments, there are aspects of content creation that must be understood among everyone on your team.

Whatever your topic might be, there are a handful of overarching concepts you should consider and perform as you create your content:


Create Your

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Content can take many forms. But, the blogger must assure that the form taken is the most appropriate for the purpose of the post. Below, we list common content types and what they’re best at communicating.

Pick a Form

Meme Concise, witty, typically humorous observations

Podcast Audio and conversational content

Video Detailed, involved, visually-oriented information

Interview Expert opinions, news stories

How-To Step-by-step instructions; little known processes

Slideshare Professional and educational information

List People, website tools, anything there’s a lot of!

Infographic Stats, data, and figures

Case Study Detailed information and outcomes

Quiz Checklists, fun content, you can make almost anything a quiz!

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Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research is essential for targeted, relevant content that attracts your desired audience. Find out what your customers and potential customers are searching for, and you will have insights on how to integrate those keywords into your blog post.

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner

• Keyword.io

A few of our favorite keyword tools are:

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http://www.stryde.com/how-to-use-google-keyword-tool-google-trends-for-keyword-research/

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

http://www.keyword.io/


Structure Your Content

When bloggers are creating written content for the blog, it’s important to keep structure in mind.

Structure is vitally important in keeping the readers interested and evoking emotion.

• Short(er) paragraphs – Whether the readers on a desktop, or particularly a mobile device, shorter paragraphs are just plain easier to read. • Sub-Headings – Break up your paragraphs and thoughts with sub-headings. This draws the reader’s eye down and does wonders for organization and reader comprehension. • Bulleted/numbered lists – Similar to sub- headings, bullet points and numbered lists break up the monotony of a block of text.

• Internal links – Where appropriate, it’s great to add in links to your other blog posts or company pages. This should be natural, and only done to serve the understanding of the readers.

• CTA (Call to Action) – A Call to Action is essential in every piece written! Typically, you’ll see CTAs at the end of blog posts, as it’s thought to leave a more lasting impression with the reader. But, you do as you see fit.

Here are the top tips for written blog post structure:

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http://www.stryde.com/structure-writing-evoke-emotion/


Optimize Content for SEO

Your content needs to be search-engine friendly. To do so just requires a bit of knowledge in optimization. This is where your keywords and content structure becomes vital.

Here’s a quick checklist that you can give your writers to make sure the basics on blog post optimization are covered with every piece of content created.

• I thoughtfully chose the topic & keywords.

• I integrated the keywords into my copy.

• I have utilized the proper structure.

• I linked to relevant content, both inside & outside of my post.

• I thought like a searcher & a search engine while writing

• I made the images SEO-friendly.

• I made the videos SEO-friendly.

• I got eyeballs on my content!

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Never Give Up!

To reiterate, it takes time to get your blog up and going and to build a loyal base of readers. You could get lucky and get the traction you want after a couple short weeks or it could take several months before that happens. You will have days where a post does awesome and days where a post barely gets any views or social shares. You will have promotional efforts that work and ones that don’t.

All of this helps you and your blog team learn what works and doesn’t so you can keep refining your blog. It’s going to take time and effort from everyone involved. Everything good you want in life doesn’t come easy, and that’s true with a successful corporate blog. Be patient and never give up on it.

A corporate blog is something your company needs and should want. It brings traffic to your website, attracts new customers and helps you build personal relationships with your customers by providing them with useful information. Now what company doesn’t want all that?

“A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but its persistence.” - Unknown

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HELP

We believe that you stop growing and learning when you stop asking for help. When you have the opportunity to gain knowledge from those who are specialized, it’s an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up.

Accordingly, if you have any questions along the way, we’re here for you.


Ask for

• stryde.com/blog

• twitter.com/strydedotcom

• facebook.com/strydedotcom

Reach out to us via our blog and social networks:

Enjoy blogging for business and good luck!

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CONTRIBUTORS

Kirsten MetcalfContent Strategist


Guide

Interested In Learning More?

Contact Greg Shuey to discover how content marketing can help you smash your revenue goals this year.

Email: [email protected]: 888.333.1218 x 110

Mobile: 801.709.1034Twitter: @shuey03 | @strydedotcom

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Emily BurkhartSocial Media Manager

Greg ShueyCo-Founder

http://www.stryde.com/about/

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Stryde Blogging For Business eBook