Alan Gayle is a sales and marketing consultant specialising in the construction industry. In this column he offers advice on how to make an impact in the market. This time he goes blogging for business.
For the next few months I will be looking at various aspects of online marketing. To start with I want to look at blogs and blogging. More specifically, construction industry companies using blogs for business growth.
The word ‘blog’ is a portmanteau of ‘web’ and ‘log’. It was first used in the mid 1990s, although it was not until the mid 2000s that blogs really gained in popularity and became mainstream.
Many blogs are little more than online diaries and, in my view, don’t have much use in the business world.
Nevertheless, in recent years thousands, if not millions, of companies of every size and from every industry have been blogging to help promote their businesses.
There’s no doubt that blogs can be beneficial in business.
A good blog with original, relevant (that’s relevant to your customers) content can help with search engine optimisation (SEO) and increase your company’s profile, both of which can certainly contribute to increasing your sales.
The challenge is to be consistent with regular posts and content worth reading. That is not easy to maintain and it takes a certain amount of time that will not be found unless the blog is given sufficient priority in your marketing plan.
While I was researching this article I came across a blog written by a company called Construction Marketing Media (CMM). It contains several interesting posts but the one which caught my attention was called ‘7 Reasons Why A Contractor Should Blog’.
While CMM’s blog is updated regularly and contains well written, relevant content, one of their main clients, a medium sized general contractor, has their own blog which hasn’t been updated since September 2011.
To me, out-of-date blogs are just as bad as out of date website news pages. It doesn’t inspire confidence.
So, should you be blogging to increase our sales? Ask yourself these three questions:
1. Do I have the time (and the inclination) to commit to regularly writing relevant and informative posts for my blog?
2. Am I any good at writing and do I enjoy it? Or could I let someone who understands the business write it for me?
3. Do I already have all the other essential marketing elements in place, such as a meaningful marketing plan, case studies to showcase the company’s best work on an effective website, and so on (the things I have written about in this column previously).
It also depends on what you sell and who you sell it to. If you sell to consumers (B2C – business to consumer) your blog could add to your online presence and increase your website traffic. If you sell to other businesses (B2B) within the construction industry, the benefits may be less compelling.
I’ve listed my personal top three construction marketing sites below. You might like to take a look at them.
1. Competitive Advantage Blog. Written by Chris Ashworth, an experienced construction marketer, this blog has good research tips, forecast and statistical news and details of the training courses run by the company
http://cadvantage-blog.co.uk/
2. Construction Marketing Ideas Blog. Written by Canadian Mark Buchshon, this blog is probably the most widely read construction marketing blog out there. It certainly gets the best Google search results. Well worth a look. www.constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.co.uk/
3. Marketing Opinion on the Construction News website. This isn’t exactly a blog, it’s more of a marketing column with a different author each month. All the contributors are well versed in construction industry marketing. www.cnplus.co.uk/home/awards/construction-marketing-awards/