If you have been looking to wade into content marketing pool, 2017 is definitely your year.
Multiple studies have proven that the power of blogging is here to stay, with Hubspot’s 2016 “State of Inbound” report finding that a staggering 67% of B2B marketers reap more leads through blogging.
In fact, marketers that prioritize blogging in their 2017 marketing plans are more than 12 times more likely to experience a positive return of interest on their efforts.
That’s because well-executed blogging hits a variety of targets in every post: SEO, establishing your brand equity, building thought leadership and, of course, engaging your readers. So how do you make it happen?
Figure Out Your Ideal Reader or Audience
If you’ve already created buyer personas for other marketing applications, great! They’re easy to fit into your blogging plans as well.
If you haven’t, start by assembling whatever data you have available to you: metrics such as age of your customers, location of their homes and offices, size of their families, and the items they’re most likely to buy.
This will allow you to keep your content focused and aimed for better ROI – metrics from each blog’s performance and social sharing can also be “fed back” into your metric analysis to help refine your personas as time goes on.
Conceptualize and Brainstorm
If you plan on maintaining a blog for your company, you’ll need a steady stream of ideas to draw from and share with any freelance writers you’re working with.
Intermingling styles is always a good idea to keep it fresh. An editorial here, a review there, a new product launch now and then, a how-to guide to keep things interesting.
Whenever possible, aim to make your content evergreen. Leaving off specific mentions of dates or events that could make a blog post seem outdated, and stick to information that will nearly always be useful to a reader, even years after publishing.
As an added bonus, this evergreen content can be revisited, revamped or updated with a new foreword months and years in the future, giving you nearly limitless return from a single written post.
(Hint: If you’re stuck for ideas, try out a feature like WriterAccess’ topic pitch feature to find a great concept and a writer ready to bring it to life.)
Learn What Works – and What Doesn’t
Remember that blog performance data that you’ll be reviewing weekly if not daily? It’s what’s going to help you discover what your readers are interested in and what leaves them bouncing off your page from boredom.
Even with the best intentions, not every hit is going to be a home-run, so make sure you’re poised to learn from the occasional “content fail” and you’ll be aiming your marketing missiles with increased accuracy.
When you’re outsourcing content creation, this is especially important. The more guidance and performance tips you can hand off to a content writer, the better their work will fit into your blog’s march towards success.
Make sure it’s “ready for primetime” by using these tips to start off on the right foot – both with your readers, and with any freelance writers you collaborate with.
Good luck, and happy blogging in 2017 and beyond!
Delany M is a freelancer at WriterAccess who mindfully guides clients through creating content that converts, whether they’re new to blogging, or old pros.
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