15 Questions You Must Ask Before Writing a B2B Blog Post

Many bloggers take a casual approach to blogging – they’ll write about whatever is on their minds as ideas come to them. However, this approach typically doesn’t work if you’re blogging for a mid- to large-sized B2B organization and need to align content with your creative and marketing goals.

Here are 15 questions to ask before you write your next blog post, to ensure that every new post brings you closer towards reaching your business goals:

1. What is the post’s general topic or working title?


2. Who is the target audience for this blog post? Consider whether you are targeting a specific persona, vertical or stage in the sales cycle.


3. Which of your target audience’s key concerns will the blog post address? Be sure that you have an understanding of this pain and how it impacts your audience.


4. Are there any other motivators or things happening in your industry that make this topic important? Do you have any background research or statistics to support this?


5. How will your target audience benefit from reading this blog post? What will they learn?


6. Will the blog post include a list of tips or steps? If you have ideas, you can note them here.


7. Does your writer need to interview anyone to complete this blog post? For example, will it be ghostwritten for one of your in-house technical experts, or do you need quotes from an industry thought leader? Be sure to ask for permission to interview these subject matter experts before you put your writer in touch with them.


8. Who will receive authorship credit for the post? Do you have a bio and a photo of the author to include on your blog?


9. Do you have any additional background information that is relevant to this blog post? This can include case studies, data sheets, brochures, white papers, videos, web pages, webcasts, other blog posts, reports, etc. If so, please share this information with your writer.


10. Are you going to include any images or videos within this blog post? If so, do you already have them, or do they need to be created or purchased?


11. Is this blog post related to a specific marketing campaign? If so, how do you plan to promote the campaign on your blog? For example, will you have a banner ad that asks readers to download a related white paper on the same page as the article?


12. What is the call to action?


13. How do you plan to promote this blog post? For example, will you email it to your list or share it on social media?


14. Can you repurpose this blog post to reach a wider audience? For example, can you turn it into a SlideShare presentation or create a video about the same topic?


15. Is this blog post part of a series? If so, what topics will you cover next?

Using these questions to plan each post doesn’t mean that you won’t have room for spontaneity. For example, if a customer asks you a great question, take the time to answer it on your blog. However, planning your blog posts can give your blogging a sense of purpose, improve your conversion rates and bring more qualified leads to your content.

What about you? Are there any other questions that you’d like to ask before writing a blog post? Please share them below.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/blogging/15-questions-must-ask-writing-b2b-blog-post-0697000?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=15-questions-must-ask-writing-b2b-blog-post