How often should I blog?

What’s in a blog?
 
Blogs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Individuals can blog their thoughts and advice; companies can use it as a diary, introducing new products, clients or events or start discussions with their readers. Some, like mine is a way to share information and knowledge.

Blogs are less formal than a website, and the personality of an individual and the culture of a company can shine through. After all, whether buying face-to-face or over the internet, people still buy from people so blogs are an ideal way to build rapport and start conversations with your target markets.

How often shall I blog?
How often you blog really depends what you want to get out of it and the resources you have to write it and keep it updated.

 Individual Blogs 
 If your blog just to share your personal thoughts, then there are no hard and fast rules – in other words, blog as and when you feel the urge!

Business BlogsCompany blogs however, do need consistency and regular entries. In effect, your blogs are like another website, and an additional opportunity for their keywords are picked up by the search engine spiders, helping prospective clients and current customers to find you and click-through to your website.

Keeping up the momentum
I decided that my company's marketing mix needed at least 1 blog posts per month, to tie in with our newsletter and the regular talks I give at different events, exhibitions etc.

Now, at this point you are probably glancing at my blog history and thinking, "Hmm, good intentions, but you had rather a gap until earlier this year!"

Well, here is where I hold my hands up – I’d unconsciously slipped into the 'I'll do it tomorrow' habit as so many people do when things get really busy... clients come first and our own marketing has taken a bit of a back seat.

Whilst the odd blip short term is OK, longer term, our lack of focus on this part of our marketing means that we have been missed by potential clients who looking for the type of information I can give them.

I still believe that my blogs, and sharing my knowledge and information through them is a major part of Sookias Media's marketing. So having slipped for a while, I have reminded myself to follow the Top 5 Tips for successful blogging that I give to our digital PR clients.

5 Top Tips for Successful Blogging

1. Decide your strategy. In other words, how are you going to use your blog? Is it for personal thoughts, as a promotional diary, for sharing thoughts and knowledge, etc?
2. Decide how often you will blog. Be realistic here. It is better to decided on 1 blog per month and achieve that, than trying to blog once a day and losing momentum after the first week.
3. Keep a list of blog ideas. I have inspiration at the most unusual times and places. By writing them down means you will remember them – it is so much easier to write a blog when you don’t need to think about what to write first. Also, ask clients and prospects what subjects they would like to read about and incorporate them as part of your sales process.
4. Set time aside to work on your blog. Write several posts in one sitting. Then, publish one and set the others to be automatically posted at later dates and times.
5. Let people know when you have posted a new blog – add a comment on your website, send a tweet, publish a message on Facebook and include it in your LinkedIn status. Make sure your blog allows people to subscribe to an RSS feed so they can choose to be informed of your updates automatically.

Happy blogging!

For more information on how blogs can work for your business, contact us today on +44 1283 808460 or email hello@sookiasmedia.com. www.sookiasmedia.com

Marketing: cost or investment?

All companies want to market their business as cost-effectively as possible. But by whilst costs need to be kept at a minimum, purely viewing marketing as a cost may mean you are missing out on a return on investment (ROI).

Let me explain this another way. First, think of your ideal customer. How much would their first order with you be worth? And subsequent orders? How often would you receive repeat business from them - once a month for a year?

Then, work out how much business that one customer would bring you through the lifetime of your relationship. It may be £100, $500 or even 1million Euro.

Now, decide how much you would be willing to spend on getting that lifetime business.

Whatever the figure, that is the investment you are willing to make for each new, ideal customer and this should be the basis of your marketing budget.

Marketing works over time and regular reviews are needed to ensure that marketing you investing in is effective and producing a return.

If you'd like more information on marketing budgets and evaluating return on investment, call us on 01283 808460 for a no-obligation discussion.

Written by Hannah Sookias, founder of Sookias Media www.sookiasmedia.com

Silly marketing questions don't exist

An important part of any marketing cycle is reviewing progress. This is to understand whether the activities being undertaken are producing expecting results and meeting their objectives and a return on investment.

The review process also gives a structured time to determine why results are more or less successful than anticipated. It can identify new opportunities; early changes in market conditions and spark new ideas.

It’s for this reason that there is no such thing as a daft question. When I worked for a manufacturing firm supplying the car industry, we often had multi-functional teams involved in review meetings so that all sorts of questions would be asked.

Often the ‘Why do we do that?’ type got the product development and manufacturing teams looking at their processes to see how they could improve methods that had been the same for years just because they’d always been done that way.

Who/what/when/where/why type questions enable marketing teams to drill down to understand the results of their activities; generate new ideas and evaluate the ever-changing array of marketing tools.

These can typically include:

• Why isn't our marketing engaging potential clients?
• Are we getting the wrong type of business?
• How do we open up new markets?
• Where do we find new customers for our existing products and services?
• How can we improve our marketing?
• Will social media / advertising / email marketing / PR / direct marketing help us to gain more customers?
• Who should be responsible for our marketing? Are we using the right person? Do they have the right skills?

When I undertake marketing consultancy and training sessions, I ask many questions to gain a full understanding of a company, its market place, customers and the people who make it happen. In my experience, seeing something from a different perspective allows the companies I work with to objectively evaluate what they do and why.

Often, this process verifies it is the right thing to do. Sometimes it  hightlights a new range of customers to consider or a need to reconsider objectives of the budget allocation between different marketing tools.

Top Tip! Invite team members from other departments to review marketing campaigns before they are launched. A different point of view is invaluable to highlight an angle that needs to be addressed; wording that could be improved and if something isn’t as obvious as you thought.

If you’d like to know more about the questions to ask in marketing review sessions, call us on 01283 808460 or email hello@sookiasmedia.com.

Written by Hannah Sookias, Founder of Sookias Media www.sookiasmedia.com