This is the sixth in a series of articles about business blogging. The foundation of any successful inbound marketing program is remarkable content. It’s the reason why people will pay attention to you and the motivation to hand over their email address and opt into your messages. Downloadable content is certainly an important part of a content marketing strategy but blogging is its lifeblood. The data is irrefutable; more blogging equals more quality traffic and higher conversion rates.
John D. Rockefeller said, “Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.” It’s not going to be particularly helpful for you to write about the right subjects and do it well if nobody reads it. This also happens to be the question I’m asked most frequently.
How do people find my blog?
Property You Own
The most valuable marketing assets are those that you own. These give you the highest amount of flexibility and allow you to post your content in a way that maximizes its value. This means assigning a specific purpose for each blog post, ebook, video etc… What is the associated call to action? Are you looking to gain more subscribers? Sign up customers? Register attendees?
Here are some examples of properties you may own or want to establish for content promotion:
- Email newsletter
- Website pages
- Offline assets (business cards, brochures, signs, etc…)
- Email signature
Property You Rent
Social media is a tremendous resource but it’s important to remember that you don’t own your Twitter profile or Facebook page. You rent them! It just so happens that the rent is free, but look no further than the recent flap over Instagram’s change to its terms of service as an example of how quickly your digital landlords can pull the rug out from under you.
With that caveat in mind, the power of these channels is still vast and worth harnessing. But they each have their own strengths and knowing where your customer segments roam and which content works best will maximize their benefits.
- Twitter – The half-life of a Tweet is around 3 hours, so it’s a near-real-time medium where sharing URLs is most effective.
- Facebook – Posts on Facebook are similarly ephemeral and pictures work particularly well.
- LinkedIn – Status updates and group discussions on LinkedIn can last for longer than other social media channels and also reach different audiences. Long-term discussions of issues and topics work better on LinkedIn than other channels.
- Google+ – This property is still not as ubiquitous as the others but Google is making sure that it becomes an indispensable part of your marketing by incorporating local search and author rank.
- Pinterest – With its recent launch of business pages, don’t ignore this visual medium!
Property Others Own
A critical aspect of inbound marketing is getting links and shares from other influencers. Think about partnering with other bloggers, industry publications and thought leaders in some of the following ways:
- Guest Posts – Write articles for other blogs to create back links and expand your audience.
- Previews – Give them sneak peaks at new eBooks or videos.
- Announcements – Ask them to announce new publications.
- Reviews – Get them to provide reviews of your content.
- Resources – Provide them with tools like image thumbnails, abstracts, transcripts, etc. Make their job easier.
Property You Purchase
Paid advertising isn’t always considered part of inbound marketing but it’s an indispensible (and effective) means for generating top of the funnel traffic and spreading awareness. There are lots of options available and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each is important.
- Google AdWords – The most powerful benefit of Google is the intent of the user. If they’re searching for something, it’s a strong indication of a need. It works very well for meeting demand. However, it doesn’t typically do as well for creating awareness or demand.
- Facebook – Advertising on Facebook can be very effective for spreading awareness and creating demand. With its detailed demographics, it can also be laser-focused when Google is more like carpet-bombing.
- LinkedIn – Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn lets marketers take advantage of detailed demographic information to create highly targeted ad campaigns. However, the information on LinkedIn is more professional than personal/cultural as on Facebook.
- Banner – This relic of bygone Internet ages is still around. It can be effective with the right ad on the right site at the right price.
Check out the previous post in this series, Business Blogging 101: How to Write
