You’re a manufacturer providing a product to the industrial marketplace.
Over time you’ve built up a great customer base and you are aware how vital it is to stay in touch with each and every customer, both because aftermarket sales are important, and to assure that when new equipment is needed, you are the first company contacted. After all, companies are sold, project engineers change jobs and, a dozen other issues can break the chain of awareness that is so important to maintaining a long term relationship with your customer. You also want to make sure your website is visited when a potential customer not familiar with your company decides to move ahead with a project requiring a product like yours.
In the world of modern marketing, a company blog located on your website can help you effectively stay in touch with existing customers as well as reach out to the larger marketplace. Properly done, existing customers will consider your blog a value added service even as the blog functions to attract new traffic to your web presence.
A blog is a section of a company website updated regularly by whomever you choose to be your blog writer with content generally more informal in nature than the more structured content on the rest of the site. Blog viewers are generally not only allowed but, encouraged, to interact by commenting on the material posted on the blog.
For some companies, a blog can function as a substitute or virtual website, directing readers to other social media sites or performing other necessary tasks.
Blogs are very low cost; the primary cost is the time and effort needed to post regularly. A new post should be written and “on the air” at least twice a month. Readers visiting a page and finding everything to be old and stale are unlikely to come back. A company is better off not having a blog if a commitment to keeping fresh material posted regularly cannot be made. Your blog writer, whether a single person or a number of people assigned to keep the blog current, must be instructed to write and post on a schedule to assure the work gets done.
Blogs allow a company to show its human side. A good way to look at them is to consider the blog to be the salesperson. The associated website represents the company brochure or catalogue.
Blogs serve a second function, one important in attracting potential customers who may not be familiar with your company to your web or social media sites.
When your customers, or potential customers, decide to investigate the marketplace they ask Google, Bing, or some other search engine, to search the web for sites featuring the product or information they are seeking. Imagine, in the case of this site, you enter in the term, “build business.”
The web search engine filters the billions of options on the web looking for the words build and business or similar terms that may be appropriate.
Google’s programmers have developed ever more sophisticated search engines, able to discriminate, better than ever before, between appropriate content and chaff. If you are not posting new blog content regularly or the content is old and out of date, the search engine is likely to ignore your offering but, if you are writing lively blog content on a regular basis the search engine will move your site up on the list, enhancing the odds your target audience will browse to your site.
Because your potential customers are entering search terms specific to you it is important your blog writer have a list of appropriate terms likely to be typed in by a potential customer and then use those terms when writing the blog but, don’t go overboard. A Google publication titled Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide points out that while optimization is important, “Focusing too hard on specific tweaks to gain ranking in the organic results of search engines may not deliver the desired results. Search engine optimization is about putting your site's best foot forward when it comes to visibility in search engines, but your ultimate consumers are your users, not search engines.”
In today’s world a well written blog is a must, acting as your on-line salesperson and, keeping you in touch with your existing customer base.
Start blogging!
No comments:
Post a Comment