For a B2B Software Company, How Often Should You Blog?

A little while back, I put together a presentation for the local Boca Raton HubSpot User Group that I co-lead on the Top 14 Content Marketing Strategies.

There’s a great quote in that presentation from HubSpot CMO Mike Volpe about blogging: “A great blog that is helpful (not promotional) is the cornerstone of a basic inbound strategy. A blog powers SEO and social media.”

Volpe hit the nail on the head.

Navigate Around Common Blogging Mistakes

Many B2B software companies that try to blog think their blogs are helpful. But their readers and analytics strongly disagree. Generally the only way to get blogging right: invest the time and resources in good, solid persona research before you even look for keywords and plan your editorial calendar.

A lot of these same software companies engage in some crazy, overly aggressive SEO strategy that frankly reeks of a bygone era and is completely disconnected from their blogging strategy.

And with social media, again it’s just such an afterthought that it’s often pursued by the HiPPO (highest paid person in the organization, like the CEO) for all of the wrong reasons, especially vanity and ego.

All of these siloed, disjointed strategies end up being a frustrating waste of resources.

So what’s needed to really nail blogging, so that it consistently attracts the right strangers to your website, converts visitors into leads, transforms leads into customers, and powers strong positive ROI? Inbound Marketing! 

Blog Regularly to Keep Your Website Content Fresh

To keep your software company’s website updated regularly, blogging tends to be by far the easiest way to create frequently-updated highly relevant, engaging content.

But again, it’s not enough to just treat your blog like an online diary.

And your blog should definitely not look like a series of self-serving news releases or sales pitches.

Carefully consider your specific goals around traffic generation, lead generation, client acquisition, and ROI.

As mentioned a few moments ago, it’s nearly impossible to create remarkable blog content if you don’t know who you’re writing for and what they want to read. So be sure to develop ideal buyer personas that take into account each type of buyer’s goals, daily behaviors, biggest challenges, pain points, and how your ideal buyers evaluate B2B software companies like yours.

The buyer personas will then in turn drive keyword research – where you’ll want to balance between the number of monthly searches and the degree of difficulty to reach page one of organic search results.

And the last step: develop and maintain an editorial calendar, so you’re not scrambling for blog topics and content at the last minute.

Use Your Blog to Generate Leads

If you’re looking for your software company’s blog to generate leads and attract clients, frequency matters big time! Here’s why, according to the HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing report and other related data:

• 66% of those that blog weekly acquire clients through their websites.

• 78% of those that blog daily acquire clients through their websites.

• 92% of those that blog multiple times a day acquire clients through their websites.

SP Home Run did some of its own research in a survey a few months back and found that most small tech companies have a huge disconnect between frequency of social media participation and blogging. In other words, they’re participating actively in places like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, but hardly ever blogging. This makes it really easy for you to dominate your competitors just by consistently covering the basics.

So revisiting our original question: how often should a B2B software company blog?

Daily blogging gives you a very good chance to acquire clients through your website. Blogging at least twice a day makes website client acquisition just about a certainty (92% chance).

And from our standpoint of studying many poorly constructed blogging strategies, half-baked lead generation strategies, and completely-ignored lead to customer conversion paths, the only reason the 8% of those blogging twice or more a day aren’t acquiring clients via their websites is almost certainly due to planning and execution issues.

How often is your software company’s blog updated? And are you currently generating leads and acquiring clients from your blog and website? Let us know in the Comments box below.

And to follow through on what you’ve learned in this post and see how blogging fits in with the rest of your marketing strategy, download your free copy of the IT Channel Inbound Marketing Planning Guide.