If you sell to other businesses you’re working with businesses professionals to close the deal. You might work with the owner of the company or you might work with a manager of a particular area of the business. But you’re reaching out to people.
The trouble for salespeople is finding leads so they know who to contact and how to contact them. It’s tricky because you don’t want to waste your time trying to talk to people that probably won’t be interested in what you’re selling and you want to know the best way to start the conversation when you do find the right people.
When social media came out it took our offline relationships and put them online. And it actually allowed us all to become more connected with more people all over the world. And that seems to be were the new term social selling comes in.
You have the intersection of the business-to-business world and social media. A company, KiteDesk, allows salespeople and businesses to find the right potential leads and uses social media to show connections you have and how you can best reach out to those leads.
It’s a new field and an exciting field and today we’re going to look at how they’re using a blog to attract new clients of their own.
1. Social Selling Success Stories
If you’ve been following these blog analysis posts here on GBW you’ll recognize that many companies are publishing case studies and client stories. KiteDesk does this with its social selling success stories series of posts. Here is one on a industry expert and one on another expert.
The first is actually a great interview with an industry expert where the expert discusses trigger events and how those can be used to close more sales. It’s obviously great insight for KiteDesk’s target readers. When you can get great content like this on your blog you’ll bring in new readers looking for industry information and you’ll earn their trust. That can close the deal at a trigger event moment.
The second is another interview. These aren’t really client studies, but they are case studies and interviews about the industry that really give great value. It’s a great format for regular blog posts on just about any business blog.
2. New Features
KiteDesk, from what I can tell, is a software company. They might call themselves something a little different, but for an outsider like me they’re a software company and one that has a really interesting product.
But if you’re a software company, and this can apply to many other companies, it’s good to share news about company and product updates. Software is updated frequently to keep things working right. You want to fix bugs. You want to improve usability and things like that.
And clients want to know about updates so sharing those updates is valuable to current clients.
But I also think it’s valuable to potential clients. They can see what you’re doing. They can keep tabs on you and then when they have a trigger moment they can decide they want to go with your service. They’ll feel like they know you and trust you.
3. Commenting On Industry Tools And News
Here is a post about Twitter Ads on the KiteDesk Blog. It’s really a commentary on how Twitter Ads work and this type of post can have a lot of value. It’s likely that the target readers for KiteDesk are wondering if they should invest in Twitter Ads and similar things. So now those readers that are interested have a blog post from an expert with some insight.
Commenting on tools and news in your industry is very valuable to your potential clients. You’re in a unique position in that you’re living and breathing your industry all day every day. So you can share some of your thoughts and provide value, which will earn trust and new business.
4. Mentioning Industry Leaders And Brands
It’s cool that KiteDesk lists a couple of their most popular posts. The one that tops the list is one on on the top social selling influencers. KiteDesk created an infographic and a list on Twitter that you can follow. It’s very actionable for readers. They can instantly follow that list and get locked in on some people with great insight in social selling.
But beyond that this is a great business blogging strategy. It’s a great way to provide value while also giving others a reason to share the post. And for that reason it doesn’t surprise me that this is the most popular post. I bet a number of the folks on the list have shared this post because it benefits them.
You can likely do the same in multiple ways for your own business. It takes time and you want to do it well, but it can be worth it. Obviously this example is the most popular post on the site.
5. Calls To Action
I want quickly mention calls to action in regards to this blog because I think they do a good job. You have a floating bar that kind of follows you as you scroll. It entices you to signup for the email newsletter and to follow KiteDesk on social media.
Those are great calls to action for a blog post. Remember: most times when a visitor readers a post on your blog it’s their first interaction with your brand. You’re earning their trust and interest. You don’t want to jump right to the big call to action right away. Get them moving into your sales cycle with a newsletter or maybe to your homepage.
Final Thought
This is a great example of a great business blog. There are lots of good things going on and I think you can take some of these insights and use them to succeed with your own business blog. And KiteDesk had a great frequency going on with posts every couple days. But they haven’t posted in about a month and that does happen sometimes with business blogs especially during busy times of the year.
It’s good to stick to a consistent schedule. Even if you have 10 great ideas just space them out over 10 weeks so you keep things consistent. People like consistency in life and that includes business blogs.
So take these lessons and I know they’ll work well for your business blog.