How Manufacturers Can Generate Leads With Blog Articles | Episode 055

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

We all know what blogs are – heck, you’re reading one right now! Just about anyone with surface-level knowledge of the internet is aware of “weblogs,” which in the most technical sense are online articles posted on websites in order to generate discussion.

But why should manufacturers honestly care about blogs?

After all, manufacturers aren’t necessarily interested in writing – that’s why they chose a different career, rather than journalism or literature.

But if you’re interested in attracting more customers and closing more sales…then you may have to give blogs another serious look.

Even if you’re a manufacturer, you can in fact generate leads with blog articles; and better still, they will be qualified leads.

1. YOUR SITE IS PART OF THE BUYING CYCLE REGARDLESS

When you need a question answered or when you’re considering making some sort of purchase, where’s one of the first (if not the first) place you look for answers?

The internet.

Even if you’re not ready to buy yet, you want to at least have the resources to make an informed decision…and so do your leads.

Consider your buyer personas, which we discussed last week. Most of them are probably online even more than you are.

Blogs provide the information for prospects to gather and educate themselves on their own time.

By providing the answers that people are looking for, you can help transform marketing-qualified leads into sales-qualified leads…all without lifting a finger!

But don’t worry – that doesn’t mean your sales team will be made obsolete; they’ll actually become more effective.

2. BLOGS ACTUALLY ACCELERATE THE BUYING CYCLE

Blogs are valuable resources that your sales and marketing team can use to answer questions more swiftly, with much less effort.

Instead of spending ten minutes answering the same question over and over again, sales reps can answer that common question with a push of a button – or the leads can find it themselves without ever having to reach out.

When leads finally are ready to buy, the sale will go much smoother and much faster – because they understand what’s going on!

Now, instead of spending the majority of their time hand-holding with potential customers on a one-on-one basis, your sales team can be speaking with sales-qualified leads who have already made 80% of their decision based on their own findings.

Some companies have even told us that their normally-six-month buying process has been shortened to three months with leads that come in digitally.

That’s because buyers can take in all the information they want and need, with blog articles.

3. BLOGS AFFECT YOUR PROFESSIONAL REPUTATION

Some people are afraid to try and start a blog, because they fear that any poor content will damage their reputation. But that’s not true.

Having no online articles can be just as bad, or perhaps even worse, than having sub-par articles.

Your blogs – or lack thereof – affects your credibility in the eyes of potential buyers.

If your posts provide the valuable answers that your prospects are looking for, they’ll be more likely to trust your expertise and eventually approach you when they’re ready to buy.

Just check out the numbers according to Hubspot: “Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that published between 0 – 4 monthly posts.”

Simple math. If you can generate leads with blog articles, then the more blogs you release, the larger your content library grows, and the more credible your website becomes.

That means you’ll start ranking higher and higher with search engines like Google. And the higher you rank, the more people will encounter you when they’re searching for answers. Hopefully, your materials will rise all the way to the top of the first page!

And if your blogs aren’t there…someone else’s blogs are.

And they may be your competitors’.

 

 

Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get each of our weekly episodes sent directly to your inbox. You can also subscribe wherever you download podcasts so you can listen on the go!

If there’s a particular topic that you’d like for us to talk about, or if you have a particular a challenge that you’d like us to take a crack at, send us an email. We’d be happy to answer them for you – and if your topic gets picked for a future episode, you’ll win a free IndustrialSage t-shirt!

 

Sponsored by Optimum Productions