I get a lot of questions like this from prospective clients:
I don’t have a lot of
money, but my marketing is pretty ineffective. What should I do to get things
moving?
The problem with marketers is that we usually give an answer
related to our area of expertise. Web designers will suggest a better web
design. The SEO specialist will suggest optimizing your web site. Campaign managers
will suggest new campaigns. Content developers like me will suggest…you guessed
it…content!
Actually, none of these are bad places to invest. If, for
example, your website looks like it was designed by your nephew as a high
school project (or, if indeed, it was) that’s as good a place as any to start.
But if you don’t have any glaring issues, such as a klunky
website, let me give my plug for starting with content. Not just any type of
content. A blog.
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know blogging is dead, but the people
who tell you usually have something new to sell you.)
The reason I suggest starting a blog as opposed to other
types of content like white papers or case studies is because they are easy to
do. You can set it up in an afternoon. You don’t have to be a professional
writer to create a post. Like the “family project” that brings everybody closer
together, almost anyone in the organization can submit a post.
Quick tip: I recommend that one individual be responsible
for review and approval! I’m all for keeping it real, but you want to put your
best foot forward. A rambling, poorly written post by one of your experts,
probably isn’t the best first impression.
But the best thing about a blog is that touches on all those
areas of improvement mentioned above and then some:
Website/SEO – A
blog is a great way to add SEO optimized pages quickly.
Campaigns – Blog
content makes for great nurture campaigns. If you’re really on a shoestring
budget, these campaigns can be as simple as emails from your sales team
pointing them to the latest opinion piece on your blog.
Social media – It’s
easy to repurpose blogs on whatever social media platform you’re using. Post
them in facebook and Google+. Start a
discussion around the post on LinkedIn. Tweet them (several times) on Twitter. A few months past since you wrote the post? Tweet
it again.
List building –
People don’t subscribe to receive emails, but they will subscribe to receive
blog content.
Credibility –
Well-written posts by a number of people within the organization do more to
establish an organization’s credibility than any number of white papers created
by some industry guru.
That said, I do have one word of caution. Blogs are not a
quick fix to all your marketing problems. You have to execute – frequent posts,
well-written and educational content, etc. In addition, it may take some time
to build a following, but it sure beats the half of a percent return rate (if
that) most companies are seeing on their non-subscriber email campaigns.
Questions about blogging? Add your comments below or reach
out to me at paulik.melissa@gmail.com.
Melissa
