by Fronetics | Feb 12, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
7 steps to a blogging strategy for your business.
Blogging has proved to be a successful marketing strategy for many companies. In fact, a full 82 percent of companies who blog daily day have acquired a customer from their blog. Freight logistics company Cerasis acquired 98 new customers by leveraging their blog and digital strategy.
What does it take to attract prospects and acquire customers? Strategy. A 2014 study of B2B marketers found that companies who have a documented content strategy in place are more likely to consider their efforts to be effective than companies who do not have a documented strategy in place (60 percent vs. 11 percent).
Here are 7 steps to follow to develop a blogging strategy for your business.
1. Understand the ‘Why’.
The first step in the development of your blogging strategy will serve as the foundation for all remaining elements. Defining the purpose of your blogging activities and communicating them to your team will create a clear path to successful implementation. Understanding the purpose of your blogging activities means being able to answer two important questions: Why has your company decided to blog? What is it hoping to gain? Setting the strategy for your blog starts with understanding the reasons and motivations for prioritizing blogging as a marketing strategy.
2. Let your ideal customers define content.
Content will be the backbone of your blogging operation. Since you are likely targeting ideal customers with this content in order to convert them to leads, it stands to reason that you should look to them for content inspiration. Building out hypothetical profiles of your ideal customers will allow you to answer important questions such as their pain points, challenges, demographics, and job duties. Use what you know about the buying and researching behaviors of your ideal customers to craft relevant and interesting content they’d likely be searching for. Above all, publish nothing less than your most quality content. Part of building your reputation as a trusted industry thought leader is setting – and continuing – to meet expectations. You’re better off missing one day of a blog post than phoning in something that has the potential to undermine the credibility of your company.
Keywords signal to search engines when there’s a match between your content and the search term of a user. Similar to crafting content with your ideal customer in mind, keywords should be tailored to phrases your ideal customers use to research and buy. Determine which keywords you’ll be targeting and then draft a list of 5-10 keywords and associated long-tail keywords you will include in blog content.
4. Identify content distribution activities and platforms for promotion.
Once you’ve determined strategy for content creation and optimization, it’s time to make a plan to get your quality content in front of potential customers. It’s not enough to just post and pray that you’ll be found – you should actively distribute and promote blog content. Fortunately, the proliferation of social media has made it easier for companies to reach their target audiences, but not without competition. Reusing blog posts and repackaging content in different forms – such as infographics, summary tweets, & photos – will help break through the noise of competitors.
5. Assign responsibility.
Decide what your day-to-day blogging operations will look like. Who will be accountable for each function of your blogging strategy? The size and resource availability of your organization is likely to determine how centralized blogging responsibilities will be. When thinking about responsibilities, consider tasks beyond just writing posts; responsibility for tasks such as publishing and promoting content, drafting an editorial calendar, and analyzing data will all need to be assigned.
6. Maintain an editorial calendar.
Analogous to a roadmap, an editorial calendar will guide your blogging activities and give you a big picture look at where you’re headed and how you’re getting there. It also serves to hold those with blog-related responsibilities accountable to a publishing schedule. And while it’s true that the frequency of blog posts can be linked to an increase in website traffic, stepping outside of what you can reasonably commit to is a recipe for disaster.
Use your editorial calendar to set the number of blog posts you’ll publish each week to ensure posts are published with consistency and regularity. That not only establishes routine for your team, but also for your readers. Get started now with this template for creating your own editorial calendar.
7. Measure, analyze, adapt, and repeat.
Determine what your blogging success will look like and use relevant tools to regularly track and monitor metrics. Include metrics from all platforms of distribution, not just website page views or traffic. Think in terms of retweets, follows, likes, and subscribers. Set, review, and revisit goals consistently. Modify approaches that aren’t working. This on-going analysis keeps blogging efforts nimble, which is particularly helpful when outside factors make changes in blogging objectives necessary.
Develop and implement a well-thought-out blogging strategy. Using quality blog content to find, connect, and engage potential customers online can quickly become your powerhouse marketing activity.
