We have been blogging on a regular basis since early 2010. Based on the positive results to our web rankings and the soft touch it creates with customers and prospects, we plan to continue. Recently, we have brokered out our pen to help customers get in the groove with their own blogs.

We use an interview process to guide clients through their first blogs. It’s their story and our pen initially. Our intent is to get them over their fear of writing and provide a model they can adopt to eventually go solo. Kind of like installing training wheels on your first bike. These are the top 3 push backs we get from potential bloggers… and our response:

1/How can I find the time?

You need to block off 2-3 hours on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to write. Making it a routine is the answer.

2/What would I write about?

You write about what you know, what you’ve experienced and share that insight in a personal and candid way. You are not selling your company, simply sharing information that may help others in some way.

3/Does it really accomplish anything?

Yes! I find it somewhat therapeutic to step outside of my day to day routine and reflect on recent events through my blogs. It clears my head for new thinking. It keeps me in touch with clients and prospects. And last but not least, it increases our industry and web profile.

Lee’s Quote for the day

“Blogging is like jogging without the sweat and the iPod. They’re both good for you and become more enjoyable with time.” 

When my kids were small, a regular routine at bedtime was telling them a story. I would sit at the top of the stairs and weave a tale inspired by recent events of one sort or another. Their favourite was about an old lady who lived deep in the woods. The Bucket Lady, as she came to be called, loved to catch children and scrub them clean when they were careless enough to enter her domain.

Okay a little weird, but they thoroughly enjoyed it and it went on for months. My kids, who were key characters in the story, got great pleasure out of cleverly avoiding the cleansing from the Bucket Lady on a nightly basis.

You might say that it was my first pre-internet blog. It was original content that resonated with my listeners, who looked forward to the next release and shared the story with their closest friends. Moving forward, we’re now telling our story to a vast audience, eager to listen and share information too…if it’s relevant.

What’s involved? Personally I take a few hours every weekend to create my blog for the following week. After a while it becomes a habit. You let recent events shape the article and relay something you find interesting and others might too. Blogging is a big contributor to our significantly increased rankings on Google. Like any new initiative it takes time, someone in your organization needs to champion the cause and collaborative writing across your team is a big help.

Lee’s quote for the day, “It is better to have blogged and not been tweeted then to never have blogged at all.”

I’ve only been blogging for a couple of months now but I’ve seen the benefits and I’m definitely a believer. Because we track everything we do, we can directly attribute a significant increase in our web rankings on Google to our blog efforts. Jerry, who manages our Web, IT and SEO and Robin who heads up our Promotional Services are also frequent bloggers on our site.

From my perspective, there is no shortage of marketing related topics to write about. I find it somewhat therapeutic as a matter of fact and enjoy putting my digital pen to paper as a regular part of my weekly ritual. At this point, we haven’t seen direct comments in response to our blogs but they are being read and shared. As we gain more experience in this venue and with time, we hope our efforts will be helpful to others and that eventually we’ll get more interaction and collaboration on the various subject areas posted.

This past 4-day week we had two sales leads that materialized as a direct result of our web marketing. One where we weren’t the right solution (company was looking for canned newsletter content) and one that was right up our alley and turned into an appointment. Not all that significant maybe, except that 1 branding/web appointment for us can turn into 20-50,000 dollars of immediate work and a customer for life.

In the B2B environment, I believe getting your web ranking higher organically is (at a minimum) like having another full time sales person on the road and at a fraction (3%) of the cost. Similar to adding a new sales person it takes time to see the results. In this past economy it can be 6-9 months before you see the benefit…but there are soft benefits in the meantime. Now more than ever, the purchasers of your services are forming opinions of your organization based on your presence on the web. Your message needs to be clear; your look professional and when someone searches, ending up on the first page in your category doesn’t hurt.