Your agency blog can be one of the most important new business tools you will find.
The agency website should be your online brochure. It is the place for credentials, capabilities and case studies. It is the platform to showcase your work. It’s all about your agency. But a niche blog is becoming the best gateway for your agency’s prospective clients. It is a platform totally focused on them. By providing helpful content it creates appeal and a positioning of expertise and gives prospects a reason to come back often.
I’ve stated repeatedly that the key to effective new business tactics is consistency. For an agency to maintain their new business efforts when days are busy it becomes a real chore. New business activities are usually the first things that are put on the back burner. But, when you are busy is often the best time to step up your new business efforts.
When I mention blogging to my clients, their first reaction is, ” they just don’t have the time.” But, when they come to understand the return on their time investment they become converts.
Below are just a few examples of how to reuse your blog content for greater exposure for your agency at minimal cost and effort:
E-newsletters
Yes, you can have an agency newsletter that goes out on time, every month, and with very little effort. Develop a simple email template and just reuse your blog content for your agency’s Enewsletter. Your E-newsletter can literally be created and sent in a manner of minutes.
The service I use is VerticalResponse. It is very easy to use and inexpensive. You can also use the service to build an opt-in subscription for use on your blog and website.
EzineArticles
This is an article marketing, publicity generating, traffic building, and article exposure service.
Previously they were a fee-based service but now are free service supported by ad content. You simply copy and paste your blog article into a template and submit. Once approved by Ezine’s staff and distributed, it will generate traffic back to your blog and added exposure for your agency. Again, this takes only minutes to set up and send out content that you’ve already written.
FeedBlitz
FeedBlitz converts your blog updates into email digests. Take a few minutes to subscribe and set up, then the delivery of your blog content to your subscribers inboxes will be totally automated. You can’t make it easier than this.
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Michael, I totally agree with this: some agencies have exemplary blogs that are useful and engaging, whereby clients, fellow practitioners or just people with an opinion can have conversations, which ultimately can lead to new business opportunities – or opportunities of any kind. Certainly, this is not the case if an agency blog is naval gazing, introspective or impersonal piffle. I think a great example is we are social … the ‘brand’ of the blog, is the people. You can see their twitters, their posts…under the umbrella of the organisation.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Joe.
Michael,
Any recommendations for how to sell this up to senior management at the agency? I know its fairly inexpensive, but the time/resource allocation is the tough part. I agree with you completely and I am willing to take a large part in this, however, I really believe that this needs to be a complete team effort in order to make the blog and its offspring successful.
Thanks!
Chris