10 Lessons for Blogging Success: Year 1 as a B2B Blogger
Blogging is a powerful marketing tool and an increasingly popular tactic in a smart marketing strategy, especially for business-to-business (B2B) marketers. I know, because I launched this blog to promote my Cleveland-based marketing consulting business exactly a year ago.
Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned in my first year as a B2B blogger and three ways blogging has boosted my business.
Learning about Blogging by Doing
I created Smart Marketing Strategy to demonstrate my marketing expertise, share content of value with other marketers, and find new business opportunities. I also wanted to learn blogging from the inside out, so I could help clients understand how to blog from my own experience.
Here’s what I’ve found:
- Your blog is your brand. A blog can dramatically increase your visibility online, with blog posts sometimes earning higher search engine rankings than your website. View your blog as an extension of your company’s branding and design and write it accordingly.
- Content is king. High-value content is the key to success. Create and share content that showcases your expertise. Think about your content from the perspective of the people you want to engage. What do they care about? What information, knowledge, or perspective can you provide that they will value?
- Write what you know. Narrow your focus to specific topics related to your company’s core business and write about the subjects you know best. I’ve found it’s easiest to write posts on topics where I have the deepest knowledge: B2B marketing, direct marketing, and marketing strategy.
- Keep keywords in mind. If one of your blogging goals is higher search engine rankings, identify the top search keywords that relate to your business and include those terms in your posts.
- Be real. Have a point of view that reflects the individual behind the blog or the persona of the company that’s publishing it. Looking back on a year’s worth of posts, my point of view about marketing strategy – that there are proven best practices in marketing and marketers who ignore best practices waste their money – has come across in nearly everything I’ve written.
- Be current. A blog is a great place to offer your insights on what’s happening in your industry. Commenting on events and trends also helps make you part of the conversation and gets others to engage with you. My posts often assess current marketing campaigns or share interesting research or perspectives on marketing that I’ve gained from speakers at conferences.
- Be consistent. A blog needs to be a regular publication to earn the interest and loyalty of readers. I aim for a post at least once a week. Anything less frequent becomes easy to forget.
- Make your blog a priority. Blogging requires a commitment of time and energy and somehow, it needs to be a priority in your schedule. Try writing early in the morning before your workday begins or on the weekend when your mind is clearer.
- Publicize your blog. Publicity is crucial to a successful blog. Announce the creation of your blog to clients, colleagues, and friends. Publicize every post you create on your social media networks. I alert my Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook followers each time I publish and include links to my blog on my website and all my marketing materials.
- It helps to have friends. Before you launch a blog, assemble a subscriber base of friends who are willing to comment, share, and promote your blog once it’s up. Much of my success can be traced to wonderful colleagues who tweet about my blog or share my posts with their lists.
3 Ways Blogging Has Boosted My Business
One year in, I’m amazed at the impact blogging has had on my business:
- Visibility: The blog has vaulted my company to page 1 on Google for many of the search terms related to my business and helped raise my visibility in Northeast Ohio.
- Credibility: Blogging has enabled me to share my knowledge of marketing strategy and burnish my credentials as a marketing expert. It’s also helped me learn how to use a blog to build a business – valuable experience I now can share with my clients.
- Opportunity: Companies looking for help with marketing planning are finding my blog and contacting me about marketing consulting services. I’ve received speaking invitations, inquiries about partnership opportunities, requests to author articles in other media, and even an invitation to judge a marketing competition!
Craig
Jean,
Great job on distilling it down to best practices; anyone with a blog can learn from what you have shared here, newbies and pros alike.
Doing your homework prior to launching a new blog can accelerate initial success. Find blogs that appeal to you and understand why they do beyond the subject matter itself – the length of blog posts, writing style, attractive design etc.
And don’t be afraid to reach out to a mentor or experienced associate that can help your blog get off the ground fast and reduce your learning curve.
Congratulations on a phenomenal first year. Many more to come!
jeangianfagna
Thanks, Craig. Your advice about doing your homework is excellent; the style and look of a B2B blog are important factors in how well a blog will appeal to a target market. You are also right that reaching out to an experienced associate is smart; I certainly did when I asked for your valuable help!
Pingback:Tweets that mention 10 Lessons for Blogging Success: Year 1 as a B2B Blogger | Smart Marketing Strategy -- Topsy.com
Pingback:How Adding a Blog to a B2B Website Boosted Traffic 562% | Smart Marketing Strategy
LiBra29
This is a great article that concisely summarizes elements of a successful B2B blog. I would add under the “Be Real” tip to keep your target audience in mind. The blog should reflect your voice and what you know, but if you don’t write about topics your target audience wants to read about, you probably won’t have many readers. Also, under the tip about publicizing, I would add that bloggers should include a “share this” button to make sharing the content easy and quick. Allowing people to quickly share your content with others will bring in so many additional page views.
jeangianfagna
Great suggestions-thanks! You are so right about enabling readers to share your blog. I read a terrific post on someone else’s blog last night but there was no way to share it, so I moved on. Blogging can be such an effective marketing strategy. I recently wrote another post about how dramatically my blog has increased my website traffic. I’d welcome your comments on that post as well.
mabu
Thoughtful and insightful post can’t say otherwise only that it was right on the money.
svivar9087
Great piece =D
Pingback:5 Reasons to Build Your Social Media Marketing Around a Blog | Smart Marketing Strategy