Interested in learning more about how your business can develop a winning blogging strategy? We can help. We are a consulting firm focused on inbound marketing and strategy.
by Fronetics | Feb 11, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
Most businesses don’t optimize blog posts. Here are 7 things you can do to optimize a blog post so you can improve your ranking and attract more visitors.
Most businesses don’t optimize blog posts and therefore miss out on ranking and, by extension, organic traffic opportunities. The good news is that there are 7 simple steps you can take to optimize a blog post so that you can improve your ranking and attract more visitors.
Step 1: Identify your keywords
Identify the keywords you are going to use in the blog post. Once you have identified the keywords you want to use, write your blog post around these keywords.
Something to remember: while it is important to write the post around the keywords you have identified, you don’t want to stuff the post with the keywords. You want to make sure your post is easy (and enjoyable) to read and doesn’t sound spammy.
Step 2: Optimize your title
Keep the title of your blog post under 60 characters. Include your keywords in the title.
Step 3: Optimize your meta description
Your meta description doesn’t impact search results. However, your meta description can improve click through rates (that is, it can increase the number of people who actually click on your link versus someone else’s).
When you write your meta description write it in a conversional (not spammy) manner and be sure to include your keywords. In short, think about what would attract your target reader to your blog post, and write it here. Try to keep your meta description to between 150 and 160 words.
Step 4: Optimize your heading
Using your keywords in the heading provides an SEO benefit and informs your visitor what your blog post is about. Be sure to not just use a keyword phrase, instead use additional content around the keyword.
Step 5: Optimize the body of the post
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing use the keywords in the body of your post as a ranking signal. That being said, don’t go overboard with using your keywords in the body of your content because too many occurrences of your keywords can be viewed as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing can lead to search engines giving you a penalty and drop your organic rankings. Additionally, no one wants to read a blog post that reads like spam.
The short and sweet: use your keywords, but don’t go overboard, and always remember to write first to your audience and then search engines.
Step 6: Optimize images
Image search is becoming more popular. Write a SEO friendly title for your images. It doesn’t hurt to also write a description that explains the blog post itself.
Step 7: Optimize the URL
When you use your blog title as the URL extension you can improve your click through rate.
If you haven’t optimized your blog posts in the past, the good news is that you can go back and optimize them.
by Fronetics | Feb 10, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
You’ve likely heard it before – your business should be blogging. It’s understandable if it isn’t. Given the finite nature of a single workday, we all face daily pressure to prioritize projects and streamline strategies. But isn’t it true that our priorities should align with activities that have the most significant impact on performance? When data becomes the guide to choosing where to focus marketing efforts, it becomes clear that blogging is the powerhouse of digital marketing activity.
Blogging positively impacts a number of typical objectives for businesses. It makes it more likely for companies to be found in search engine results, produces higher quality leads, establishes industry expertise, and shortens sales cycles. To understand exactly to what degree blogging is affecting these outcomes, let’s take a look at the data.
Blogging generates high-quality leads and increases sales.
Practically all marketing activities ultimately seek to drive one objective – to increase sales. Many businesses are tying big sales wins to their blogging efforts. In a 2013 publication of Marketing Benchmarks, HubSpot reported companies that blog once or twice per month generate 70 percent more leads than those who don’t blog at all. Further, companies nearly double their sales leads by increasing blogging frequency from 3-5 times per month to 6-8 times per month.
Blogging drives increased website traffic.
Increased website traffic can almost always be linked to an increase in leads and sales. Companies with 51-100 pages on their website generate 48 percent more traffic than those with 1-50 pages according to the same HubSpot report. Consistent blogging activity builds the number of website pages and consequently the number of opportunities for your company to connect with customers, leads, and industry peers. Publishing frequency matters, too. Companies that blog at least 15 times per month get five times more traffic than those that don’t blog. Small businesses with 1-10 employees see the largest gains by posting more often.
Blogging links businesses and customers.
