Hardwood Floors April May 2018

BUSINESS BEST PRACTICES

By Katrina Olson

MARKETING

Build your Brand with Blogging The blog, or “web log,” has been around since the 1980s in the form of news groups and discussion forums. Today, hosting services and software make it easy for anyone to start a blog. And why shouldn’t they? Blogging offers unique opportunities for marketing, branding, and lead development. And according to Hubspot’s 2017 State of Inbound Report, 53 percent of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. Content is a key part of the sales cycle. Nearly half (47 percent) of buyers view three to ve pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative, according to a 2016 report by DemandGen. Even old content keeps developing leads. HubSpot found that 75 percent of their views and 90 percent of their leads came from older posts. But blogging is more than an occasional article; it’s a commitment to consistently and regularly develop quality content. e Holy Grail is a compounding post – one that performs much be er than others, especially over time – which, according to HubSpot, represents 10 percent of all blog posts and generates 38 percent of overall tra c. Before developing content Ready to sit down and start writing? First, think strategy, which ideally includes mapping the customer journey, creating customer personas, and distributing content. But for those just starting, here are the basics. • Target audience: Who do you most want to reach? • Goal: What should happen as a result? • Content: Which topics do readers care about? • Frequency: What schedule can be reasonably maintained? • Distribution: Where and how will content be published? • Promotion: How will content be promoted?

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A sound, research-based strategy will serve as a blueprint for developing a consistent ow of quality content to support the brand, stay relevant to prospects, and a ract your best clients. Blogging best practices Much research has been published about the how, what, when, and where of blogging. e following draws on two recent studies: the Annual Survey of Bloggers, by Orbit Media Studios, and Highlights and the State of Blogging 2017 Survey, by ConvertKit. Length of posts Blog posts are ge ing longer, taking more time to write, and being published less frequently than in previous years. Although the average length of a blog post is 1,054 words, the percentage of blog posts with 2,000 or more words has doubled every year, says Orbit. ConvertKit found that most popular length ranged from 500 to 1,000 words.

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