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There are a lot of bloggers out there, but not so many good ones.  So what makes for a good blog?  In this post, I’ll walk you through the framework of a great blog.

 

 

The value of a blog post is measured by its quantitative and qualitative attributes.

 

Quantitative

Your blog needs to generate results. Results equal leads.  Marketers must be able to measure the results generated from their blogging. It’s all about ROI. Here are four must-have metrics, in ascending order of importance:

 

  • Views – A no brainer.  If no one is reading your blog, that’s a problem.  You need to track the number of overall views and look for trends.
  • CTA Conversion Rate – Every post needs to have a CTA (Call to Action).  If it’s a good post, it will drive the reader to action.  Track how many of your readers “click” on your CTA
  • Social Shares – To drive awareness in the market place, you want social shares.  The more social shares, the more views.  The more views, the more leads.  Make sure you make it easy for your blog to be shared.
  • Form Conversion Rate – The pièce de résistance.  Clicking on your CTA is one thing.  Your offer must be so valuable that giving up name & email is worth getting it.  If you want to generate leads, you want a high form conversion rate.

     

Qualitative

In descending order of importance, you should rate your blog according to:

 

  • Blog Title – The average corporate email user gets 112 emails per day. With so much noise, it’s difficult for any single piece of information to get noticed.  Great blog titles help you rise above the fray.  They are the headline.  Here’s a quote from David Ogilvy on the importance great headlines:

     

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  • Hierarchy of Sales Message – The ultimate purpose of your blog is to pull the reader through their buying process. Your sales message should pull them through and ensure they buy from you.  In the SEC’s recent book, The Challenger Sale, they identify five levels in the hierarchy of a sales message:

     

    1. General Information: Information that covers generally just about everything. These are the posts we always delete.
    2. Accepted Information: Credible & relevant information, but not too interesting.  These posts we mostly likely never read.
    3. Thought Leadership: This is new perspectives or new data that teach us something.  We probably couldn’t have found this information on our own.
    4. Insight: Beyond thought leadership, insight breaks your customer’s paradigm and drives a change in behavior.
    5. Commercial Insight: Like insight, Commercial Insight breaks the customer’s frame of mind.  It also drives action.  The BIG difference is that it leads the customer back to you.  You are the only solution able to help them act on the insight provided.  A very high bar, but worth the effort.

       

  • Persona Match – Your blog writing must be purposeful.  It must be directed to your Buyer Personas.  It must resonate with your Persona’s goals and objectives.  For example, this post is not directed to the CFO of a F500 company.  Rather, it is addressed to the marketing leader of a growing company.
  • Body – Writing the body of your blog post has one goal: communicate as effectively as possible.  Think “Easy to Understand”.  Often bloggers get caught up in the ethereal and lose their audience. Or they use long-winded sentences that only confuse the message and the reader. I will cover 10 tips for writing clear body copy in a later post.
  • Tool / Offer – You should strive to offer something of value in every post.  Something like the Blog Grading Tool.  The purpose of the tool is to entice your reader to “declare” themselves.  If they want it enough, they’ll cough up a name and email.  So make sure your tool doesn’t disappoint.

 

Key Takeaway: There is a direct correlation between great blogging and lead generation.  If you want your blog to generate leads, measure both its quantitative and qualitative attributes.  As a marketing leader, do it every day for at least three months.  This will instill consistency and excellence in your blog-writing team.