Having a strong blogging campaign will play a major role in your content marketing strategy. You see, the essence of inbound marketing is attracting your target market to your business, rather than you having to chase prospects. Blogging positions your business to create quality, targeted traffic, generate responsive leads while positioning you as an expert in your niche. The key is to offer valuable content and information that people will love, thus turning your readers into loyal followers.
It’s not only important to blog regularly, but to have a content marketing strategy in place so that your content actually gets found by its intended audience. There’s no point in sharing useful information if your market isn’t reading it! You have to utilize promotion techniques to get your post in front of people who want it.
Essentially, the goal of your blog is to build your email list to increase your sales conversions. The following three-step model will ensure that your blogging strategy is compelling and actually generates leads for your business.
#1 Create Value-Rich Content
The ideas are endless on crafting a content marketing strategy that draws your audience in. The main focus, however, is creating content that solves your target markets problems. According to NewsMiner.com, there are over 3 billion searches performed daily on Google; about 60% of online users rely on the Internet to search. People are constantly looking for information that will relieve a pain or problem. Give the people what they want…value-rich content!
#2 Promote, Promote, Promote!
Now it’s time to get your message out to the masses. It’s not enough to rely solely on SEO organic traffic. Having a blog syndication checklist will be helpful, outlining all the social networks, article sites, forum platforms, etc. as to where you will post your blog. Here are a few obvious and effective mediums to get maximum exposure:
- Create a Facebook fan page
- Post to Facebook groups that can relate to your post
- Tweet your post sharing a different bullet point with each tweet
- Summarize your blog post into key points and share it on video, uploading to sites such as YouTube and Vimeo – be sure to include your blog URL
- Create a podcast version
- Use images on Instagram to illustrate your content
#3 Don’t Forget the Call to Action
Always end your post with specific directions on what you want your audience to do next. This can range from telling them to click on a link that prompts them to a landing page, to download an exclusive eBook that relates to your blog topic, or even leave a comment of their thoughts. In addition to giving value to your market, your end goal is to generate leads. Make your CTA clear and appealing as possible to get every person who sees it to click.
Using this model in your blog content marketing plan will certainly position you as an authority in your niche, while building an elite, engaging brand for your business.
Happy blogging!