how to accelerate the growth of your b2b blog

108
HOW TO ACCELERATE THE GROWTH OF YOUR B2B BLOG Anum Hussain Growth Marketer, Content, Hubspot @anum Hana Abaza VP Marketing, Uberflip @hanaabaza

Upload: uberflip

Post on 12-Apr-2017

13.949 views

Category:

Marketing


2 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

HOW TO ACCELERATE THE GROWTH OF YOUR B2B BLOG

Anum Hussain Growth Marketer, Content, Hubspot

@anum

Hana Abaza VP Marketing, Uberflip

@hanaabaza

Page 2: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@Uberflip #uberwebinar @anum

We will send the recording.

Questions? We’ve got answers!

(At the end of the webinar J)

Page 3: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@Uberflip #uberwebinar @anum

We will send the recording.

Questions? We’ve got answers!

(At the end of the webinar J)

Join in on

Page 4: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

STICK AROUND FOR A DEMO

Page 5: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

HOW TO

LAUNCH & GROW A BUSINESS BLOG

Page 6: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Anum Hussain Growth marketer, @sidekick Co-author, Twitter for @dummies #cookiecakelover

Page 7: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Once upon a time, content took the throne as king of marketing.

Page 8: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

And as his highness grew in power,

Page 9: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

And as his highness grew in power, a playbook for success was dictated.

Page 10: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

PUBLISH.

Page 11: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

PUBLISH.

ALL THE TIME.

Page 12: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

BUT NOW THERE ARE OVER 152 MILLION BLOGS ON THE INTERNET. Source: WPVirtuoso

Page 13: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Which means it’s time to handle things a bit more strategically.

Page 14: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

1. Deeply understand your target audience. 2. Produce posts that attract & scale traffic. 3. Fuel growth of blog subscribers.

HERE’S HOW:

Page 15: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

1. Deeply understand your target audience. 2. Produce posts that attract & scale traffic. 3. Fuel growth of blog subscribers.

Page 16: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Before starting a blog, research your target persona.

Page 17: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Before starting a blog, research your target persona.

Contact at least 10 people in your target audience.

Page 18: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Before starting a blog, research your target persona.

Contact at least 10 people in your target audience.

Schedule 1-hour interviews in exchange for free coffee or lunch. If virtual interviews, send a gift card.

Page 19: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

1. Find out who they are. 2. Find out what they do. 3. Find out what they want. 4. Find out how they see

themselves. 5. Find out how they spend

their day-to-day.

Ask them five sets of questions:

Page 20: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

1. Find out who they are. 2. Find out what they do. 3. Find out what they want. 4. Find out how they see

themselves. 5. Find out how they spend

their day-to-day.

Ask them five sets of questions:

Company name? Age? How long have they been in their current role? How large is their team? Why do they do what they do?

Page 21: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

1. Find out who they are. 2. Find out what they do. 3. Find out what they want. 4. Find out how they see

themselves. 5. Find out how they spend

their day-to-day.

Ask them five sets of questions:

What motivates them? What is the end game for them? What are their aspirations? Why did they change from company A to company B?

Page 22: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

1. Find out who they are. 2. Find out what they do. 3. Find out what they want. 4. Find out how they see

themselves. 5. Find out how they spend

their day-to-day.

Ask them five sets of questions:

What are their hopes and dreams? What content are they attracted to or read now? What do they think about all day long?

Page 23: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

1. Find out who they are. 2. Find out what they do. 3. Find out what they want. 4. Find out how they see

themselves. 5. Find out how they spend

their day-to-day.

Ask them five sets of questions:

How do they compare themselves to co-workers? Do they think there’s more to learn about their profession? Do they hangout with their co-workers outside of work?

Page 24: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

1. Find out who they are. 2. Find out what they do. 3. Find out what they want. 4. Find out how they see

themselves. 5. Find out how they spend

their day-to-day.

Ask them five sets of questions:

What do they read? What do they share? How do they learn about new stuff? New tools? New articles? What do they hate about their day? What do they love?

Page 25: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

During the interview, look for ...

Page 26: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

During the interview, look for ...

Vocabulary, puns, references, tone, gestures, etc.

Page 27: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

During the interview, look for ...

Vocabulary, puns, references, tone, gestures, etc.

What makes them light up, what they hate discussing.

Page 28: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

During the interview, look for ...

Vocabulary, puns, references, tone, gestures, etc.

What makes them light up, what they hate discussing.

Their outfits, style, accessories, personality.

Page 29: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Aggregate your results to build an initial

illustration of your target blog audience.

Page 30: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

We interviewed almost 100 people in different industries and roles – each a member of the audience we were trying to reach. We learned that: x  Their days are too packed to focus attention on

reading a lengthy article. x  They want to see more content discussing ideas

they can take immediate action on. x  They just want to own at their job – many had a

strong desire to control their own destiny.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 31: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

So we took that qualitative insight and launched a blog with three key focuses: ü  Publish concise content that puts high emphasis

on direct tactics over fluffy explanations. ü  Publish content from individual contributors,

not managers. ü  Publish the secrets to success from top

performers.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 32: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Use these persona findings when

planning your content strategy and structure.

