Do you have a blog for your business? If you do, congrats! It’s one of the best ways to establish your expertise in your industry and bring people to your website. If not, here are some reasons you should consider it:
- Over 409 million people view more than 20.7 billion blog pages each month. (WordPress)
- 6 out of 10 U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog. (Huffington Post)
- Small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog. (Hub Spot)
- Companies that blog receive 55% more website traffic than companies that don’t and they have 434% more indexed pages compared to those that don’t. (Simple Marketing Now)
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate. (Search Engine Journal)
There’s no denying the importance of a business blog but what’s the best way to leverage it? It takes a lot of time and effort (or money if you pay someone to do it) so make sure you are getting the most out of your blog posts. Having this original content to use in your marketing plan is gold. Here are my 4 steps to leverage your blog posts and turn them into marketing gold!
Step 1. After your blog post is written, create a shortened version of it while making sure to leave out some key points to create a teaser leaving people wanting to read more. When you send out your next email about your product or service, lead with this shortened version of your blog post and invite your audience to read the entire post on your website. Make sure to include the link! Your email list is more likely to open the email if it contains new information they are interested in, not just a promotion or highlights about your product or service. Once they open it to read about your blog post they will likely see your product/promotion/service too.
Step 2. Go through your blog post and highlight important information, steps, or statistics. Typically, in a 400-600 word blog post you can expect to get 5-10 “highlights” that can be used on their own. Take these highlights and put them in a separate document.
Step 3. Create social media content with these highlights. You can use a free social media graphics software like Canva to create graphics for quotes, statistics, and tips using their stock photos or social media graphic templates. When you’re done you’ll have 5-10 graphics to use on your social media platforms. Make sure to use the correct sizes for each platform. You can easily create copies and edit sizes on Canva so you don’t have to recreate for each platform. If you are unsure of social media graphic sizes, check out my free download for every social media platform graphic size.
Step 4. Schedule these highlight graphics on your social media platforms. If you are on more than one platform, make sure to post them on different days. You do not want the same post on the same day on 3 different platforms. Stagger them throughout the month so you aren’t posting the same thing 5 days in a row too. For example, if you have 5 highlight graphics, on week 1 use graphic #1 on Facebook, graphic #2 on Instagram, and graphic #3 on Twitter. In week 2, use graphic #4 on Facebook, graphic #5 on Instagram, and graphic #1 on Twitter. Stagger them each week until you cycle through each graphic on each platform.
Pro Tip: Don’t forget blogs tend to do well on LinkedIn too! You can copy and paste the entire blog as an original article.
Many blog posts can be evergreen. If you get a great response from a post and it’s still relevant 2-3 months later, don’t be afraid to use it again. Blog posts/highlights can be shared 3-4 times a year as long as they are still relevant, and you get a good response from your audience. It may cost a little extra money for someone to write a blog for you or some extra time for you to write it yourself, but blogs can go a long way in your marketing plan. When using a blog strategy like this, make sure to link back to the post and/or website whenever appropriate and have a call to action on your website to collect potential customer information or a way to buy your products or services.
Now that you know how to turn your blog posts into marketing gold, what do you want to blog about? Need some blogging inspiration? Read my 5 Blog Ideas for Every Business.
Have any questions? Feel free to reach out to me: LoriCaralis@gmail.com