Blogging Basics - Your Bread and Butter

Bread and butter. It's a classic term that insinuates the basics - what every company should "have at their table." You have your products that are your "bread and butter," which make up the core of your business, but what about the" bread and butter" of your marketing? Do you know your basics there?

Blogging - What Do You Want To Accomplish?

Consider the core messages of your marketing that you want to get across. You want to show that you're a thought-leader, a person that everyone should go to for the best products and solutions. Being top of mind and increasing awareness are always the goals of a growing company.

In addition to being a thought-leader, you want to increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You want to drive traffic to your site for people to look at your capabilities and become leads. Let's be honest, the main goal is to increase sales, attendance, or whatever your end-game is to move the needle. By having those keywords and interactive content on your site for your audience, Google and other search engines notice when you get higher traffic and backlinks to your site. The more views to your blog, the more awareness, the more search engines notice, and the more people are on your site that might contact you or buy. See how it all interconnects?

Blogging is a way to get people to that site that you've worked so hard on. It gets people to listen and follow up. If you do it right, they start caring about you and your company, watching you for more information and tips, listening to what you say, and even sometimes watching for the latest and greatest products. Blogging takes time and varies from industry to industry, but it's a great way to help your search engine ranking, increase website traffic, increase brand awareness, and establish yourself as an industry leader. Win-win, right?

So, if you are just starting to blog or have been blogging for a long time, here are some blog topics that should always be in your wheelhouse.

6 Blogs That Every Company Should Address

It doesn't matter if you're in industrial plastic injection molding or hair care products, you know your industry, products, and target market. Use this knowledge to create basic blog buckets to help establish yourself as a resource for prospects and clients, as well as an industry thought-leader.

1. Answer Questions. Throughout the sales funnel, you will always get a lot of questions. Think about what questions your sales team or support team usually get. This could mean a question about how often your product needs maintenance, to naming the best place to go for discontinued parts. Answer these questions to help prospects and current customers.

2. Provide Information. This does not have to pertain to your products and/or services, but it can. Think about what your target market pays attention to. Are they car people that also love football? Try tailgating tips. Are people worried about how pool water will affect their new hair color? Tell them how to preserve their color and prevent chlorine damage. Watch where your target audience goes and what they care about. Provide information that they are interested in and will want to read.

3. Show How To Use Your Product. Especially if you have a complex product, it doesn't hurt to throw in a blog about you every once in a while. If you have cleaning products - with some sprays and cloths that are better for particular surfaces- talk about it. If you are an electronic application company that has quite a few features, then take a blog to summarize or explain each feature.

4. Insider Information. If there's a new rule, law, or change coming down the pipeline - blog about it! If FLSA or ACA will make major changes in your industry, talk about what those changes are and how those laws will affect your clients. You can even suggest how they should prepare for those changes. Being a helpful industry leader is imperative.

5. Behind the Scenes. These are the fun ones. You can talk about your company culture, the latest company retreat, someone's birthday or work anniversary, or about how you have decided to make a major company change (like re-branding, going LEAN, or a new website). These personalize and humanize your company. It gives an insight into who you are, and customers like knowing that you're more than just a faceless entity. Let your personality shine!

6. What Pain Points Can You Solve? This is further down in the sales funnel, but extremely useful for your sales department. Producing and publishing the right content can help relieve stress off your sales team. Tell your readers how your product shortens production time or saves money. Educate your prospects and tell them how your latest updates can solve a particular software issue. Use your blogs to show you are useful and can help solve their problems.

These are only the basics. Educating and helping your readers should be your number one priority. It doesn't matter if you've been blogging for twenty years or a few weeks, working the various angles allows you to hit each stage of the funnel - from awareness to action.

If you don't have time to write blogs or don't know where to start, we can help. Read our blog for various tips and tricks for marketing or get the conversation started on becoming a program parter.