We’ve read premature obituaries for many manufacturing marketing methods in recent years from direct mail to email and even the humble billboard. B2B blogging is another “dead” marketing idea that still has plenty of life left in it and several benefits for your business if it’s implemented properly as part of your broader content marketing strategy. Here at Cain & Company, we take the time to understand your business and offerings and produce quality blogs yielding better brand awareness, increased customer loyalty, and new leads.
At its inception, blogging was practically a license to print money; many authors or journalists got their start by hanging their shingle in some new corner of the internet. It may not have its former glamour, but blogging has retained its importance, especially in the context of marketing for manufacturers.
Trust plays a part in any customer interaction, but it’s an especially important driver of B2B purchasing decisions. A blog is an excellent opportunity for your business to be an authoritative voice on the industry trends, issues, and solutions that matter to your customers, which in turn builds valuable trust and public relations clout.
Not everything about your products and services will be self-explanatory. Sometimes a bit of education helps your customers better understand your products and use them to their full potential. The same blog posts that are educating your customers can also be the backbone of a knowledge base that addresses many common customer questions, giving your support staff more time to focus on urgent issues.
It’s hardly a secret that Google rewards quality content. If you have something new to bring to the conversation, your customers won’t be the only ones who appreciate it. Google is likely to reward you with better discoverability and visibility.
As we mentioned earlier, blogging is just one part of what should be a multifaceted content marketing strategy. Creating content can be time consuming. Repurposing content, on the other hand, lets you—and it—work smarter. The longer-form nature of a blog post lends itself to all kinds of excerpting and extracting; one blog post can spawn all manner of social media marketing collateral, from video scripts to Facebook or LinkedIn posts, Tweets, and Instagram captions, saving you considerable time and effort.
If you’ve read this far, your next question is probably, “Where do I find ideas for my blog?” We have an answer: don’t. We aren’t suggesting that thinking through what you’d write is wasted time; rather, it’s a reminder that ideas are fickle, and you have better things to do than to wait for inspiration to strike. It’s more effective to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and address the kinds of questions they’re likely to ask about your products and services.
Each of the blanks shown above has any number of possibilities for your blog. Furthermore, the more open-ended the question is, the more useful it will be in generating initial topic ideas; following that first step, you can narrow it down further still.
In addition to determining the nature of your audience, the frequency with which you’ll post, and the specifics of your editorial calendar, you’ll also need to figure out how your blog will support the rest of your marketing and how you’ll measure its success in doing so. Meeting these and other content marketing challenges begins with a phone call to Cain & Company. If you need help with engaging social media posts, blogs and accompanying image ideas, content and visual production, or assistance measuring progress with the latest tools, we are here to help. With over 200 years of combined experience in marketing and advertising, our team can help you take advantage of all blogs have to offer.
