To Blog or Not to Blog

One of the most important things manufacturing companies can do to drive traffic to their website and generate leads is blogging.?Yet, relatively few actually commit to a blogging strategy.

Surveys show that companies that blog regularly generate more leads. Just Google 'blogging and leads' or 'blogging and site traffic' or something similar, and you will find loads of studies and data saying that blogging drives lots of desired results for companies.

Yet when I tell a business owner to start a blog, they universally look at me like their 11th-grade English teacher has just assigned a big term paper on Billy Budd.?

I am sure it stems from one of the following:

• hate to write
• don't know what to write
• afraid to publish in their name
• too busy to make time?
• don't know what to say
• fear of failure
• blah blah

So how did we convince every one of our manufacturing clients over the past 14+ years to start a blog??

By convincing them that they are already discussing the topics published in a blog daily, all day, every day.

The problem is that they need to look at the content of those conversations as the content for a blog.?

So instead of telling them to start a blog, I follow a line of conversation like this:

• Do you have lots of problems that you solve every day??
• Do your customers ask many questions about your solutions and approaches to your industry to understand how best to approach a problem?
• Do your people contacting customers every day talk about different applications of your products and how they apply to a wide variety of situations?
• Do you constantly monitor your industry and competitors to see trends, threats, and opportunities?
• Do you understand the cost of your solutions and the price/cost equation of alternatives?
• Do you know why your solutions are better than the competition?
• Do you deal with different industries, regions, and markets? And understand why one would pick your solution for their situation?

Of course they do!?

These are questions they answer all day, every day.

Well, guess what?

The answer to the above questions in each possible infinite unique combination is a blog post.?Hat tip to my friend Marcus Sheridan for his book "They Ask, You Answer."

So I tell them they are creating blog posts every time they answer one of these questions; we just need to develop a template and method for documenting the answers and then formatting them into blog posts.?Once we have the template filled in, the rest is easy.

Blogging is a proven, low-cost way to generate website traffic resulting in leads that turn into sales, driving what business owners really care about - revenue.?

But blogging is so 2014, isn't it? Aren't there better ways to connect with prospects and engage them?

Maybe, but if you are not creating regular content now and relying on outbound calling, email blasts, buying, lists, paid ads, and trade shows for generating prospects and only have a product-focused website, then I'll bet you are seeing diminishing returns from your marketing budget.

The best first step into the world of inbound marketing is to start a blog. And then, commit to it for at least 18 months and do the work of posting regularly.

A blog is the foundation and source for much of your marketing and sales outreach because:

• it is the basis of improving SEO and driving new eyeballs to your site
• creates content for your social media campaigns
• gives employees a reason to share and engage with your content
• builds an audience of subscribers
• builds confidence in your subject matter experts to share more of their expertise in video and other channels
• attracts inbound links
• gives you a platform to engage thought leaders by allowing guest content (and more inbound links)

And most importantly, it helps your team build muscle in understanding your target audience and their needs and concerns. Blogging takes you out of the product-centric, internally driven mindset and forces you to think more about your customers and their world.

Anything that does that is a good thing.

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