Fifteen
years ago every company had to have a website.
There was no two ways about it—if you didn’t you weren’t legit. Without a www.yourcompanyname.com
or yourname@yourcompanyname.com on
your business card your company couldn’t even pretend to be up with the latest
sales and marketing platforms! Many
years ago I met a young industry consultant who had a Hotmail email address on
his card and I secretly scoffed at his credibility. (And no, there’s no Hollywood ending here
where he ended up being my boss and making me regret the day that I didn’t take
him and his @hotmail.com address seriously!)
Fast
forward to 2012-13 and corporate blogs are the latest craze. Every company worth its salt has one, and if not then they must
have missed that whole social media emergence thing. Apparently there are an estimated 31 million
bloggers in the United States alone, and approximately 500,000 new blog entries
are posted on Wordpress.com every single day.
But how is
this relevant to you? Why do you need to
add yet another blog to the ever expanding blogosphere? We’re glad you asked because we just happen to
have the top ten reasons to start or continue a corporate blog right at our
fingertips! In no particular order:
- Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader or SME – (Buzzphrase helper: SME is Subject Matter Expert.) You want to be a thought leader or SME in your industry because people feel more comfortable doing business with people who know what they’re talking about. Convince people that you not only understand their problem but have what they need to solve it and you’re well along the path to turning them into a customer. To borrow an old saying: if you build it (a position of thought leadership or SME) they will come (and probably buy your stuff while they’re there).
- Micro Content – Does your website contain every possible thing about your company that you could ever possibly want to tell someone? I dearly hope not because if it does it’s probably swollen and disorganized to the point of complete and total uselessness. Chances are your website contains a good balance of high level detail—what your company does, the wonderful benefits of your products and services and how interested parties can get in contact with you. The point of your website is to engage a prospect and hook them into contacting you, at which point your sales team leaps into action and converts them into customers. Your blog can be an amazing compliment to your website by adding much more information about your company without bloating your website. You can use your company blog to talk about successful implementations, showcase how you were able to apply your knowledge and experience in different and unique situations, describe how real-life experiences have made you stronger, smarter and more resilient. All this helps to further convince a reader that you understand their problem and can help them solve it.
- Give Them a Reason To Come Back – Once a prospect finds you, you need to give them a reason to keep on coming back for more. If they look around your website, and even if they’re excited by what they see, they might never come back again if you don’t give them a reason to: if your website is static, they won’t be missing anything by not coming back. But if your website has a steady stream of fresh content—like a blog, case studies and whitepapers—they’ll be more likely to come back again and again to see what’s new. And every time they come back they’re moving one step closer to becoming a customer.
- Attracting More Than Just Prospects - Most people automatically associate corporate blogging with trying to attract prospective clients. While this should certainly be your main reason for having a company blog, it certainly isn’t the only one: you can also use your company blog to impress potential investors, partners and even potential employees – people who may not make a single purchasing transaction with your company but might be vital to the growth and success of your company in one of countless other ways.
- Build a Social Marketing Strategy on Your Blog – A great way to get your story out to prospects is using social media and your blog can serve as the foundation for your social media marketing efforts: each time you post a blog you can post an update to your corporate Facebook page, post a link on the LinkedIn profiles of your management level employees and broadcast a series of tweets about the post.
Folks, I’m
really sorry to say this but I’ve just had so much fun with the list so far and
had so much that I wanted to say that I’ve raced past my target word
count. As much as it pains me to do so
I’m going to have to say my goodbyes on this post but solemnly promise to post
reasons 6 – 10 in a separate post in the next couple of days. Check back with me in a couple of days - I
promise you won’t regret it!
Got
something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a
question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know
when we post a reply.
Other Blog Posts
If you
liked this blog post, here are some other blog posts that you might also like:
- Five Great Sources for Blogging Topics
- The Importance of Tone in Business Writing
- Social Media and Content Marketing: In-house or Outsource?
Steve Hartley,
Managing Partner
Fering Communications Inc.
Fering Communications Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
