how to manage a business blog in 6 steps
TRANSCRIPT
How to Manage a Business Blog In 6 Steps
This group not only has high traffic, but they also get high referral rates from their blog to their
corporate web site, and they see higher impact of their blog activities on key marketing metrics
including quantity and quality of sales opportunities.
We recently conducted a study of 425+ marketing practitioners to uncover best practices in business blogging.
Click through to see the six steps these leading bloggers are taking to get the most impact from their content.
To identify a leading group of business bloggers, we deemed those blogs that
receive 10,000+ page views a month the “10K Club.”
Create a Center of Excellence Team 1
80% of leading business bloggers have a governance team for blogging activities
Yes 80%
No 20%
Do you have a governance team for blogging activities?
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
What is a Center of Excellence team?
The CoE (center of excellence) team helps stakeholders to better produce and market their content. They don't necessarily create all the content within the CoE, but rather ensure that all elements come together properly for the best results, by:
Learning and sharing best practices with content teams. Guiding the stakeholders on content processes, policy and promotion. Managing a content library of all created content. Repurposing out-of-date content. Creating high-quality, strategic content. Cross-promoting content when they lack content in the presence of a business case.
è
2 Establish a posting frequency
91% of leading business bloggers
publish to their blog weekly or
more o<en
62.0%
81.9%
90.5%
33.6%
17.0%
9.5% 4.4%
1.1% 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
<1,000 1,000 to <10,000 10,000+
% o
f Res
pond
ents
Monthly Page Views
Weekly or more often Up to Monthly Quarterly
How often do you post content to your most visited blog?
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
è IMPROVE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: Curated content becomes additional indexable pages that provide more doorways into your site via search engines. ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY AS A THOUGHT LEADER: Curated content helps you develop go-to resources that improve your credibility and encourage visitors to trust you as the authority on your topic.
SUPPORT LEAD GENERATION: Curated content drives incremental site visits that increase the potential for landing quality leads.
Why?
STREAMLINE LEAD NURTURING: Curated content is easily repurposed via newsletters, emails, and other channels to make lead nurturing simple and consistent.
Want a deeper look at content cura?on? Click here for the complete eBook on the topic.
Don't Just Create . . Curate: Boost Content Marketing with Curation
3 Tap into external resources
24%
Leading bloggers outsource of their blog posts to external staff.
Please indicate what % of blog posts are created by the following teams.
88.2%
11.8%
76.4%
23.6%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Internal Staff External Staff
% o
f Blo
g Po
sts
Blog Creation Resources
<10K 10,000+ (monthly page views)
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
All Companies
56% of the
external staff at all
companies surveyed are guest authors or non-‐paid
contributors.
Paid: Writing agencies
14%
Paid: Writing services
5%
Paid: Independent freelancers
25%
Non-Paid: Contributed or
guest posts 56%
Of the external folks that write blog posts, what % are: All Companies
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
How do I start a guest blogging program?
Put Someone in Charge of the Guest Blogging Program Develop a Guest Blogging Strategy Publish a Guest Blogging Policy with Guidelines
Make Contributors’ Posts Better Be Proactive about Managing Timelines and Delivery Expectations
How do I start a guest blogging program? è
þ
þ
þ
þ
þ
þ Measure Performance of Your Contributors
Want more in-‐depth instruc?ons? Click here for the complete post on the topic.
4 Strive for high-quality, long form blog posts
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
<250 250 to <500 500 to <750 750 to <1,000 1,000+
% o
f Res
pond
ents
Length of Blog Post (average # of words)
<1,000 1,000 to <10,000 10,000+
(monthly page views) If you use this graphic,
please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
52% of blog posts
by leading bloggers
average at 500 words or
more in length.
Please estimate the % of your blog posts in each of these groups by length of post.
5 Employ a variety of promotion techniques
Who is responsible for the promotion of your blog posts?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Social Media Team
Blog Writers Editors Marketing (Paid Media)
Community Manager(s)
<1,000 1,000 to <10,000 10,000+
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
Leading business bloggers
align with
social media teams
and leverage paid
media.
39% of leading business bloggers
send a newsletter
with blog content
weekly or more often.
How often do you send a newsletter with your blog content to your subscriber base?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Weekly or More often Monthly Quarterly or Never
% o
f Res
pond
ents
<1,000 1,000 to <10,000 10,000+
(monthly page views)
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
More ideas for promo?on? Also consider these strategies: è Advocate Enablement:
Turn your most passionate users and employees into advocates with programs that incentivize them to share your content.
Sales Enablement: Work with your sales team to repurpose your best pieces of
content into sales assets.
Reuse: Repurpose blog content into
infographics, eBooks and more. Learn more about repurposing
with Curata’s Content Marketing Pyramid.
Influencer Marketing: Feature prominent influencers in your blog posts and ask them to
share with their networks to expand your reach. Learn more about influencer marketing here.
6 Raise the performance measurement bar
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
% o
f Res
pond
ents
Blog Metrics <1,000 1,000 to <10,000 10,000+
Indicate which of the following blog metrics you use today: (Check all that apply)
(monthly page views)
42% of leading business measure their content’s impact on sales.
If you use this graphic, please cite Curata and link to http://bit.ly/bloggingstudy
How to measure content’s impact throughout the funnel: è
Curata’s Content Marketing Analytics Framework
Learn more in our complete eBook on the
topic here.
For an even more in-depth look at the practices of the 10K Business
Blogging Club, download the complete eBook on the topic: