Let's face it. We want our cake and we want to eat it now. We can see the benefits of writing at least five blog posts per week (higher traffic and leads), but when we outsource them to "blog farms," we see a decline in readership and shares. How do we find a good balance between quality and quantity that sustains our growth without diluting our content "product"? Here are some things to think about.
Let's do our continuous improvement exercise, the 5 Why's.
Perceived problem: We don't have the internal resources to write a sufficient number of high-quality blog posts on a consistent basis to increase traffic and leads.
Why?
Because we don't have good writers on staff who have the bandwidth for blogging.
Why?
Because we don't hire people with those skills in mind and make content a part of their job descriptions.
Why?
Because we are just now recognizing the value of content marketing in our overall marketing strategy.
Why?
Because we adopted a 'wait and see' policy until the economy recovers and marketing trends become clearer.
Why?
Because we have always taken a conservative approach to new directions, and that has always been successful for us.
Continuous improvement is really good at uncovering bigger problems that plague the rest of the organization or hold it back. In this case, because the company is worried about hiring new people and doesn't recognize the value of talented content writers, it is prepared to surrender that advantage to more aggressive competitors. So what's the solution? Let's try some experiments by outsourcing a few blogs a month to some (relatively) cheap bloggers and see what impact that has on our inbound metrics. The trouble is...
Take the leap. Hire someone with excellent writing skills. Make blogging an important part of his or her job, and empower them to become an important voice of the company. Get leaders and staffers involved in the process. Your content person can help them express themselves through blogs and social media channels. If you're going to outsource, make sure it's with a firm or freelancer who commits to getting to know everything about your company, your people and your business.
Fear is the No. 1 public enemy of progress. This quality content thing is long past being a trend. It's a reality that isn't going away. You need to get on board now. It's that simple.
Photo credit: ross_hawkes
With over 30 years of business and marketing experience, John loves to blog about ideas and trends that challenge inbound marketers and sales and marketing executives. John has a unique way of blending truth with sarcasm and passion with wit. You can connect with John via Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Plus.
