How to Use Your Blog for Lead Generation: Part I

How to Use Your Blog for Lead Generation: Part I:

Image: Unprocessed UK PR Blogosphere Influence Map, ©Porter Novelli Global, 2009/CC

Have you dipped a toe into the blogosphere yet?

If so, you’re on the right path, but if you haven’t, consider this:

Small companies that blog get 55% more website visitors and 102% more Twitter followers, and enjoy (!) 126% higher lead growth than non-blogging businesses (HubSpot data analysis).

But how does your business blog distinguish itself from the millions of wannabe influencers? How do you drive visitors to your website, and more importantly, how do you convert them into leads?

Five tips for effective blogging

1. Create value

It’s understandable that as a business, you’d like to reap the maximum benefit from running a blog but do your readers and business prospects have the same goals? Think of your blog as a resource and make sure you publish material that has a high value to your online audience.

2. Establish your expertise

Many businesses make the grave mistake of running a blog simply to promote their products and services. While this may be your end objective, you want to steer clear of blatant self-promotion when writing blogs. Don’t position your blog around your brand, but try to establish your expertise around a wider subject matter, instead.

3. Keep content relevant and fresh

You don’t want to sell snowboards to 65+ year-olds or knitting needles to teenage boys. So make sure you target the right prospects, put yourself in their mind-set and make sure the content you produce resonates with them. Only when readers find your blog content useful and start coming back for more, are they likely to convert to leads.

Make blogging part of your weekly schedule – the more you blog, the more site traffic you will attract and the more qualified leads you can expect to generate.

4. Respond to comments

You may be threatened by the prospect of having to confront negative sentiment, but you can’t build authority and boost your credibility unless you interact with your blog readers. In fact, responding quickly to both positive and negative comments professionally can reflect well on your brand.

Being open and sincere is the best way to earn trust: as a 2010 study showed, more than half of UK consumers feel as though they are being ‘listened to‘ if a company responds to issues that they’ve posted online. (Fleishman-Hillard and Harris interactive, July 2010).

5. Promote, measure, optimise

Promote your blog content across all key social media channels: social media increases the chances of your content attracting visitors, creating buzz and – if you are lucky – going viral.

To see whether your content creation efforts are paying off, use automated marketing tools to track metrics such as the number of leads you generate, and the number of impressions each blog post gets.

Compare your performance over time to identify which topics resonate best with your audience.

Last but not least, don’t forget that blogging is not just a one-off campaign but a journey for life.

So once you make a commitment to your readers, make sure you stick with it.