Page 33: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Content takes time. Dedicate at least one full-time employee to

tackle it.

Page 34: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

13X Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. Source: State of Inbound

Page 35: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

We now have a strategy.

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 36: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

We now have a strategy. But what are our target readers ...

reading?

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 37: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

1. Deeply understand your target audience. 2. Produce posts that attract & scale traffic. 3. Fuel growth of blog subscribers.

Page 38: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

Attract & scale traffic to content with these

20 optimization tips.

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 39: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Optimize the URL to speak with search engines.

Be sure to separate your target keywords with a dash (-) so

search engines can read them.

Page 40: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But don’t make it so long that it seems keyword-stuffed. Google’s algorithm is smarter than that.

Page 41: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Start with a clear, catchy headline.

Page 42: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But don’t write a catchy title if it doesn’t accurately represent the content within the post.

Page 43: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Captivate with your first sentence / meta text.

Page 44: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But don’t make your meta description too long. Google only displaces 150 characters on SERPs.

Page 45: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Let readers scan content with section headers.

Header

Header

Page 46: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But avoid keyword-stuffing headers – Google’s algorithm penalizes “repeating the same words or phrases so often it sounds unnatural.”

Page 47: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Use easy-to-read visuals to enhance experience.

This is simply email copy in a compose

window to help visually enhance

reading experience.

Page 48: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But don’t forget to include keywords in the image alt-text. Search engines read them to better identify what the post is about.

Page 49: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Integrate internal links where relevant.

Internal link to an earlier blog post on same subject.

Page 50: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But make the first internal link in the post the most important – that’s what search engines rely on most.

Page 51: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Generate click-to-tweet links for easy sharing.

Clicking this auto-generates a tweet readers can publish right away.

Page 52: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But don’t forget to include a link back to your post in the tweet copy. You want to benefit from the sharing.

Page 53: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

20% of all SlideShare views come from Google. Source: Alexa

Page 54: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

This Google juice helps drive traffic from SERPs.

Link to blog post with SlideShare embedded.

Link to presentation on SlideShare’s site.

Page 55: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

SLIDESHARE IS THE HIGHEST CONVERTING SOCIAL CHANNEL FOR HUBSPOT & SIDEKICK.

Page 56: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

The following optimization tips

hone in on SlideShare specifically.

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 57: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Let the title show the post contains a SlideShare.

Page 58: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Embed the SlideShare into the post.

Page 59: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Keep visitors on your blog, not on SlideShare.

Remove these links to the original SlideShare upload when embedding to keep traffic on your blog site.

Page 60: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

97% more leads are generated for companies with an active blog. Source: ContentPlus

Page 61: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

TO GENERATE LEADS FROM YOUR BLOG, YOU NEED OFFERS TO COLLECT THEM.

Page 62: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

These final optimization tips

focus on offers specifically.

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 63: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Include a text-CTA towards the top of the post.

The first URL hyperlinked in the

post gets the most weight from Google.

Page 64: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Build a form right into the ending CTA.

I love this.

There’s no need to drive the reader to a landing

page when this article and the value proposition of the

CTA clearly explains the value of the offer. So

simple, yet so brilliant.” @BobRuffolo

Page 65: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Or test smart CTAs to show relevant-offers.

CTA for general blog visitors to offer.

CTA for leads to move further down funnel.

Page 66: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW WHAT WILL WORK BEST IS TO TEST IT.

Page 67: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Some web forms require more fields. We found that longer lead generation forms generated roughly 16% fewer leads than simply using a CTA image that navigates readers to a landing page.

Case Study: HUBSPOT BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 68: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But that wasn’t the case for our shorter blog subscription forms. These one-field forms converted 4X more subscribers than the CTA image linked to a separate landing page.

Case Study: HUBSPOT BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 69: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

But now we wonder:

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 70: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

But now we wonder: Do we focus on optimizing for

leads or subscribers?

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 71: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

THE GOAL OF A NEW BLOG IS GROWING SUBSCRIBERS FIRST, NOT LEADS.

Page 72: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

1. Deeply understand your target audience. 2. Produce posts that attract & scale traffic. 3. Fuel growth of blog subscribers.

Page 73: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

76.9% OF VIEWS ON SIDEKICK BLOG POSTS COME FROM EMAIL. Source: Sidekick by HubSpot

Page 74: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

A typical new post on the HubSpot Marketing Blog generates ~70% of its initial traffic from email subscribers.

Traffic from email.

Case Study: HUBSPOT BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 75: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

But over time, that initial traffic leads to views / social sharing that translates into long-term organic search traffic growth.

