Content marketing is indisputably valuable as a means of informing potential customers of a business’s existence. A blog increases the likelihood that your client’s website will show up in online searches. It also provides a place for customers to engage with their brand online. Making regular publishing a high priority can lead to measurable results.
In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of blogging for your clients, as well as how you can encourage them to make it a more regular—and enjoyable—experience. Let’s get started!
Why Your Clients Should Be Blogging
Working for a marketing agency, you know first-hand how difficult it can be to acquire new clients. It’s no less so for the brands you serve, and one way you can help ease this process for them is by selling them on the benefits of blogging.
As we mentioned earlier, creating useful and relevant content has many benefits for your clients’ businesses. There are statistics to back this claim up, too. For example, brands with blogs have 434% more search engine-indexed webpages, which increases visibility for their websites through organic searches.
A blog also provides informal ground for brands to exchange ideas and share news with customers. This type of engagement is a definitive indicator of business growth. In other words, invested audiences are more likely to be financially viable customers.
A blog provides a way for clients to build authority and credibility in their industries. In this way, it establishes trust with potential customers.
Blogs also help to build useful partnerships. In the comments sections of their posts, your clients may receive requests for advertising or project collaborations, invitations to industry events, networking opportunities, and more.
Lastly, a blog provides a way for brands to differentiate themselves from the competition. Online content will usually be specific and tied to what a business offers. Examples include FAQs that answer product-related questions, as well as articles and roundups that suggest solutions to customer problems.
How to Encourage Your Clients to Blog (4 Key Tips)
Although you may be sold on the benefits of blogging, you might still need to overcome objections from clients. They’ll also need help setting up content marketing strategies once they’ve understood how this technique can increase their customer bases. The following tips will get you started.
1. Sell Them On The Payoff
Your clients will need to be able to justify the time and financial cost of blogging to the appropriate stakeholders. For this reason, you’ll need to sell them on the benefits so that they, in turn, can do the same.
As mentioned in the last section, a blog increases visibility for clients. Typically, when queries are made through search engines, the most highly-ranked results will not be static pages such as product archives or About pages. Rather, they’ll be information-packed, relevant articles.
Other benefits of blogging include building trust through authoritative content, as well as cultivating personal connections with customers by engaging with them in the comments. It might also interest you to know that blogging makes it 13 times more likely that marketing efforts will result in a positive Return on Investment (ROI).
Something you’ll want to make sure to do is teach your clients how to compile data periodically for useful metrics such as engagement and Click-Through Rates (CTRs). It’s the only way to verify that blogging is as beneficial for their business as it is for many others.
2. Help Them Determine Their Content Needs and Goals
Once your client is sold on the need to start—and maintain—a blog, your next step should be helping them determine what kind of content will best help them reach their goals. For instance, articles created to drive organic traffic might differ slightly from posts meant to increase lead conversions.
To get started, you’ll want to help your client create target personas using demographics or firmographics such as job titles, age, or hobbies. This will depend largely on their existing audience and whether or not they want to branch out or pivot.
It’s important not to skip this step as knowing the target audience is key to creating relevant content. Personas will also impact the blog’s style and tone. For example, a top-level executive might prefer to read more in-depth, data-packed posts, while a casual, approachable voice may resonate more with young consumers.
Once your client has their target personas down, the next step will be researching keywords and topics to learn what potential customers most want to know. It’s also important to consider the best platform for their content, be it their own site, on other blogs as guest posts, or a combination of the two.
3. Encourage Them to Have Fun With Content Creation
Many CEOs are popular bloggers. Examples include Marc Andreessen (co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz), Richard Branson (Virgin Group founder), and J.W. Marriott (founder of Marriott International). This proves it doesn’t matter what your client’s job title is; they can join in the content creation process.
Your client will need to find ways to enjoy the process to enable them to maintain their motivation, stick to a schedule, and create consistently engaging content. This is especially significant, knowing that while audiences do not expect perfection, they demand authenticity.
You can coach your clients to create engaging content, if needed. However, authentic enthusiasm is much harder to teach.
Some types of content that can project authenticity include personal blog content aimed at taking a stand on or creating awareness of social issues, behind-the-scenes looks at your clients’ businesses, posts based around their products, and more.
4. Have Them Delegate the Process (If Feasible)
As mentioned earlier, audiences expect meaningful, authentic posts. If thought leadership does not appeal to your client, and if they’re not passionate about it, their content is less likely to resonate with readers. In this case, it might be best to delegate its creation.
There are other reasons why delegation might be the better option. Time is a common one. They might simply not have room in their schedule to take on another responsibility. This gives your agency a chance to sell additional content marketing services to your clients, too.
If your agency has in-house content marketing specialists, all you need to do is charge an extra fee. However, if you aren’t equipped to take on the work, you can suggest your client hire a content creator for their team or work with freelancers to build their blog’s archive.
Conclusion
Blogging has several benefits for businesses such as increasing visibility and brand awareness. If your client is not already blogging, you can sell them on the advantages and help them determine their content needs and goals. Once they’ve set up a strategy, you’ll want to encourage them to have fun with the process or to delegate it if needed.
Do you have any questions about why your clients should be blogging? Share them with us in the comments section below!
Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash
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