Is your business blog alive and kicking – or – barely breathing?
As the 1st quarter ends, now is a good time to take the pulse on your business blog.
1. Planning – Finding the Reason
Last week’s post offered ideas for conducting a 1st quarter review of your business communication. It starts with the planning stage.
Do you remember why you started your business blog?
Hopefully, your reason wasn’t only because everyone has one.
- What was your reason?
- Does it support your vision for your business?
What were your business objectives for the blog?
- Thought leadership? Establish credibility?
- Produce leads? Introduce a new product?
- What are targeted outcomes?
Who was your targeted audience?
- Who would be your ideal reader?
- What would be their ideal response?
- What is your underlying message?
2. Execution – Making it Happen
Once you reaffirm the reason for your blog, it’s time to review process strategy.
How much time did you allocate?
- Are you posting regularly?
- Do you need to adjust the frequency?
Who manages the blog?
- Is the right person managing?
- Do they have sufficient resources?
- Should you outsource?
Are you marketing?
- How do you market your blog?
- Are you using the right networks for your targeted audience?
- Is your message clear?
3. Results – Reaping the Rewards
You understand the reason for your blog and looked at your administration. Now, it’s reality time.
Measure against benchmarks
- Do you have the right benchmarks? (e.g,, new leads, page views, posted comments)
- Are you meeting them?
- What needs adjusting?
Plan new strategy
- What’s working?
- What’s not working?
- Was the problem in execution?
- Or do you need to redefine goals and objectives?
A business blog is like any marketing strategy.
It takes planning and effective execution to get results.
Does your business blog need CPR?
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I have two blogs in need of CPR. I neglected them for the past few months while dealing with a family emergency. I think if I’d been more organized and had a plan in place, I would have been more prepared to keep the content and other promotional strategies going strong.
I’m in the process of correcting that now (it takes a lot of work to make corrective changes) and I’m committed to the process. You’ve listed some really important steps.
Kimberly recently posted..Are You a Freelance Writer or Business Owner
Boy, Kimberly, do I relate to that. It’s one of the challenges of being a small business owner. I am glad to see that you don’t beat yourself up over it. We learn, adjust, and move on.
I am glad if I helped in any small way. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your comments and let us know how your progress goes. I wish you continued success!
Thanks, Cathy. Once I get a rhythm going I’m even seriously thinking about outsourcing a couple of tasks to a virtual assistant maybe once a week.
Kimberly recently posted..Are You a Freelance Writer or Business Owner
Would love to hear how that goes, Kimberly. I’ve considered that myself. I think I gave you a future blog post topic.
Thanks again, Kimberly.
I’ve had my blog for about a year and a half. I would post a few things and no one would come to it and I would get frustrated and think, “This stuff doesn’t work.”
I’ve learned so much about blogs – plugins and things like that.
Now I post daily – even if it’s to my quotes page, but try my best to make a regular ‘article’ post daily. I have a twitter and FB share button on there and I can watch and see what people are interested in. If they didn’t share it, it’s likely that’s not something I need to write about again!
Using Blogging to get traffic is A LOT of work, but I don’t really know if I would outsource it or not.
Great post – lots of great information and lots of questions we need to ask ourselves about our own blog.
Tammy Matthews recently posted..Overcome The Fear of Failure
Thanks, Tammy, for dropping by and sharing some great insight. I’m not sure we understand when we girst get started just how much work a business blog is.
In my mind, outsourcing is a good option for corporate blogs. I do regular posting for some clients. It helps them be consistent and they mix in their own posts as time permits.
For smaller business blogs, like ours, guest posts is another way to obtain good content. Of course, that depends on your guest blogger and it’s important to have someone that supports the purpose of your business.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, Tammy.
Lots to work on.. My blog does need some CPR! I am working on getting posts up regularly and pinpointing my target audience. Some of the other points you make… I am getting to. Thanks for the great info, Cathy.
Holly recently posted..The best AB exercise of all!
Hi Holly: I think we all are challenged with making our business blogs the best they can be. Thank you for your kind words and keep on plugging away.
I appreciate you dropping by and sharing your thoughts!