Business websites with blogs have 434 percent more indexed pages and 97 percent more indexed links based on the findings of a 2013 Social Media Today report. If search engines can easily find your business, prospective customers will find you easier, too. Building links ensures existing and potential customers can connect and engage meaningfully with your company.
Blogging seeks to educate and establish expertise.
Crafting and publishing quality blog content builds credibility and trust. Social Media Today reports a full 70 percent of consumers learn about companies through articles rather than ads and that 61 percent of consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post.
Data makes it clear that relevant and engaging blog content is a valuable marketing asset and sales driver for many businesses. In fact, marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13 times more likely to enjoy positive ROI. Is your company taking full advantage of this powerhouse marketing activity or is it missing opportunities to attract leads and delight customers?
by Fronetics | Feb 9, 2015 | Blog, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain
Reducing paper in the distribution center is good for business (and trees).
Paper isn’t a thing of the past in workplaces, but it probably should be. The reasons go well beyond simply saving trees to an even more compelling argument: it’s just better business. A 2014 survey conducted by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) found that more than half of responding businesses posited that the single largest way they could improve productivity would be to remove paper from their organizational processes.
The study’s implications for companies in the supply chain industry echo a 2005 Inbound Logistics article in which Leslie Hansen Harps wrote that the speed through the distribution center is critical. “Effective operations use best practices within the four walls of the facility — and beyond.” One of the best-practices discussed in the article: reducing reliance on paper. Specifically, the article referenced moving to hands-free solutions. Denny McKnight of Tompkins Associates Inc. told Harps: “People writing numbers on pads of paper or keying strings of numbers into a keyboard is a bad sign.”
Of the companies reporting superfluous paper use as an impediment to greater productivity in the 2014 AIIM study, less than 20% have paper-reducing policies in place. This finding highlights the fact that many companies have identified the need to reduce their use of paper, but most lack a clear vision for doing so. While the shift to a paper-free distribution center can seem overwhelming and cost prohibitive, small efforts to eliminate unnecessary paper can dramatically improve efficiencies. To start, consider the identification of one organizational process where it would make sense to introduce a paper-free method and spend an hour researching how other companies have transformed similar processes and which solutions have proved to be the most successful.
No doubt, as faster, more sophisticated technology couples with a more computer literate workforce, distribution centers will see an organic shift to a paper-less work environment. Including regular reviews of ways your company could implement paperless processes ensures paper doesn’t slow you down. After all, finding ways to eliminate paper is akin to finding gains in operational efficiency.
Here are 10 (more!) reasons why your company should tame its paper tiger:
- Increased inventory visibility
- Increased fulfillment accuracy
- Fewer lost sales
- Fewer out-of-stock situations
- Reduced search time
- Increased communication with customers
- Waste reduction
- Overhead cost cuts
- Document storage cost cuts
- A safer work environment
Has your company reduced its reliance on paper? If so, what benefits have you realized? If not, what barriers to the implementation of paperless processes have you experienced?
by Fronetics | Feb 5, 2015 | Blog, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain
Think inbound marketing isn’t for the supply chain and logistics industries? Guess again. Here are 5 reasons companies in the supply chain and logistics industries need inbound marketing.
Companies within the supply chain and logistics industries tend to disregard inbound marketing. The reason being they do not think inbound marketing will prove successful. The common objection is that prospects and customers for these industries are not online.
The reality, however, is that inbound marketing can be wildly successful for companies within the supply chain and logistics industries.
Here are five reasons why companies in these industries should use inbound marketing:
1. Customers are online.
B2B buyers are online. 93% of B2B buyers report that they use search engines to research purchase decisions. These buyers go online for a number of reasons including to:
- Learn about new market developments and industry practices;
- Discover new solutions to address a specific problem;
- Address a project or a program being undertaken by their company.
2. 60% of the sales process takes place before they engage your sales rep.
The average customer progresses nearly 60% of the way through the purchase decision-making process before engaging with a sales rep.
