PUBLISHING infrequently / inconsistently
Examples of thought leadership content
- Industry/market data.
- Industry best practices.
- Reports based on industry research.
- Content that educates.
- Thought-provoking content.
- Industry (not product-focused) case studies.
- Industry-related news topics and takeaways.
WHAT’S THE MISTAKE
You have a blog, but you don’t publish posts on a regular basis, and when you do post,
you’re not publishing enough articles to make your blog effective.
- Businesses that blog at least 20X per month generate over 5X more traffic than those that blog fewer than 4 times per month.
- Businesses that blog at least 20X per month generate nearly 4X more leads than those that don’t blog.
WHY IS HURTS
Research shows that the companies benefiting most from business blogging are the ones that blog frequently and consistently. Adopting a laid-back approach to business blogging won’t move the needle; creating a blog that actually generates business success takes time, effort, and dedication. According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing 2011 report, 57% of companies that publish a business blog have acquired a customer from a blog-generated lead.
In addition, there is a direct correlation between the frequency of blogging and traffic and leads. Note the data on the previous page from HubSpot’s research in its Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses report, which indicates that the more often a company blogs, the better that company is able to generate traffic and leads. Ignoring your blog rather than keeping it updated with fresh content means you are leaving prospective customers on the table.
EASY FIX
Make a commitment to the upkeep of your blog. The most common frequency we observed for business blogging is weekly, so start by striving for at least one blog post per week and work your way up. If time or bandwidth is a major concern or deterrent for you, consider other ways to source content for your blog.
We’ll address this more in Marketing Mistake 10 (Not Sourcing Content), but keep in mind there is no rule stating that only one person can contribute content to any given blog. Encouraging other employees in your company to contribute content is a great way to divide the responsibility and workload of content creation as well as elicit new and varying perspectives and insight, which can add depth to your blog.
NEED HELP GETTING ORGANIZED?
Consider sitting down and creating an editorial calendar to keep you on track for regular publishing. Decide how many times per month you’d like to publish, then create a dedicated Google Calendar or an Excel document and mark off the actual days you will commit to publishing. Go one step further by planning the
topics you will write about on those specific days, always keeping in mind your audience and considering topics that might line up with timely elements like upcoming industry events.
Once you’ve worked your way into a regular blogging routine, consider increasing your blogging frequency.
No comments:
Post a Comment