MINDBODY provides software for health businesses such as gyms, trainers, spas, studios and more.
When I first started looking at them the other day I kept thinking that I had seen them somewhere before.
It runs out that I included MINDBODY in a post a little over a year ago about some software companies with great blogs.
But for this post we’re going to go more in-depth with the blog analysis. With this series I like to find great companies and see how they’re using their blog as a marketing strategy.
So today we’re going to look at some of the things MINDBODY is doing with their blog.
1. Blog Categories
MINDBODY has a nice image at the top of their blog. And right at the top (and also at the bottom) they have categories (or they might be tags). These help visitors narrow the content down to something they want to see.
In this case a visitor can sort by posts with business advice, salon and beauty and two other major categories.
Categories and Tags are a great way to organize your content. You can use these in many different ways to help your visitors find exactly the content they’re looking for. You’ll notice that I sometimes mention posts I’ve done for the Blog Analysis series like this one on MINDBODY. When I link to that I link to a page for the tag Blog Analysis.
Categories and Tags are really for organizing your content for your benefit and really for your readers’ benefit. It’s not really an SEO thing, but it helps your readers find content they want and that’s always good for them and for you.
2. Frequency: 1-2 Posts Per Week Per Category
If you’ve read any Blog Analysis posts in the past you know that I often mention frequency. That’s because it’s an important element for any business blog.
A general rule of thumb is that the more you can post the more it will benefit your business. The more content you have the more traffic you can bring in through all sources including organic search and social.
But it is about balance as well. You don’t want to publish content for the sake of publishing content. Your target readers need to find the content valuable. Our strategy is to look at the questions the target reader is asking online in relation to the industry.
So in the case of MINDBODY, it would be looking at small health-related businesses. Looking at the owners, managers and others involved in those companies. Finding what those folks are looking for when it comes to business, the health industry, etc. Then providing answers to those questions.
When you do this you’ll achieve success. You could start with 1 post per month, 1 post per week or multiple per week like MINDBODY. The more often you can provide those valuable answers for your target reader the faster you’ll get traffic and the more traffic you’ll get over time.
You get more traffic over time because a blog post lives online forever for people to find (unlike an ad).
3. Studies
In this post, MINDBODY shares some insight into a study they did internally on gift cards. These types of posts almost always have really useful information for the target readers.
For example, that post discusses how salons do the best with gift cards at least in terms of the number sold. And it also shows that yoga studios and instructors were doing well with gift cards as well.
The study was done around Valentine’s Day and that makes sense. A nice gift would be a day at the salon or spa or maybe a relaxing, but invigorating day at yoga.
A potential client for MINDBODY like a salon or yoga studio owner could be looking around for a way to boost sales and to market their gift cards. This post would be extremely useful. They can see that marketing around specific holidays like Valentine’s Day can work well and that they can target different people; those that would buy gift cards for their target customers.
Great post here and it looks like MINDBODY does these types of posts from time to time.
4. List Posts
List posts sometimes get a bad reputation. And there are certainly a lot of fluff list posts out there. But list posts are still some of the best performing blog posts across just about all industries.
People like reading lists, but the content has to be interesting and/or useful. That’s the key and it’s easy to talk about that, but it’s not always easy to do.
This post that was under the Inspiration category on MINDBODY is a great example of a useful list post. You can see that it has a good number of shares and likes.
The topic is New Year’s Resolutions and how people can keep them. This is coming from an expert and provides actionable tips on how you can keep your resolution or help your customers reach their resolutions.
That’s valuable and it’s a key for a good list post.
5. Other Types Of Content
A business blog is a great way to add regular content to your website, but it can be part of a larger content strategy. MINDBODY takes this approach with their other resources.
They have white papers, case studies and webinars. These are all great forms of content that people like. MINDBODY seems to have an emphasis on getting a little information from people in exchange for this type of content.
And that’s fine. People are generally willing to give you their name and email address in return for something like a white paper or ebook. But don’t abuse the privilege.
You can also use your blog content and repurpose it into other types of content. A collection of 10 posts on a certain subject can be turned into an ebook or white paper that will be very valuable.
Final Thought
The MINDBODY blog is a great example of blog marketing for businesses. They do a lot of great things with the content they offer to their target audience. The setup is good with the categories although they maybe could have a full archive of all categories somewhere. I could have missed it or it may have been confusing on the main blog page. But that’s a nitpick. It’s a wonderful blog.