Digital Marketing 101 – How To Sell “Blogging” To Your Boss?

Several digital marketing professionals and agencies witness the merits of the corporate blog. It is not always easy to convey them to the boss, though. Blogging is a very unique type of digital marketing tool. It is a valuable digital marketing resource. But, it is not the most obvious or direct one for most digital managers. Here’s a great step-by-step approach for creating a blog as an additional marketing channel.

Step No. 1 – Align with business and digital marketing goals

This is the non-negotiable. You cannot start with  reasons for blogging. Everyone knows them. It is almost like discussing the pros of exercising. You have to customise these benefits of blogging to your specific short term and long term business goals. Then, you must align blogging with digital marketing goals, such as:

1. Higher web traffic

When you create a blog for your business, it is a huge content asset. You can use it to fuel organic traffic by

Updating keyword rich, fresh and relevant content on your website consistently. This keeps your website updated on search engines.

Using internal links to increase on-page SEO optimization

Including additional keywords into your blog posts to attract your target audience. It is an easy tool to generate higher web traffic.

2. Increasing brand awareness

Blog content is easy-to-share digital content. Most visitors prefer to share interesting and valuable content on social networking websites. This is a great value add-on to their social profiles. So, this is a great way to reach a wider and more relevant target audience.

Sharable and likable content can be used to increase brand awareness on social media platforms.

Usable and helpful content draws your target audience’s attention to your brand. This is a great digital media strategy to enter the consideration zone of your target audience.

Convert blog into an additional platform to engage and interact with customers. An interactive and responsive blog can create opportunities for collaboration, brand engagement, and brand storytelling.

3. Building authority

Thought leadership or authority building is a long term goal. It is almost impossible to achieve it without fresh and valuable content about your industry. It should be a non-optional tool in your digital marketing mix. Whether you are a business or an individual, a blog is a great branding tool. With the right theme, content and digital media strategy, your blog can set the foundation to achieve your business goal.

Promote valuable third party content on your blog. For example, industry benchmarks, news and white papers to establish your thought leadership.

Your blog can be used to share business expertise with customers.

Share valuable information that you have gleaned through first-hand experience.

4. Generate leads

Do not suggest blogging as a digital marketing tool for short term lead generation. Instead, it is extremely effective for the long term objective of lead generation.

Testimonials and case studies can be promoted on your blog to convert your visitors into customers.

A popular blog can be a used as a great mailing list generating machine.

The right responses to customers’ comments will help you nurture and qualify leads.

A promotional offer on a popular blog can drive sales revenue

Step No. 2 – Optimise available resources and minimise expenses.

One of the most common reasons for resisting the idea of business blogging is funding. You will need web hosting service and a content management system like wordpress. You will need a blogger or a digital marketing agency for blog post creation and promotion. You will need to fund it month-on-month. However, you can use pre-existing resources for blogging and lowering overheads.

Use free content management systems or open source CMS.

Engage your current employees and customers to offer useful blog post content by:

o Transforming testimonials into case studies or success stories.

o Improving employee engagement and retention by publishing brand-related stories on the blog.

o Repackaging industry news and studies as business blog posts.

Has your business already hired a digital marketing agency or a digital marketing consultant? Some businesses use focused digital media agencies like SEO or SMO companies. If you already have a similar vendor, then it is much easier to add blogging as a small addition to their monthly tasks.

Do not dash to start a blog without a sound blogging strategy and guidelines. They will help you avoid controversies and remain relevant.

Step No 3: Set measurable KPIs.

Most digital managers and marketers prefer plans with goals. You need to set tangible and realistic KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for this venture. This is the best way to remain accountable and demonstrate the results few months down the line. This is where a digital media agency or consultant will be extremely useful. However, you will need consistent and high quality blog posts to achieve predetermined objectives

Short term KPIs	Long term KPIs
Higher organic traffic Brand awareness Higher brand engagement on Social media	Higher sales revenue Lead generation Brand advocacy Thought leadership

Step No 4: Get prepared.

When you include blogging for business into your digital marketing mix, you have your work cut out for you. You cannot create a blog, buy a wordpress theme, post content and forget about it. Blog marketing is a major part of a blog’s success. Here are few useful blogging tips to get you started.

Maintain the quality and frequency of your blog posts.

Keep the blog post content realistic, time-specific, interesting and valuable.

Do not ignore valid comments on the blog.

Create attractive blog post titles.

Use smart blogging tools, free or paid, to reach your business goals.

Use efficient blog editor for a productive writing and publishing process.

Create a useful approval and publishing system that minimises your work from the start. For example, maintain readability standards for each blog post.

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