Before engaging with a sales rep, customers are turning to the internet and to social media for information. The 2014 UPS B2B Buyers Insight Study found that 68% percent of buyers research supply purchases via supplier website, and 52% use search engines.
3. You can present solutions to your prospects’ problems via social media and content.
When prospects go online they are looking for information and for answers. By creating valuable content and leveraging social media you can attract and engage prospects, and convert these prospects to customers.
4. Inbound marketing is more effective than traditional marketing.
Research conducted by HubSpot found that inbound marketing is more effective than outbound marketing:
- 200% average ROI;
- 62% lower cost head;
- 15% increase in top line revenue.
5. The proof is in the pudding.
Freight logistics company Cerasis decided to make the switch from outbound marketing to inbound marketing. Within 25 months the company gained 98 new customers and increased revenue by 14%.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a management consulting firm with a focus on inbound marketing. We create and execute successful strategies for growth and value creation. Unlike other firms, our approach is data driven. We know ROI is important, so we track and measure results to drive success. Read about our approach to inbound marketing, or get in touch.
by Fronetics | Feb 4, 2015 | Blog, Data/Analytics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Inbound marketing costs less than outbound marketing. And it works.
The internet has empowered customers. It has provided customers with new methods for finding and researching companies. It has also provided customers with new methods for finding, researching, and buying products.
The internet has changed marketing from a one way street to a two way street.
Customers no longer rely solely on TV/newspaper/magazine ads, billboards, direct mail, email, banner ads, and other traditional outbound marketing channels to learn about new products. These methods are now viewed as too intrusive, especially among younger consumers who regularly tune out the tactics.
Customers want to find YOU (not the other way around)
A study conducted by the Corporate Executive Board’s (CEB) Marketing Leadership Council found that the average customer progresses nearly 60 percent of the way through the purchase decision-making process before engaging with a sales rep. How are they able to do this? By going online. Customers are using websites, blogs, and social media.
A study by Pardot found that 72 percent of B2B buyers begin their research with Google. Other starting points for research: personal networks (15.58%), Yahoo (5.53%), Bing (2.76%), LinkedIn (2.51%) and social networks (2.01%).
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing focuses on consumers finding you.
Inbound marketing meets your customers and prospects where they are, with the information for which they are looking, and at the right moment. Inbound marketing provides value, builds trust and authority, which ultimately result in increased leads and higher conversion rates.
The components of inbound marketing are pretty simple: Create and distribute fresh, relevant, targeted content specifically designed to reach a target audience.
Strategies include:
- Social media marketing
- Blogging and content marketing
- Podcasts
- White papers
- ebooks
- Infographics
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Case studies
What is outbound marketing?
In contrast, outbound marketing focuses on paying to broadcast your message to find consumers who will listen to you.
Outbound marketing is a value-driven numbers game. The more banner ads, print ads, and direct mailings you pay for, the more people see your product, and the more sales you’ll make. However, it is costly. Outbound marketing costs 38% more than inbound marketing. The average cost per lead using outbound marketing is $373. The average cost per lead using inbound marketing is $143.
Outbound marketing strategies include:
- Print ads
- TV ads
- Banner ads
- Telemarketing
- Cold calling
- Press releases
- Trade shows
- Email marketing
- Direct mail
Inbound marketing makes sense
Inbound marketing just makes sense. It is a proven methodology and it costs less. Isn’t it time to meet your customers where they are? Get online. Create content. Distribute content. Engage with customers. Optimize your website.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a management consulting firm focused on strategy and inbound marketing. When it comes to inbound marketing we take a different approach than other firms. This is because of our business experience and background. We know ROI is important, so our approach is data driven and produces results.
We understand that developing and implementing an inbound marketing strategy can seem daunting. We are here to help. We are happy to take a few minutes and look at your current strategy and give you ideas on how to start, or suggestions on what you can do to make your current strategy more successful. We are also happy to talk with you about what we can do.
We’d love to talk with you about how you can grow your business through inbound marketing.
