Delivering Value in Your Blog Posts
Is your blog post worth someone’s time?
That’s a question you need to seriously consider anytime you’re about to put up a new post. We’re all busy, so we want to spend our time wisely. We – and that includes your blog readers – don’t want to waste it on fluff or thinly veiled product advertisements.
We talked recently about what makes a good blog post. One of the elements we addressed was giving your readers something to think about. We want to expand upon that a bit.
The reason a B2B company has a blog is to provide one more way to demonstrate that it knows the business, it knows its customers’ needs now and in the future, and it knows the answers to their questions and concerns. That’s the essence of thought leadership. Talk about developments in the industry, where it is going in the future, the significance of the latest industry news, and how all of this affects the readers.
Remember, each and every blog post needs real value. That value is your perspective and insight. If you’re good at what you do and you know your business, you should have that insight and be offering it to your readers, who are, after all, your customers and potential customers.
How many blog posts have you read where the headline drew you in, and then after you’ve spent five minutes of your busy workday reading the post you feel like it said nothing? Or that all it consisted of was the contents of a product brochure, just presented a little differently?
It’s no different from topical presentations at trade shows. We’ve gone to more of those than we can count, and far too often the material failed to deliver on the promise of the presentation summary that attracted us in the first place. Busy people find that hard to forgive. In fact, in the Ten Commandments of business, if “thou shalt not waste others’ time” isn’t in there, it should be.
Trust us, we understand the demands of the calendar, and for example if every Tuesday is Blog Post Day, something needs to go up there so you do the best you can. Falling short occasionally is forgivable, but don’t get into the habit of tossing something out there because it’s easy.
Avoid the temptation to take the slide presentation for your new widget, email it to the intern, and say “give me 400 words on this for the blog.” Your readers know quality content, and if that happens more than once, they will be former readers.