If your business is ready to create a blogging strategy, follow these guidelines for your technology marketing plan.
Some technology companies make the mistake of focusing blog posts on their software. Instead, a more effective tactic is to write blog posts that discuss, solve, and uncover audience pain points and solutions.
93% of B2B buying processes begin with an online search (Hubspot), but your audience is searching keywords related to the benefits of your product (not features of your product).
First, research audience pain points, opportunities, and challenges:
Then, write to these needs using relevant keywords when possible. You can offer solutions, explore current trends, analyze statistics, or present a thought piece on these topics.
The goal of a blog strategy for technology companies is to bring in new leads, or people who have not yet heard of your solutions. These people are simply becoming more aware of opportunities and identifying their challenges, and they are very top-of-the-funnel.
Only 32% of B2B marketers say they have a documented content marketing strategy (Content Marketing Institute).
Therefore, it doesn't make sense to blog about your company's news, updates, and internal matters. If you stick to company-focused content, you won't bring in anyone new who isn't already familiar with your company.
So during this phase, remember that these visitors are not quite ready to buy. They are in an "awareness" stage: They have realized their pain point, searched for solutions, and uncovered possible answers. However, it is unlikely that they are ready to buy — so keep your blog tone away from a sales pitch and self-promotion. Your blog will not be successful if it tries to address blog visitors as people who are further along in the buyer journey.
Instead, you must give away informative content that addresses a buyer's pain points and keeps them on your website. You want them to feel informed and interested in learning more, perhaps by submitting a "subscribe" form or downloading content from you.
By outlining a helpful digital marketing blog strategy, you can help keep your team on track with the right goals and tactics for your content.
Once you've gathered the attention of technology buyers, you still want to capture these leads’ contact information so you can nurture them down the sales funnel. A great way to do this is by offering a “next step” value. This could be a white paper, webinar, product walk-through, demo, etc.
This serves as your call to action (CTA) on the page. And each page will have a personalized call to action, depending on where the buyer is in the sales funnel. For example, if it’s the visitor’s first time on the website, you don’t want to push “Buy now,” because they are not ready.
A CTA that would work better is offering a white paper or eBook related to the content they just digested.
Personalized CTAs convert 42% more visitors into leads than untargeted CTAs (Hubspot), so many sure you offer something relevant.
While blogging, it’s important to remember key SEO tactics that will help your content rank higher on search engines.
B2B researchers do 12 searches on average prior to engaging on a specific brand's site (Google).
This can seem daunting for some technology companies, but you don’t need to be an expert to improve your ranking. Here are a few tips:
Now that you have all of this great content, it’s crucial that you promote your blog, so people see it. Be sure to post the blog posts consistently on social media — don’t just post it once, be sure to post it continually.
You can also have your content syndicated on third party sources, which will help spread your content further.
Make it easy for your readers to share the content by placing social share icons throughout or at the bottom of the post. And don’t forget to tell all employees to share the content on their personal social media profiles.
Blogging is a great way to showcase the expertise you have but just haven’t written down yet:
96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders (Demand Gen Report).
And blogging can offer that content to the readers who want to learn more about a concept or topic in the field. So technology companies that haven’t started a blog strategy, the benefits are clear. And with a comprehensive strategy, blogging does not have to be overwhelming.
https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/blog/docs/ebooks/marketing%20automation%2010%20commandments%20final.pdf
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2017_B2B_Research_FINAL.pdf
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/personalized-calls-to-action-convert-better-data
https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/research/2016-content-preferences-survey-b2b-buyers-value-content-that-offers-data-and-analysis