How to Maximize the Reach of Your B2B Blog Posts

69% of B2B Marketers are increasing content marketing budgets or holding steady from their budgets last year. Meaning, the content marketing space is noisy and full of marketers trying to gain attention/get their message across. Add on the shift to work from home and increase in digital services and online ordering and marketers have a unique opportunity to intercept more prospects than ever before.

It’s important to have a clear plan to ensure you capitalize on your content marketing efforts.

Before we dive into how to maximize reach for your blog posts, let’s start by talking about the why of blogging. It’s important to understand why you are selecting blogging as a tactic to support your current strategy. Taking that first step will ensure that you don’t spend valuable resources creating a boatload of content that never truly sees the light of day.

How did we get here?

• In 1999, there were 23 blogs on the internet. (Source: Webdesigner Depot)
• Today, there are more than 512 million blogs. (Source: SoftwareFindr)
• For 55% of marketers, blog content creation is the top inbound marketing strategy. (Source: State of Inbound, 2018)

According to techjury, most blogs fail due to the following reasons:

• Inability to create engaging and relevant content.
• Lack of consistency in publishing blog posts.
• Inability to drive traffic.
• Poor keyword strategy

So, how do we set up the blog for success:

1. Create a plan
   • Leverage the questions below to guide you
2. Do your research
   • Research keywords to understand key terms and phrases that qualified prospects are searching
   • Research competitors to better understand where the gaps of content lie so you can fill those gaps
   • Ask your sales, customer support and customer service teams if they have frequently asked questions that could serve as fodder for the blog posts
   • Research trends: Are there recent changes in your prospects industry that may impact their business?
   • Highlight new services: Any new product launches that deserve the spotlight?
3. Launch with intention
   • Email
     • If you already have engaged customers and/or prospects on an email distribution list it makes sense to include a link to your recent blog content.
   • Use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) to promote and engage the new blog content on your website
     • Develop a proactive and authentic plan that outlines how the content can be repurposed and shared through each channel
   • Update your website to ensure newcomers to the site will see this content or a link to this content if it is part of the plan
   • Crosslink to other relevant blog posts
   • Add a sign-up modal to your website to make it easy for people who find your content through search to sign up for your newsletters

Producing high quality blog content consistently isn’t a light effort. To maximize the effort, you need to have a thoughtful plan for driving traffic to posts. It’s not 1999 anymore. You are in a crowded sea of content and you must proactively plan for maximum exposure.

Questions to ask when developing your content plan:

1. What is my objective?
2. Goals?
3. Strategy?
4. Measurement?
5. What is Title, Role Firmographic Information for targeting
6. Proposed Channels
7. Format for Content
8. Where will content “live?”
9. How will this content be disseminated?
   1. Email
   2. Paid Search Ads
   3. Paid Social Ads
   4. Website Header/Promotion
   5. Sales team leveraging a link or excerpts for prospect presentations
   6. Organic traction: Keyword

If you are looking for support in developing a strong plan, reach out to an emfluence representative for help.