Traffic from organic search.

Case Study: HUBSPOT BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 76: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

THAT MEANS YOUR SUBSCRIBERS ARE CRITICAL FOR INITIAL TRAFFIC GROWTH.

Page 77: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

WITHOUT THEM, YOUR ORGANIC GROWTH WILL PROVE DIFFICULT.

Page 78: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

When first launching (or re-launching) a blog, invite people to read it.

Page 79: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

When first launching (or re-launching) a blog, invite people to read it. Before sending out email invitations, ensure you have a crisp message for why your blog is different than others.

Page 80: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

When first launching (or re-launching) a blog, invite people to read it. Before sending out email invitations, ensure you have a crisp message for why your blog is different than others. ü  Can you describe your blog in one sentence?

Page 81: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

When first launching (or re-launching) a blog, invite people to read it. Before sending out email invitations, ensure you have a crisp message for why your blog is different than others. ü  Can you describe your blog in one sentence? ü  Would your researched persona read it?

Page 82: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

We sent email invitations to three cohorts of people: 1.  Content Contacts: Anyone who discovered our

other content through forms on landing pages.

2.  Churned Users: People who may no longer care about our product but may still care about our industry / best practices.

3.  Email to Non-Users: Leads who may one day use our product, but haven’t yet.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 83: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

We sent invitations to our current database.

The copy reflected a well-thought out message that our audience research indicated would resonate with who we ultimately want reading our blog.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

We shared titles of the types of blog posts they’d find on our blog.

Page 84: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

And we didn’t send them to a different page or form to subscribe – we already have their email, why ask for it again? Instead, we tracked who clicked on the CTA to subscribe and automatically added them to our subscriber list.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

We automatically collected any email that clicked on the CTA.

Page 85: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

OUR READERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DO ANY EXTRA WORK TO DISCOVER OUR CONTENT. WE SHOULD.

Page 86: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Keep growing your subscriber base with two core methods.

Page 87: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Keep growing your subscriber base with two core methods.

Calls-to-action on the blog’s native real estate.

Page 88: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Keep growing your subscriber base with two core methods.

Calls-to-action on the blog’s native real estate.

Calls-to-action on your other content assets.

Page 89: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Experiment with a prominent CTA at the top of your blog homepage.

OKDork’s above-the-fold homepage CTA converts at 8%.

Page 90: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Test a CTA to subscribe at the end or side of

each post.

DIYTheme’s subscriber opt-in converts at an impressive 2%.

Page 91: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Try a slide-in CTA appearing

as readers scroll down a post.

HubSpot’s slide-in CTAs generate 27% more submissions than end-of-the-post CTAs.

Page 92: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Popups on Dan Zarrella’s blog didn’t reduce bounce rates and increased conversion by more than 100%.

Try pop-up CTA that hovers over the blog post.

Page 93: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

This sweeps in free subscribers from people already interested enough to share a comment.

Provide an option to subscribe

when readers leave comments.

Page 94: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

HubSpot’s landing page forms increased blog subscribers by 128%.

Allow visitors who shower interest

elsewhere on your site to subscribe.

Page 95: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Surfacing the blog to every new user helped the Sidekick blog increase subscribers above 50% M/M.

Try sending invitations with your best posts during customer

onboarding.

Page 96: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Sidekick achieved an average 4% CTR on email invites from people who previously stopped showing interest.

Or test a one-time send to re-engage

churned users with content, not

product.

Page 97: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

We tested each CTA type and quickly generated nearly 10K blog subscribers within six weeks. Case Study:

SIDEKICK BLOG STRATEGY

Page 98: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

WARNING: Watch your engagement rates. You don’t want to send content to people

who don’t want it.

Page 99: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Eventually we reached 60K subscribers.

But only 22K of them were actively reading our content. So we removed the others from our subscriber list.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 100: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

We sacrificed subscribers for success. We believe having a healthy list of engaged readers is far more important than having a large list of inactive readers. This also ensures our strategy is directed by those who care about us most.

Case Study: SIDEKICK BLOG

STRATEGY

Page 101: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

REMEMBER: Our goal isn’t to shove

content into inboxes, it’s to provide something

worth reading.

Page 102: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

THE PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT YOUR CONTENT CONVERT. FOCUS ON MARKETING TO THEM.

Page 103: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

That’s our playbook for growing the Sidekick Blog.

Page 104: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

Don’t just start writing.

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 105: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

Don’t just start writing. Start thinking critically about your

actual blog strategy.

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Page 106: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

@ANUM | ANUMHUSSAIN.COM

Questions? (After this event, feel free to ask more at

anumhussain.com/presentations/how-to-launch-blog.)

Page 107: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

THANK YOU!

Page 108: How to Accelerate the Growth of Your B2B Blog

Find out how Booker decreased theircost per lead by 71% with content.

READ CASE STUDY