Easy reading is darn hard writing
I often speak about the importance of delivering high quality supporting material when marketing to prospects. But what does this mean in practice? Well, lest we put the cart before the horse, let’s talk about basics first.
1
Be clear and concise
Posting random facts and figures about your company is never likely to attract much attention. To effectively reach decision makers, you need to have a powerful and tightly focussed angle that taps into a pre-researched and highly specific need.
2
Be generous and helpful
In order to grab prospects’ attention, the information you send (including the information on your blog) needs to be useful, relevant and helpful, and should demand nothing in return from your prospects, other than to request that they allow you to continue contacting them with relevant communications.
3
Deliver original and well-written material
Always deliver original, well-written information that is relevant to your company. This will set your business apart the majority of marketers and bloggers who seem to think it is acceptable to deliver third rate, amateurish work. If your writing wouldn’t get past a professional editor then it shouldn’t get past your own in-built quality control radar.
4
Be consistent
Consistent communication is critical to attracting continuing subscribers. If people receive your emails, newsletters and blogs at regular, respectable intervals over a sustained period of time, they’ll perceive you as a force to be reckoned with and not as a here today, gone tomorrow opportunist.
Regular blog posting will also enhance your visibility in the search engine rankings. Many businesses pay thousands of pounds to SEO consultants to improve their performance in the search rankings. What they don’t realise is that they can achieve impressive ranking improvements for next to nothing by posting regular keyword-rich blogs. Search engines pick up freshly posted relevant content and reward websites by moving them up the page.
5
Share your communications via social media
Don’t neglect to post links to your blogs, videos and webinars on social networking sites. It’s a quick, easy and free way of gaining more traffic and generating targeted B2B leads. You can set up blog feeds on sites like such Facebook and Twitter, as well on share sites such as Digg, Delicious and Reddit, etc.
6
Don’t place all your faith in your corporate website
When most companies are looking to source new products or services, they aren’t necessarily going directly to vendor websites. Long before they come knocking on your door, savvy buyers are far more likely to root around online and do some research via blogs and forums to look for advice and feedback from peers. Your task, then, is to make sure that you show up consistently and in the right places. This will engender confidence in your company by pre-selling your credibility.
7
Identify your ‘hungry crowd’
To be able to feed your blog posts and videos to the right social media sites, you must know exactly where your prospects are hanging out. Check out the forums where your B2B prospects are most likely to be found and listen in and contribute to their conversations. Find out what they’re looking for and give it to them. First points of call should be relevant business blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
8
Keep on top of the competition
It’s also worth reading your competitors’ blogs, newsletters, etc – especially the most successful ones. What are they doing or saying that you could tap into to improve your own traffic and readership. What tactics are working? Make it a mission to remain one step ahead.
9
Consider your keywords
Keywords allow your content to be readily identified by the web crawlers when people are searching on your topics. To this end, all blog and web-based content should feature keywords and phrases that likely to attract decision makers in you industry. These are the words that your prospects are typing into Google and social sites, etc, to search for information. Google’s excellent keyword tool will show precisely which words people are searching on, together with the volume of searches: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
