A business objective is something leaders of a company set as the long-term goal or achievement for the organization.
Some might call it the BHAG or Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Your business objective is something that pushes you to the limits, but it’s not impossible to achieve. It’s about reaching something achievable while pushing yourself beyond your current limits.
The business objective can be seen as a type of vision or mission or it could be broken down into smaller objectives. I like to think of it as more of the big goal for the company in the long-term.
The objective has to be measurable. This way you can look back and determine if you have achieved your goal or you can see how far you’ve come as a result of chasing the goal.
The goal could be a certain level of sales. It could be to become the biggest company in your space as measured by sales or customers or profit. It could be anything measurable that pushes you achieve something.
Business Blogging and Your Business Objective
Once you get together with those you trust and create your business objective it’s time to figure out how you’re going to make it reality. It’s important at this point to look for long-term solutions and strategies that will deliver on your expected results.
Something more companies are doing today is looking at business blogging.
Blogging can help your business do a few different things. It can help you bring in new customers while increasing sales. As a result of the blogging strategy you can also become one of or even the biggest and most popular name in your industry.
Business blogging is certainly a long-term strategy. You can purchase an ad from Google for a keyword group. It’s quick and easy and you can turn it into a long-term strategy even, but it’s still shown that people prefer clicking on the natural ads on search results.
If you want to get that search traffic and you want referrals from social media, email and in-person you need more. You need to create a content strategy aimed at answering the questions of your target customers.
Here is what we do with all new clients.
Three Types of Blog Posts
We look at three different types of blog posts all aimed at a long-term strategy.
Search Posts
Search posts target the keywords people are searching for. One of the great things about Google is that people show what they want. Instead of fishing around in the dark for what people want you actually know that up front and you can go to work figuring out the answer. These posts range from 500 to 2,000 words and in some cases you might even create a complete guide for the topic.
We have a simple SEO strategy at GBW. We try to create the best answer or piece of content for any specific keyword. We figure if we focus on creating the best answer for the target customer then it will withstand any changes from Google. We forget about Google and go straight to the end user with the focus.
Social Posts
These are a little different. Sometimes people don’t even know what they want to find out. Well, they may have a problem or issue, but they assume there is no answer so they don’t even search for it online. Also, they just want to find out interesting things and they don’t know about it until someone shares it with them.
We find there are a few types of posts that attract social sharing. The first is a story post that kind of features the story of someone, something or even a fictional story used to get a point across. People are attracted to stories for different reasons. Some are for entertainment. Some are for enlightenment. Others are for education.
For example, case studies and testimonials are great for social media sharing. It’s a specific story about the success of a business or an individual. It’s not really about search, but the story you share will connect with people. Your target customer will find it interesting and they’ll probably put themselves in the story and that might lead to them contacting you for more information.
Direct Referral
The third type of post is direct referral. With these you’re trying to get people to tell others about the content in person, via email or any other way someone refers someone to something. This could be a guide to something. It could be a story. It’s usually the type of thing someone finds interesting when they’re in the early stages of the sales process. It’s an introduction to your brand.
Final Thoughts
By working on creating these types of blog posts in the long-term you’ll grow your audience. That’s what a business blogging strategy is about. You’re bringing in new audience members through search and social. You’re getting direct referrals by tapping into the audiences of others because they refer their audience to your content.
Over time, as your audience or community grows you’ll increase the number of new customers you have coming in. You’ll increase sales and you should increase profit.
The great thing is that it’s a long-term investment. Every piece of content you create is an asset that keeps giving. It’s not a fleeting way to spend money. When a post does well in social it can continue being shared. When a post does well in search it will keep on giving as long as it stays the most relevant piece of content out there.
That is how you achieve your business objective with a business blog.