The issue on getting your office to write for your blog was a pain-point at our Sales & Marketing Huddle in January, and was discussed often by both speakers and leaders. So it was obvious for us to write a blog on this.
Blogging is something that receives tons of attention, experts will shout about its benefits until the cows come home and if you were to look for the positive implication of having a consistent B2B Blog you’ll find heaps and heaps of data, that’ll tell you that it is a must in this day and age.
Why should we bother blogging on a consistent basis?
Consistency as we all know is powerful, whether it’s in your personal life or professional. The more you do something and the regularity in which you do it can equal momentous results. Blogging is no different, businesses that blog see 67% more leads than those without.
So I’m sure you’ll now say…
“I’ll get all my promising switched on consultants writing blogs in their spare time, I’ll threaten, incentivise, be strict, give them time to write. They’re passionate, they’ll love blogging and we’ll be flooded in great articles! ”
Unfortunately, this natural step is one destined for failure. In this article I’ll explain why, then talk about what you can do to transform your office into a content factory that’ll see you building precious leads.
5 Reasons why forcing your staff to write will fail.
1. Some just aren’t cut out for it:
You’ll inevitably find that many of your employees will simply not be interested in writing articles for your blog. It’ll be an uphill struggle, going against their natural grain and result in shoddy rushed writing that’ll serve little purpose.
2. Your consultants are busy.
At the end of the day, this kind of initiative will come second place to billing in the eyes of your consultants. Forcing a busy recruiter to take time away from their calls and communication and hinder their billing, could foster disdain and annoyance to your initiative; especially If they’re operating in a strong commission environment.
3. Timelines will need to be introduced.
You’ll naturally need to enforce strict deadlines with unwilling consultants, bringing back bad memories of essays in the school years. You’ll see those strict timelines getting ignored and/or forgotten resulting in you receiving articles over their respective deadlines. What’s worse your content may be hastily written hours before; making it short, uninspired and bad.
4. “I don’t know what to write about”
A common question you’ll face, just leaving your consultants to write about their ‘expertise’ won’t inspire any confidence. It’s difficult to think about what to write, and there can be better ways to generate ideas than to wrack your brain in panic.
5. There will be a lack of understanding
One of the biggest mistakes will be just rolling out your blogging edict without education on how blogging is useful for them and their business. Many people will just purely not understand blogging what-so-ever and feel it is a waste of time. Apathy to your cause will breed the wrong culture in the office towards your blogging efforts.
So what do you need to do to get your office creating regular value-adding content?
Your first step will be to educate.
Organise a meeting with everyone you want involved and present a strong case, what benefits consistent content brings to your business, and how this relates to them. Remember do your research, bring a healthy amount of case-studies and data.
Now let’s get some ideas on the table
Once you’ve won them to your cause, commence an interactive brainstorming session using the collective power of your attendees to write up a remarkable list of article headlines and content ideas. 52 ideas will equal a whole year’s worth of weekly blog articles! When thinking of ideas try to think about pain-points, what’s new in the industry, timeless advice, new ways of thinking and things we shouldn’t do anymore – Check here for a great infographic on blog ideas.
If you’re struggling for ideas remember to conduct market research. Ask your candidates and clients what they’d like to see, what are their pain-points and jot down their questions whenever they ask them, then try to answer them in a blog post. Let you into a secret, we’re doing one right here.
Find your key players.
Following this meeting you’ll find a handful of individuals who will be truly passionate and engaged with your blogging idea, and these will be your people who’ll you’ll focus all your attention on.
From here, it would be a good idea to put by some time to educate this crack team further. Send them on copywriting courses, get them to read through blogs that teach you how to construct a great article and how to write headlines. Knowledge is power.
If you have a marketing team, get them helping with this and establish a timeline, deadlines and how this content will be distributed out.
Give them some time.
Block out just half an hour to an hour a day to dedicated writing, this time will add up throughout the week and leave you with an article that has been written over time and constructed with care. Sleeping on an article can change your outlook and give you that boost of inspiration.
Organise short meetings regularly
Make a small amount of time for a quick update meeting on the progress of your article writing. This will give your authors an outlet for their stresses and ideas. Start to create content calendars and build your ideas list here.
Try a variety of mediums:
Podcasts and Videos offer a lazier way to consume content for the audience and can sometimes be even more lucrative – Downside is you’ll need a little more time to plan, create, edit and produce this sort of content. Who knows the person who is awful at writing an engaging article could be a natural in front of the camera, a little bit of experimentation and getting out of your comfort zone may be well worth it.
This still isn’t working
You’ve got your ideas but you’re still struggling with content – it may happen, perhaps no one wants to write and you’re struggling to get that content out. You may need to head to outside help, either bring in a specialist copywriter you’ll be pumping out content at a rate of-nots, or hire a freelancer to write up your content.
Our partner at The Recruitment Network ClearlyPR offers these sorts of services, helping Recruitment companies stressed for time and resources to produce weekly content. They’ll create for you regular articles and content from award-winning writers that speak to your audience. Find out more here.
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