WRITE

Once you’ve gone through the proper steps to plan your blog, get started on producing content! If you’re not the subject matter expert on the topic, interview the SME in your company to get the scoop. Your SME should be able to provide most of the content in the article, so all you need to do is piece it together in a cohesive format and make sure it flows.

Your blog is a gateway to your website that people will find as they search for content. Each time you include a relevant call to action (CTA) at the end of your post, you can help your reader reach deeper into your website and generate more early-stage sales leads. Don’t stop with just one CTA at the bottom of your blog post. Include relevant CTAs alongside blog text if applicable to encourage your readers to further their research.

Once your content is together and CTA in place, triple-check your formatting and grammar - then post away!

 

PROMOTION

Why go to all the trouble of writing a blog post and not promote it? Determine how you want to publicize your new blog posts and create promotions using social media and email. Social media and email are great ways to promote your content directly to the people you want reading it.

1. Social Media - Determine which social media sites are appropriate for your audience and company. Use your customer personas to find out where your audience spends time looking for information, and schedule posts for those sources. To go a step further, you can write pre-approved social media messages for your employees to share from the company intranet or collaboration board.

2. Email - Set up a way for your readers to subscribe to your blog and connect with those who do. Send out personalized emails with a quick rundown of each new blog post, and make sure it’s worth their while to click. When relevant, have your sales team share links to posts by emailing their prospects with a personal message about why the prospect might find the blog post interesting.

Consistency and Quality 

The key to helping your blog reach success is to consistently put out quality content for your readers. Your blog can serve as a direct line of communication to your customers that allows you to share the insights that they’re looking for.

Without the proper strategy and processes, a blog is time-consuming and can be a burden to maintain. By doing all the planning and research ahead of time, you can set yourself up to get blogs ready ahead of schedule and not stress about each next post. To get your new blog ready with some content planning, download our blog planner and get to work!

 

A great strategy is to write a compelling headline or question as your forum post title, then include some thoughtful commentary followed by your shortened URL. Lastly, ask for readers to provide feedback on the forum to continue the discussion.

Seek out and comment on other blogs with

 

similar topics

Providing helpful, valuable comments on other blogs can be a great way to generate traffic, develop relationships, build a following and add backlinks. If you’ve just finished a blog post on a topic, now is the perfect time to do a quick search to find other blog posts on the same topic. Are the other posts lacking something that you covered in your post? Add your viewpoint in a genuine, non-self-promotional way. If the comment form asks for your website URL, paste in your blog URL.

 

Email signature

Another powerful little technique is to add your latest blog post headline to your email signature. Many email platforms now have nifty little apps (Wisestamp for Gmail) that will pull your latest blog post headline into your email signature automatically. Do it manually if you have to. You never know when a prospect, vendor or client might read a post that sparks a conversation or creates an opportunity.

Share your blog post with target customers

You’ve just created a blog post that you know would be beneficial for certain customers. What are you waiting for? Send them an email with the shortened URL and a note, “thought this could really help your business.”  or "your beauty is what we care about " or any catech phrase that will make them click and visit your blog! Then check the analytics to see if they clicked on it.

 

Add your blog post to your next e-newsletter

If you have an e-newsletter, you should be incorporating at least some of your blog content. Include a few post headlines/teasers and see which posts get the most clicks. You may just find that you need to do some follow-up blog posts on a topic that received a lot of clicks.

 

Ask other bloggers to mention your post

Building relationships with other bloggers in your space and asking them to blog about or link to your post can be a great way to expand your reach. Reciprocating promotional efforts can have a big payoff in the form of high-quality backlinks and big jumps in search engine rankings, blog traffic, and subscribers.