Finding great blog post ideas for your company blog is easy. No sweat. Well, maybe just a little sweat. But nothing that’ll make you want to punch your personal trainer. With a little effort, you can fill out your content calendar to start generating business leads and reaping the benefits of your B2B company blog.

3 starting points for effective company blog post ideas

In the second post of our B2B blogging series, we covered B2B blogging strategy and talked about identifying the people you want to reach. We covered the need to both deliver useful information to your readers and move them further down the sales funnel, since the ultimate goal of any blog post is to move your business forward. Here, in the third post, we’ll focus on three, high-payoff blog post categories.

  • Answer the most commonly asked questions that you or others in your company constantly address.
  • Provide original insights that show your thought leadership on the biggest issues affecting your industry and the industries of your clients or customers.
  • Tell people what’s going on at your company. This can be traditional marketing, like drafting press releases, but it can also be little things like pictures from the Christmas party. Your co-workers can sometimes be the best people to not only interview for stories but also spread your blog posts on social media channels.

Are you ready to dive in? We’ll give you the rundown so you can get your blog humming like Mizzou’s spread offense — if we could’ve stopped that Auburn triple option…

Answer the most commonly asked questions that your staff addresses all the time.

We can’t overemphasize the value of providing useful information. If you’re still reading this post, then I’m doing my job of informing you about blog post ideas and holding your attention. I mean, we’re 320 words in now. When people search Google and finally get their hands on useful, actionable information, it’s like chomping into that first bite of homemade apple pie.

Chances are, if your clients and customers are always asking you about the differences between precast concrete and tilt-up concrete, you can write a blog post about concrete that people will find useful.

The more that people find you informative, the more they interact with you. And the more likely they are to give you their contact information and become a lead. When you’re generating leads through your blog, you can put marketing automation to work for you and nurture those leads into sales. This is the concept of the sales funnel. Useful information lures in your hungry Google searchers, contact forms turn them into leads, and lead nurturing pays off the whole process.

So, how do you find these questions that people are dying to answer? Take some time to brainstorm occasions when you were frustrated because you had to explain something again and again to a client. You’ll think of something. Next, interview your co-workers to learn from their experiences. When you do put together these posts, you don’t have to make them pure FAQ posts, you can also write them as how-to articles and tip-sheets. These post formats are popular on the web and can help your site draw in search traffic because they’re designed for readers to instantly find the information they want.

Provide insights on your industry

If you’ve made it to the stage in your career where you’re managing the in-house marketing for an industrial brand, chances are you know a thing or two about giving a solid presentation. At the very least, you’ve explained important concepts to senior members of your company. You know how to communicate.

And you’ve probably been paying attention to what’s going on in your line of work. You’ve got experience, knowledge and opinions. That means you’ve got a wealth of blog post ideas. Start writing up trends you see unfolding in your industry. The price of solar panels is dropping and causing a change in your company’s future offering? Write about it. Be insightful, clear and concise. Give readers something no one else can give them.

Or, just write up posts that cover your own in-house observations and decisions. Our co-founder, Jon Franko, recently wrote a post detailing why we put Twitter on hold for a few of our clients. That’s the kind of stuff that people want to read.

Tell people about your company

Brand messaging is a beautiful thing. Companies have their own personality and they’ve never been more able to show it better than they can today.

Water cooler talk, job-site conversations, the blog post process, the company Christmas party. These aspects all make up a company’s culture. People inside and outside of a company want to learn more about how a company operates and about its people. Use your blog to detail the events that shape your company and your employee’s lives.

Corporate content can range from the company timeline that begins in 1912 to pictures of the youth basketball tournament your company sponsors. It can include press releases, volunteer event photos, and stories from your CEO’s travels across the country. It all depends on the voice and tone you want your brand to have and the company culture you want to show to people outside of your business.

Want to know more about content marketing?

Refreshingly useful and interesting blogging is part of an excellent content marketing strategy. But to make blogging an investment worthy of your time, you need to make your business blog pay off with real leads and sales. Click below to download our business blogging guide and learn how to turn your company blog into a real business asset.