Inbound Marketing Commandment #6: Always Be Publishing

As part of the LeadG2 series on "The 10 Commandments of Inbound Marketing" we're looking at the importance of each one, and discussing why they can’t be ignored. The sixth of The 10 Commandments of Inbound Marketing is: Consistently be publishing content on your blog. (Tweet This)

As an Inbound Marketing and Sales Consultant, I have seen dozens of inbound marketing programs over the years and can easily point to the #1 reason why companies fail at inbound marketing and lead generation: not publishing enough content on a consistent basis.

It’s true. The basic premise of inbound marketing is that by creating compelling content and offers that resonate with your target personas, you can attract visitors via search and social media to your website and convert them to leads. The key here is publishing content frequently and consistently enough that you can create a large enough library of great content to offer, and have enough content on social media and indexed by Google to create new visits to your website.

In the grand scheme of things, one of the biggest benefits that companies engaging in inbound marketing see is an increase in traffic to their websites. This increase in traffic is typically derived from an increase in organic (search) traffic since there is more publishing content to be found on Google and shared via social media when publishing content more frequently. Having a new blog post every few days that gets indexed by Google or shared across your social media platforms is like pouring gas on a fire. Each new blog post or page added to your website gives your website more credence with Google and brings in more visitors.   

3 Ways to Publish More Content to Your Blog

1) Write a blog post referencing an article of interest to your target persona instead of posting the article to directly to social media. Then share your blog on social media.

2) Come up with a series of blog posts (Ten Ways to XYZ), then write a post on each over several months.

3) Hire freelance writers to write filler content. (Many blog posts don’t need to be written by someone with intimate knowledge of your industry.)

As much as you would like to think that the most important thing to be doing to increase sales is “ABC" (Always Be Closing), the real key for inbound marketing programs is “ABP" (Always Be Publishing). Because without new content on your blog and something to share on social media or email out to your blog subscribers, your website traffic and leads will dry up pretty quickly.

The 10 Commandments of Inbound Marketing

1. Thou shall not put pen to paper before conducting research and understanding your target persona.  (Tweet This)
2. Sales must be involved in your inbound strategy at each stage from conception to implementation to follow up. (Tweet This)
3. Your website must be mobile optimized or responsive. (Tweet This)
4. You must have a written plan for lead follow up that’s agreed upon by both sales and marketing. (Tweet This)
5. You must have someone responsible for your inbound marketing program. (Tweet This)
6. Consistently be publishing content on your blog. (Tweet This)
7. You must have premium content (white papers, guides etc) on your website if you intend to generate leads. (Tweet This)
8. Do not ignore SEO / Organic search.  This is your website’s lifeblood. (Tweet This)
9. Thou shall not publish content for the sake of Google. Write for humans not Google. (Tweet This)
10. You must use a CRM. (Tweet This)

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