I joined a couple other B2B Marketers for a meal a few weeks ago, and the topic of content marketing and blogging came up.  This came as no surprise – I know they occasionally read our blog and can see that we are passionate on the topic.  They recounted some of their challenges with blogging, including some common challenges:

• Getting content from subject matter experts, when these experts are also required to focus their energy on billable hours
• Occasional missed deadlines and the need to build a backlog of content before this happens
• Varying levels of commitment from different authors

While I’ve seen many companies experience some or all of these challenges at one point or another, as I listened and started to ask questions I realized what was happening to them – blogging had become hard because they weren’t getting anything back from it.  The above challenges really were just addressable symptoms presenting themselves from the larger malady – they hadn’t established a content strategy that showed them direct return on investment from their blogging efforts.

They needed Better Content, Not Just More Content—this broke down in to three main areas:

We Don’t Know What They Want to Know About

Simply put, my colleagues didn’t know what their audience was looking for anymore.  I think each of us at one time or another has hit a temporary wall when it comes to content ideas, but in this case they were really stuck.  Initially they turned to their Analytics, but there was no clear indication of the types of posts that performed better than others.  The solution here was easy – go back to the basics of why you are ultimately blogging for your business.

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2011 is finally drawing to a close, so now is the time to reflect on the past year’s marketing highlights and stumbles, along with improvement opportunities for 2012. 2011 was a big year for Right Source Marketing; we expanded our team and our client roster faster than we expected, introduced a new content marketing offering, and rolled out our brand new website and blog. We also created a lot of content, and we’re very thankful to all who read, shared and interacted with our posts!

Just like last year’s, here’s a “Reader’s Choice” list of your favorite 2011 blog posts on Marketing Trenches. We compiled this list based on page views, comments, and tweets (maybe next year it will be Google +1s!), so also thank you for jumping in with comments and sharing our posts with others! The wait is over; here’s the countdown of the top 10 Marketing Trenches posts of 2011:

10. What Makes an Exceptional Social Media Manager?

The Must-Haves, Nice-to-Haves, and Bonus Points you should look for when hiring someone to manage your social media.

9. 10 Things You Should Include in a Social Media Plan

If you’re the fly-by-your-pants type, you might want to skip this post because it has the word “plan” in it (yikes!), but Mike Sweeney lays out exactly what you need to take the pain out of planning.

8. What Angry Birds Taught Me About Social Media

Forget what Mom said. Mindless games can teach you something! Find out what the smash-hit game can teach you about the social media realm.

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The following is one of the best-of from students in David Toliver’s Georgetown School of Continuing Studies Interactive Marketing class. The following post is by David Longwell.

It‘s hard to think of a marketing tactic used these days that is more disliked by consumers than email. We all get so many emails now it has even gotten boring to complain about them (You’re just back from Florida and now you’ve got 1,000 emails to go through? – boo hoo).

Emails received from companies (other than yours, of course) are often intrusive junk, cluttering up mailboxes and adding undue stress to busy lives. Still, companies in the US spend over $1 billion dollars a year on Email Marketing, with projected growth of 11% per year through 2014 (Forrester). While that’s less growth than projected for hot channels like Social Media or Mobile Marketing (34% and 27% respectively), marketers are still committing increasing dollars to email campaigns.

But if consumers cringe at email, why are companies continuing to use it as a communication tool?

Some marketers get it – emails can (and must) be useful. The most effective emails from companies provide a kind of customer service, and always pass the ‘thank you’ test. Not only am I happy when I receive these, I’m relieved and grateful. What marketer wouldn’t covet that kind of response? It’s ok if there’s a soft cross-sell included, because the main purpose of the email is to bring value. Read the rest of this entry »

The following post was initially published on the Content Marketing Institute Blog (October 11, 2011).

“Uh oh,” you may be thinking. “The marketing department is talking about that whole blogging thing again. Last time we did this, it was a disaster. Worse, no one seemed to like my posts.”

Yikes! Stop right there! And think again!

Yes, a lot of corporate blogs are awful. But neither your company’s blog nor the posts you contribute to should bear a sense of impending doom. We spend a lot of time helping clients manage their blogs. This involves bringing together subject matter experts, sales reps, marketing employees, and executives — many of whom have unique ideas but have never written a blog post.

One of the first questions we get from new bloggers is, “What makes a good blog post?“  As we answer, the doom drifts out of the room and is replaced by the glowing light of nurturing leads and increasing sales. Cha-ching!

We thought we’d share our answer with our readers here. 

1. Good blog posts speak to a target audience.

Figure out who is buying what you’re selling and write for them. If your company specializes in building mobile applications, you’re likely selling to executives and marketing departments, not mobile app developers. Your own developers can still write content for your blog, but they should keep content way less technical than it would be if they were writing to their peers.

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We’re firm believers in Content Marketing and Blogging, and discuss them often on this site.   So a recent eMarketer survey study doesn’t come as much of a surprise – that corporate blogging keeps growing and growing.

According to the study, released August 17th 43% of US companies will be blogging by 2012.

“Companies are finding that blogs fill a specific niche that other forms of social media do not,” said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna.

Because of the apparent staying power of blogs in corporate settings, eMarketer forecasts continued growth in company use of blogs for marketing purposes. This year, eMarketer estimates just over one in three companies have a public-facing blog used for marketing, a proportion that will rise to 43% by 2012.

And companies are really starting to recognize the value of blogging:

“Studies have shown that marketers perceive blogs to have the highest value of any social media in driving site traffic, brand awareness, lead generation and sales—as well as improving customer service,” said Verna.

“There is evidence that smaller companies are embracing blogging at greater rates than larger firms,” said Verna. “This might be because larger, public companies—particularly in industries such as pharma and financial services—have more legal, logistical and regulatory constraints than smaller firms.”

So if your company has taken a summer break on your blog (or longer) or you are debating whether or not to start a blog for the first time here’s one more reason not to get left behind, and to walk the walk (thanks again Kevin).

What do you think?  Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area below.