Picture the scene.
Grandad-dad Emmett (as my daughter refers) and I are sipping a hot coffee, reminiscing in the conservatory, picking at mum’s home-made Battenberg and helping it down with a brew (in mum’s best china, without a tea-bag no less).
Conversation goes something like this:
Me: Dad.
Dad: Yes Michael.
Me:You know at work, how I’m always trying to attract new customers? How can I make my blogs do some of the running for me? How can I get people to start listening and engaging with me online? There are serial bloggers getting bags of attention and I want some of it.
Dad: Son. I don’t know why you’d be running in clogs. And what do they have to do with your breakfast?
Me: No dad. Not cereal and not clogs. Blogs. They are a way of recording news, a subject or personal diary entries. Maybeleaning towards vlogs or podcasts will get more attention?I want to get potential and existing customers tuning in regularly. I want 2000 postslike these professional bloggers get. I want big, bad blog-traffic dad!
Dad: Are you thinking of becoming a news presenter, son? Will you have to work down in that there London place? You’ll soon find out about traffic-jams. Your uncle Ernie was a professional clogger but he didn’t have a car.
Me: Dad, I’m not moving, dancing in clogs and I won’t be presenting the news. Dad, please ask Mum to put the kettle on.
Dad: Linda.Did you know Michael’s studying clog-casts and wants to become a professional jammer? It’s digital for presenting the breakfast news. Please put the kettle on.
There you have it. A typical father and son chat regarding anything digital, online or to be honest, anything technology circa 1975.To be fair, dad is no less in the dark about ‘that there blogosphere’ than I am as I begin my quest to perfect the model of B2B blogging, resulting in real, quantifiable business relationships, leads and of course, sales.
I have compiled some very interesting facts on my journey which further compound the argument to get ‘blogging’ now!Let me introduce my ‘5’ teaser facts. [and no – I have no intention of taking this any further with dad]
1 Lead Generation via a B2B blog
In B2B lead generation, quantity versus quality is probably the biggest challenge faced by industrial marketers. In order to satisfy the demands, the marketing department usually provides easy-to-measure metrics like traffic, page views, time spent and number of leads captured. The focus here is definitely on quantity.
Even though business blogging is not widely used in B2B marketing and especially in industrial marketing, it can be very effective as a tool for lead generation. A good business blog can drive a steady stream of pre-qualified leads that are as good as referrals.
In a recent study of over 1,400 small- and medium-sized businesses (UK), it was found that marketers with blogs generate 67% more leads. The chart below shows the difference between B2C and B2B companies.
Clearly B2B marketers can improve their lead generation efforts by using a business blog. It should be noted that we are talking about general B2B companies here and not specifically the industrial sector.
2 Size matters in business blogs
The size of your business blog does have an impact on lead generation. Here we are defining size as the number of published articles on a business blog at a given point in time. Results indicate that median leads start to grow once 24-51 articles are written and published. Median leads were 77% higher among marketers with blogs of 52+ articles versus bloggers with 24 to 51 articles. The graph below shows the impact of number of blog articles on monthly leads.
3 Don’t put lead generation before traffic
Traffic is the lifeblood of any business blog or website. Don’t spend all your time and resources crafting lead generating offers (white papers, webinars, online demos etc.). First focus on driving a critical mass of interested traffic by making sure prospects can find your business blog.
How do you drive more traffic? By increasing the number of indexed pages in Google (Blog pages Google includes in its database of pages considered for ranking for specific keywords). For every 50 to 100 pages of indexed pages in Google, leads achieved double digit growth as seen in the chart below.
4 Optimizing (SEO) business blogs and lead generation
Instead of focusing on achieving top ten ranking in Google, your lead generation efforts will receive a bigger boost by growing the number of keywords ranking in Google’s top 100. Companies ranking in Google’s top 100 results for 26 to 51 keywordsgenerated twice as many leads as compared to businesses ranking for 6 to 13 keywords. B2B marketers with 51+ keywordsgenerated three times more leads than those with 6 to 13 keywords.
5 Making a business blog into a lead generating machine
Let’s apply all these findings into action items to turn your own business blog into a well-oiled, lead generating machine. Here are the key takeaways:
- Build page volume: consider starting a business blog to quickly increase pages
- Increase the number of blog pages indexed by Google by applying optimization techniques:
- Place keywords in the right places on blog pages (On-site optimization)
- Build inbound links from reputable sites
- Create unique and interesting content frequently to build your base of regular readers
- Use clear calls to action on all blog posts for tying your business blog to the company’s website
- Offer compelling and educational content in order to capture qualified leads
- Deploy social marketing features on your business blog to encourage sharing and increasing awareness
