In a blog post I wrote at the end of May I recounted a conversation I had with an old marketing friend about his former CEO taking down their new blog because it was not producing results.
What do think…was there ignorance or just lack of patience? Probably both.
Patience I can’t do much about, but ignorance can be handled quickly by this blog post.
First, results from your blog depend on the content saturation for your specific industrial niche. As Google and other search engines require more content to attract visitors each industrial marketer has a different wall to climb. Some industrial companies find increased content has a dramatically positive affect on their search rankings.
For example, we have a customer that manufacturers “quench oil coolers”. At this writing, there are only 61 web pages in the whole world that feature “quench oil coolers” in the title tag. (Title tag is an HTML element that tells the search engines what the web page is about.) In terms of content saturation, it is very easy to place their web pages on the first page of Google from a blog post about “quench oil coolers”. On the other hand if you are an industrial supplier selling “industrial filtration products” there are 14,000 pages with “industrial filtration products” featured on their web pages. Writing specific topics about “industrial filtration products” will require a bit more regularity, keyword research and patience.
Without a lot of skill and keyword research I can say, with complete confidence, a blog started by our “quench oil cooler” manufacturer will be on the first page of Google within a week. What our industrial marketing friends do with that traffic is quite another issue and subject of another blog post.
For the “industrial filtration product” distributor getting on the first page of Google will be a bigger challenge. They will need to understand their buyer’s persona better (what makes them “tick”), do some keyword research and blog on a more regular basis.
The industrial filtration distributor will then need to monitor their blog posts to find out which topics resonate the most and generate the most traffic. By using Google Analytics you can measure web traffic. With more sophisticated marketing software, such as HubSpot, you can measure traffic and also measure your leads from your blogging efforts. Paying attention to your subject matter, your keyword phrases and your reports will give you lots of feedback and over time you will become a blog evangelist because you actually see it working…generating leads and customers.
Every industrial marketer has a different challenge with content marketing. Many with low content saturation can probably improve their web traffic by at least 50% in 2 to 3 months. However for the average industrial marketer with a bit more content saturation, 6-12 months will see solid results.
I can say from experience that very few industrial suppliers are taking advantage of content marketing and blogging to attract visitors to their web sites…yet, overtime is (even in the high content saturation industries) one of the least expensive ways to promote your company’s top-of-mind awareness and build your brand.
One case study you should be aware of is the Indium Corporation that has had amazing success by establishing a blog for each of their specific markets. You can read about Indium’s success at my blog: Best Practices for Business Blogging (Case Study) …& Major Benefits Industrial Marketers are Missing.
My advice, if you have not already started your industrial blog…get started now by downloading An Introduction to Business Blogging from my friends at HubSpot
GET STARTED BY DOWNLOADING: An Introduction to Business Blogging.
