Business Growth Blog

Sometimes I go an unsubscribe spree - I unsubscribe from almost every newsletter that comes into my email inbox. Even emails I like to read. After a while, I just get too many, and it becomes overwhelming. I never read half of them anyway. I hit the “select all,” quickly scan to see if anything stands out, then hit “delete.”

I tell my clients that email marketing is a crucial part of a business growth strategy. And here I am, opting out after opting out. So what's the deal? Is email marketing important or not? Here's my philosophy on what email marketing is really about.

There’s often minimal communication between sales and marketing teams about their corporate newsletter strategy. Publishing email newsletters is typically seen as a ‘marketing’ function, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Email marketing is meant to build brand awareness, but it serves an even more important role: to support sales prospecting efforts. After all, the contacts on your email list are the same people that sellers are actively trying to convert into customers.

The first place most people go to find the products or services they need is Google. At a minimum, Google is the new phone book. For example, if I wanted to find out where I could purchase dry ice for a party I was having, I would type in, “Dry ice, Saginaw.” I’ll scan the first page and pick the most convenient and trust-worthy looking company.

Google also helps buyers self-educate early in the sales cycle — before they’re ready to talk to a vendor or sales rep. For example, if I was searching for information about types of office layout design, that could signal I’m considering an office renovation.

It’s true that most of our email boxes are overflowing. We can’t keep up. Email marketing is becoming increasingly noisy, which is why we need to make sure we’re marketing across multiple channels to get maximum exposure to our target buyer.

There are a lot of savvy business leaders and industry experts out there that don’t blog. Unfortunately, their hard-earned “intellect” is not being used to its full potential.

For a company blog to be a profitable investment, leaders and experts from across the organization need to take ownership and participate. Prospects and customers don’t want to read boring blogs that anyone could write by doing a little research online. They want to hear real stories, experiences, and ideas from experts in the field.

Blogging is a long-game strategy that takes practice, dedication, and patience, so it can be easy to put off. But the longer you wait to get started, the longer it will take to get results. (And the more time your competitors have to steal your thunder!)

Here are a few ideas to get over the hump and start blogging now.

The thought of sitting down, hashing out ideas and forming them into a blog post for your business blog is daunting. It’s so hard to find the time and make it a priority! I even struggle myself: do I do client work or my own blog?

For example, as I’m writing this, I feel a lot of pressure because I have a meeting tomorrow that I HAVE to prepare for. Technically, I should be doing that right now. Instead, I’m writing this blog because I know it is a critical part of my business growth strategy.

So that begs the question: how do you find time to blog in an already over-worked schedule? Here are 3 ways you can ease the burden and make blogging easier.

I evaluate a lot of company websites and their online presence. The first few things I look for are whether or not they have a blog, if the articles lean more company-centric or customer-centric, and who the authors are.

The Internet is flooded with content. Not every article is going to be a hit, but posts that are interesting and compelling to the right audience can drive website traffic and leads for years. The best articles usually come from people in the trenches: business leaders and industry experts who are actively working in the field. They bring unique insights, advanced learning, and fresh perspectives that drive the conversation forward.

In the following articles, I explored some of the important benefits businesses realize when leaders engage in the blogging process. When you read the titles, you may think they contain the same information. But each blog has a slightly different take. Check them out! Comment below and share what you think about blogging.

One of the first priorities of your company’s marketing strategy should be to develop a process for blogging. From a technical perspective, blogging helps you get found online. It increases the number of web pages on your website (the more web pages, you have the more chances you have to get found) and increases SEO mojo. That’s definitely important stuff, but buyers don’t really care about that. The main reason to blog is to provide your prospects with the information they need as they travel through the decision making process.

Blogging is a profitable marketing tactic that companies from all industries can use to attract and engage target buyers. The two biggest questions marketing executives have to answer when planning their blog strategy are 1) what will they write about, and 2) who will write the articles.

The best blog articles come from people within your organization that have deep industry expertise. Unfortunately, most internal experts or other potential blog contributors don’t have time to write, don’t like to write, or don’t know what to write about. It’s not part of the corporate culture, and they’ve never done anything like that before.

The good news is that there are processes you can implement to simplify the content creation process and make blogging the norm within your organization. Business leaders will be able to quickly create quality blogs that build a following, generate leads, and help salespeople sell.

Here are four ways to create blog articles without having to agonize over the writing process:

For the majority of salespeople today, blogging is not a prospecting technique that is on their radar. However, when sales and marketing align around the content strategy, the return on investment goes way up. Here are 3 reasons why sellers should be part of the blogging process, either by helping to craft articles or by guiding the content strategy.