The Blog is Not Dead

In the age of streaming media, augmented reality, and the metaverse, is the blog finally dead?

No.

The consensus is that the blog—an online network of web pages containing content crafted and curated by your company—is alive and important.

Consider these statistics:

• Demand Metric reports that content marketing costs more than 60% less than outbound marketing. Plus, it generates three times as many leads.
• HubSpot’s statistics demonstrate the more you publish, the more traffic you receive. Companies that publish about four times per week produce 3.5 times more traffic than those that publish only once per week.
• HubSpot also says that company marketers who blog increase their positive ROI 13 times over.

Three Critical Reasons to Have a Blog for Your HealthTech Company

1. Your Content Establishes Your Authority

You have something to say. Say it.

Your company blog gives you a soapbox to proclaim that you know your customer’s needs and how to solve them. Sure, your website might contain an elevator pitch and a positioning statement. Those are essential. But you develop your point of view through your content— articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, and white papers. You establish your credibility through your content.

And content best lives and performs within a blog infrastructure because it gives you so many opportunities to convert visitors into leads.

2. Your Content Helps Your Prospects Find You Through Search

Your blog is not about you. Put yourself at the keyboard of your prospects. What are they searching for? They will approach your blog from any number of scenarios, whether asking a question or hunting for you specifically.

Do your prospects find you through a branded search?

Your current customers are referring you to those in their network either over LinkedIn or at trade shows (whether virtual or live).

When those referred later search for you or go directly to your website, what do they find? Your content can convince them through a self-service sale.

Your prospects are asking questions to their search engines. Do they find you?

Your company blog can answer their questions. Do that often enough, and your company becomes the solution to their needs.

If every blog post is written with clarity and follows these SEO guidelines, you will be found and grow your customer base.

3. Your Content is the Magnet to Convert Leads

We see so many company blogs that stop at delivering a message. They don’t go the next step to convert their visitors into leads.

In the same way you have to ask for the sale, you must ask for the conversion. Author and influence expert Robert Cialdini isn’t wrong when he encourages communicators to create “ethical bribes” to exchange content with high value for something small like an email address.

Furthermore, if you are going to discuss your product and expertise in any other format—social media, a podcast, webinars, or video—how do you keep the conversation going? How do you get your audience to respond?

Direct them to your blog (or podcast show notes, video information pages, etc.) or other information pages need conversion points (like the one above) so that you have a chance to get to know them better and serve their needs.

Diagnose Your HealthTech Company’s Blog

The blog, in general, may not be dead, but your company’s might be ill, or worse, on life support. Let’s take your blog to the doctor for an annual physical.

Does Your Blog Have the Right Team?

In the same way you want the best doctor, nurses, clinicians, and specialists for your body, you want the best team for your blog.

A single person can’t create and maintain a successful blog in isolation. Make sure all of these roles are embodied in at least three individuals who work together on a consistent basis. Only one of your team members may be the full-time “blogger.” The others may serve other roles within your marketing team.

• Strategist
• Writer
• Editor
• SEO
• Designer
• Statistician

Medical professionals are constantly learning as they practice medicine. Likewise, your blog team should be fervent readers, understand up-to-date trends in blogging, have access to the best information about your customer, and deeply understand your competition.

What are Your Blog’s Vital Signs?

In our Content Mapping Matrix, we outline a methodology for determining where your content is strong and identifying the holes you need to fill with new content. It’s as simple as running a report in Google Analytics and as complicated as interpreting the data.

Is Your Blog on an Intentional Fitness Regimen?

Yes, it’s better to publish than to not, but the more intentional you are the better. As you build your content calendar, think through these questions.

What is the overall purpose of your blog?

• Exacerbating the Need
• Lead Converting and Nurturing
• Customer Service

What is the purpose of each post?

What need does it solve in my audience’s world?

What do I want my audience to think, feel, believe, and do after interacting with the content?

Does Your Blog Need a Prescription?

We recommend these three practices.

• Assess (or make dormant) the lowest-performing 20% of your blog posts. They could be improved or reworked, or maybe they just need to go away.
• Evaluate the blog pages that receive the most traffic. Improve the content, update the statistics, and sharpen the conversion points.
• Run all of the live blog posts through an SEO audit.

The blog is not dead.

I posed this question on LinkedIn and was surprised at some of the answers.

The top comment is telling. This company has a blog that is active and alive:

You, too, can have a blog that drives your organic website conversion and inbound leads.

What are you waiting for?

Schedule a no-obligation consultation to evaluate your company’s blog. We don’t have room for everyone, but if you’re a B2B SaaS company in the healthcare ecosystem, we’d love to cheer on you and your efforts.