Blogging was
embraced by many companies long before content was king.
Many
businesses discovered the benefit of sharing information, opinions and
knowledge with their customers was that it was returned with loyalty, sharing
and engagement. Now as content is king, more people than ever are blogging as
part of content market strategies. In this article I want to take a look at a
few blogs by UK businesses, highlighting what they are doing right in order to
be as successful as they are.
The
following position map demonstrates the posting objectives of five business
blogs. The challenge is finding the right balance between advice and sales;
industry news and company news. Here’s how I positioned the blogs based on the
map.
As a veteran
digital marketing consultancy, Evonomie has got the balance just right between
advice and sales, as the digital marketing industry and its audiences tend to
much prefer heavily informative and advisory content, which they can learn from
and share. Sales is not something that needs to be pushed, in a digital
marketing industry blog, but proof of knowledge and expertise is, and this is
something I feel we demonstrate very well!
Our blog http://business2businessmarketing.blogspot.co.uk started six
years’ ago and contains a rich stream of marketing content. From marketing
models to marketing advice, use of marketing tools and good ideas as we post
little news about the company itself, with most updates being about the digital
marketing industry and how this impacts marketing managers. This, again, is
something digital marketing companies should be focusing on, as the audience
will get to know your company’s story and exploits in time, but to gain and
hold their interest you need to post something that they find genuinely
interesting, hence regular news updates from the industry in general being the
best posting objective for Evonomie.
Being the
leading health and beauty retailer in the UK, it is not surprising that Boots
has a great beauty blog. The advice is flowing fast and free, with the expected
weight on sales thrown in by creating beauty tutorials and product comparison
posts where products from suppliers that they sell in store are used or
compared. I don’t think this takes away from the advice at all though, as a
hint of sales is to be expected from business blogs and consumers understand
this. But the informative content, both in written and video formats, is
interesting and engaging stuff which is the key to gaining the perfect balance
between sales and advice in posts for retail blogs.
There is a
lack of industry news, and the only company news is related to new products in
store, which I think is a shame. But this doesn't take away from the quality of
the blog, as I think a health and beauty blog can get away with less news as
the main feature as the audience is drawn to the advice. It would be
interesting to see more posts about the beauty industry and more about what
Boots as a company have been up to rather than just what new products are
launching, but all in all a great beauty blog from the retailer.
This self
adhesive label manufacturer has got the balance for both advice-sales and
industry news-company news down to an almost perfect 50-50 split, which I think
benefits the company greatly. The fact that they have performed and posted
about a comparative trial of ink used on labels, as well as showcasing some of
their work to demonstrates their expertise and skill is a great balance of
sales and advice.
They have
also discussed news pertaining to labeling in industries, such as news on wine
labels starting to carry QR codes, which is interesting and relevant, as well
as news on their own company’s exploits, which creates a perfect balance
between industry and company news. Overall, the Merican Labels blog is a prime
example of an interesting and well balanced blog, written with the audience in
mind, but without having to sacrifice the sales push.
The UK based
luxury car manufacturer show self adoration on their website’s news section,
but it works. The company post mainly about their own achievements, from awards
and honours to their brand and products featuring at events. They do however
link it back to industry news, for example talking about Sir Chris Hoy at the
London Bike Show and the launch of the Velo-Jaguar Cycling event. They talked
both about an event of general interest and about their own involvement in it,
meaning that although the balance remained tipped more towards company news
than industry news, it doesn’t become boring because it’s not all about Jaguar.
Another way
they gain some balance and reach a wider audience with interests other than in
just their cars is by posting about Lana Del Ray’s release of her new music
video, for the song which happens to be the title track for a new Jaguar
‘Desire Film’. Cleverly linking such simple and generic news together this way
allows them to reach two very different audiences, and plug their new release
as well as offering news.
One of the
UK’s leading supermarkets, Waitrose’s ‘inspiration’ page replaces the typical
styled blog, but has the same purpose.
The balance between company news and industry news is very much tipped
towards their own news, which is expected of a supermarket blog.
The way in
which Waitrose stood out to me above other supermarket blogs is that they are
one of the few that actually post anything advisory. In the way I expect blog
plenty of advice and tutorials with a hint of sales from Boots, I expect the
same from major supermarkets. But Waitrose seem to be the only brand that have
actually carried this out, posting seasonal recipes and cooking tips, with
their own products recommended for use. For me, and I am sure I speak for a lot
of other supermarket customers, this advice is valuable and sought after,
meaning Waitrose blog has the perfect hook, and just the right balance for both
news and sales-advice.
If you like this story,
do share and tweet me @annmariehanlon, and if you have any favourite UK
business blogs of your own, please do share them with me!
Labels: business blogging, Uk blogging, uk business blogging
