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Interesting, insightful, and useful. Those are the kinds of ideas that businesses make their living off of -- and the kind that they want to hold on to tightly.
Many companies balk at the idea of blogging or sharing information about their solutions on their website because they think they have to share proprietary information or intellectual property. Instead, they opt for very basic information and a contact form. If your website is like this, then it's no better than the status quo.
Company blogging is an important part of a successful content marketing program, and the more interesting, insightful, and useful your posts are, the more they will draw new prospects to your company website.
When it comes to sharing original ideas and insights on a company blog, many businesses find it hard to get excited about sharing their proprietary information. The good news is that you don’t have to: you can be interesting, insightful, and useful without sharing sensitive information.
The Real Purpose of Company Blogging
The real power behind business blogging is to capture the audience that’s researching your industry. You don’t have to share your process, your ideas, or your latest patent. You just need to write for an audience looking to be informed on industry topics, comparisons of solutions like yours, or the state of technology in your field.
For example, we have a client that manufactures and sells a special kind of chemical tank. This chemical tank is designed to all but eliminate the possibility of a harmful chemical spill. Rather than talking about the tank design, they might instead discuss different ways for their prospects to control risk in a chemical storage situation.
Finding Middle Ground: Deciding What to Blog About
Brainstorming blog topics and content strategies takes a little time, but it’s more than worth it to build digital assets for your company for a number of reasons. It may take 6 months to start to see that payoff, but there are important facts to keep in mind: 93% of all customers use search before they make a purchase, and 86% of them don’t search for your company name, but instead use a "non-branded" search.
To start thinking of interesting ideas without giving trade secrets to your competitors, get your staff together. Identify your client personas and think about questions they might like to see answered. Remember that when they evaluate your product or service, they are trying to solve a problem. Take a look at your social media platforms and see what kinds of questions are being asked about your industry.
What’s holding your company back from blogging? We'd like to hear from you. Just leave a comment below.
