Author: Chris Heiler
When we launch a new company blog for a client and publish our first (brilliant) blog post two things typically happen: First, we get a slap on the back and a “Hey, nice job!”. Second (immediately following the slap on the back), we’re posed the question, “Okay, now how the hell do we get our customers and prospects to actually read the blog?”
What question do you suppose we hear three and six months later after publishing on a weekly basis? Yeah, the same: "Now how do we get more of our customers and prospects to read our blog?"
Fair questions, right?
A more subtle -- and permission-based approach -- is required to build and sustain a company blog that attracts visitors (your customers and prospects) and actually generates leads for your sales team. This approach takes patience and time. Blogging should be considered a marathon, not a sprint.
When you start a blog for your company the intent is to target two broad groups of people:
- The folks like your customers, prospects, vendors, etc that already know you exist.
- Web users seeking information related to your products and services that don't have a clue that your business exists.
Yes, you absolutely want your customers reading your blog. But, more importantly I would argue, you want your blog attracting the prospects and influencers who are currently unaware of your business and the kick-ass services you provide.
Let's dive into specific tactics for growing your blog's readership, starting with this first group of folks who are already familiar with your business.
#1 Invite your contacts to visit and subscribe
Typically within the first 30 to 60 days of launching a new blog for a client we'll create a landing page promoting the blog and encouraging subscriptions. Here's an example from HighGrove Partners in Atlanta and another from Sebert Landscaping in Illinois.
Be sure to give visitors the option to subscribe by email.
Once you have a landing page like this created on your website you can go ahead and share it with your contacts. Send an email inviting your contacts to visit the blog and subscribe. I suggest waiting until you have at least five or six blog posts published so they have an idea of what to expect. Tip: Send multiple emails -- not just one -- every six to nine months or so.
Do NOT take it upon yourself to subscribe your contacts to the blog. This needs to be a pure opt-in process. Don't be a spammer.
#2 Share timely blog posts via email
Sticking with the email theme here (it's so damn direct!).
First off, don't plan on emailing every single blog post to your list of contacts. That's just annoying. If someone wants every post, they'll subscribe. Your company blog is not a post card, ammunition for your Constant Contact or a press release machine.
That said, there is nothing wrong with occasionally sending a blog post to your contacts if you think it is highly relevant and timely.
Recently, on behalf of one of our clients, we emailed their customer list a timely blog post all about winter burn--a serious issue for many of their clients after a harsh winter. That's not spam, it's adding value to the relationship. The screenshot below compares the unsubscribe rate and click-through rate from the two winter burn related emails that were sent to their customer list. Only five contacts unsubscribed from this company's email list while many more showed real interest by clicking through to the blog post.
#3 Share your blog posts on your social networks
Sharing your blog via email can help you get some traction as can sharing your blog posts on your social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Reaching your audience on social media is less direct than email, but it is still a valuable source of website traffic.
For maximum impact (i.e. views and traffic), share your blog posts multiple times on each network. You shouldn't have a "one and done" mentality when it comes to sharing your posts. For our clients we'll typically share a new blog post immediately after publishing as well as two or three times in the future, depending on the network.
The screenshot below shows the results from an experiment we conducted on our own website when we shared new and archived blog posts on our social networks multiple times each week during the month of July 2013. We attracted 450 visits in July purely from social media. Over the 11 other months we averaged only 142 visits per month from social media.
A word on Facebook...
Start paying to promote your updates if you actually want your followers to see what you're sharing. Yeah, it sucks, but it's how the game is played right now.
Paying a small amount ($20 to $60) to promote each blog post you share on Facebook can be an effective way to get your message in front of your fans (and friends of your fans) and lead them back to your website.
The screenshot below shows traffic to a client's website specifically from Facebook. When we promoted each of their new blog posts on Facebook in February and March we attracted 320 visits on average. The other four months garnered only 60 visits on average per month. That's over five times the visits from the paid promotion. This client spent a total of $625 on Facebook advertising in February and March.
#4 Patiently await visitors from organic search
In the introduction I mentioned blogging should be considered a marathon, not a sprint. As it relates to attracting visitors from organic search (Google, Bing, etc), this is where you need to show patience and sticktoitiveness. For how long? It can easily be six to nine months of regular blogging before you start to notice a substantial up-tick in the number of visitors to your blog. With this positive momentum traffic to your website can really snowball.
The screenshots below illustrate the momentum I'm referring to. The first shows the monthly visits from organic search traffic to LandscapeLeadership.com. The second illustrates the monthly visits from organic search traffic to a client's website.
Wrap up
To get more people reading your awesome new company blog, keep these tips in mind:
- Invite your contacts to subscribe to your new blog via email.
- Share individual blog posts with your contacts via email occasionally, as long as the topic is relevant and timely.
- Share your blog posts on your social networks, multiple times.
- Don't be afraid to experiment with Facebook ads to promote your blog posts to a wider audience.
- Be patient! Visitors from organic search (like Google) are pure gold. But it will take time to attract
If you have any suggestions that have proved useful to you please share in the comments below. We'd love to hear how you're getting more eyeballs on your blog posts.
Want to learn more about what we do for our green industry clients? Get in touch here or give us a shout at (800) 681-9169. If you need a little help getting started with blogging, be sure to read this blog post and download our practical 10-step checklist.
Image credit: No Ka Oi Landscape Services (client)
