"If you sell something, you've won a customer for today. If you help someone, you've won a customer for life," is how digital marketing expert Jay Baer sums it up. At Reichl und Partner, we deal with successful corporate communications on a daily basis. One marketing tool is becoming increasingly important: the corporate blog, the weblog of a company.

The corporate blog can have different thematic focuses: It can provide insights into the corporate culture or deal with a specific product line or field of experience. Corporate blogs address topics that really interest readers. Thus, they create a closer bond with the company.

Those who run a corporate blog enjoy a significant advantage over companies that distribute their content purely via social channels or forums: the rights to the content generated are not handed over to other companies, but remain with you. The corporate blog thus functions as the content control center, and the social channels merely serve to multiply the content. However, in order to survive in the perception competition among millions of blogs worldwide, some basic rules have to be observed:

1. set your goals.

When creating a corporate blog, it is important to first determine your goals. Do you want to position yourself as an expert in a particular field? Do you want to improve your customer communication or acquire new customers? Is recruiting the focus? You should also determine how many potential customers you want to reach. A precise definition of the goal makes the further procedure much easier.

2. define your target group.

Determine in advance which target group you want to address with your corporate blog. Because this is the only way you can create content that is interesting for readers.

3. prepare new, relevant content.

After you have defined who your target audience is, you can prepare targeted topics. Creating new content is often the biggest challenge when running a corporate blog. Keep in mind the resources that are available to your company. Pique readers' interest by addressing topics that are relevant to them and offer them real value. When planning topics, always start by asking yourself: would I like to read an article about this myself? Dave Winer, also known as the founder and forefather of the blog, recommends the following to companies: "Come as you are. Talk as you talk. Let people who matter get to know you through a blog and listen closely to what they tell you."

4. create an editorial plan and work out the topics.

After you have determined topics that interest your target audience, you should design an editorial plan. It serves as a roadmap and helps to maintain an overview. Be strict with yourself and force yourself to plan as accurately as possible. This simplifies conceptualization and your authors can start drafting text in a timely manner. This leaves enough time for correction rounds.

5. involve your readers.

Invite your readership to create content themselves. Readers today increasingly want to actively create content themselves. At the very least, however, you should allow visitors to comment on blog posts to share their opinions on specific topics. You can decide for yourself who is authorized to comment and edit the content. Especially important: Respond quickly to comments and answer questions within a few hours.

6. publish regularly.

With a fixed publication rhythm, you can significantly increase the number of your readers. However, the blog does not see itself as "L'art pour l'art" (art for art's sake). Don't just make sure your posts are up to date, but also only publish something if you can actually provide your readers with relevant content.

7. promote your blog

With the above six rules, you create good conditions for your readers to find your blog good. But before that, readers have to find your blog in the vastness of the web. Promote your blog. Put teaser articles on websites, primarily your own of course, and draw attention to your blog in social media posts (again, as teasers).

 

As an experienced communications agency, we are particularly proud to have been successfully running the corporate blog for our client VELUX for more than a year. http://www.durchdacht.at for our client VELUX. This is intended to give home builders, homeowners and those interested in architecture a behind-the-scenes look at the company. Exceptional reference projects by architects, tips on designing their homes and many other helpful articles on the subject of living ensure high interest among readers. The editorial plans are drawn up together with Reichl und Partner for a period of about four to six weeks in advance with the aim of providing a varied mix. The topics are developed both through self-research, e.g. in the form of interviews with architects or web research, and a briefing from VELUX. Our experienced copywriters prepare even highly technical topics in such a way that they offer added value to anyone potentially interested. Readers also have the option to share the posts via social channels. Many exciting blog posts have already been created as part of the cooperation. We are looking forward to further successful cooperation with VELUX!