The old saying used to be, “You get out of it what you put into it.” In the era of inbound marketing, you could almost reverse that phrase: The quality of content you push out will directly correlate to the quality of leads you bring in through your company’s blog.
Much focus is placed on the quantity of material you publish through a corporate blog, and publishing consistently in is important. But quantity will never serve as a substitute for quality, and volume will never be a fair trade for substance.
How to Avoid Posting Garbage
If you start the writing process by thinking, “I have to pump out a blog post… I’m overdue,” then you’re setting yourself up to post quantity instead of quality. You’ll deliver on the quantity expectation you have set for yourself, but the likelihood increases that it will be of the low-quality (okay, garbage) variety.
On the other hand, if you start the writing process with a strong prompt, you’re more likely to deliver robust blog content that matters.
Prompts that Deliver High-Quality Content
- What questions might my customers most want me to help answer? If you don’t do this already, start keeping a notebook by your phone and write down questions that arise from customer calls and emails.
- What issues are of greatest concern to my target accounts, and why? Think about the issues that you hear from your customers and potential customers, and not just the issues that your product or service can solve.
- What are some of the worst mistakes I’ve seen people make when deploying the product or service we sell? Be transparent with your mistakes – everyone loves to learn from someone who can admit to their faults. You’ll be surprised at how engaged your readers are with your stories of defeat, and what you learned from those stories.
- What can we learn from the most successful users of our product or service? Interview your power users and ask them to talk about how your product or service has changed the way they do business. Bounce ideas off them, or better yet, ask them to post on your company’s blog!
- What problems might my customers most want to solve? Here, focus on the problems that you can help solve, and use each problem as a starting point for a blog post.
Reach is important, and the number of times you post to your blog can help your site be seen as a more reliable resource for fresh ideas. But reach is not more importance that relevance. To be a respected authority—a thought leader in your industry—you must write and produce content that matters to the constituents you serve.
If you want to learn more about inbound marketing, download your copy of "30 days to inbound marketing success."
