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that Works

How to Create aN

Internal BloggIng Program

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Your company blog is a critical channel for inbound marketing efforts,

lead generation, brand awareness, and more. It builds credibility through

thought leadership and helps to build trust and relationships with your

audience. At Marketo, we strive to publish one blog post per day

Monday-Friday and sometimes on Saturday. This can be a challenging

task if you don’t have the content to keep things fresh and unique. We

started to realize that in order to maintain a high level of quality on our

blog we needed more contributors from within our organization—the

subject matter experts that hold vast amounts of information and

expertise pertaining to our industry. So, we embarked on a journey to

get our internal teams contributing to our blog on a regular basis.

No easy task, since content creation is a cultural shift for many

organizations. How do you get you get your whole company involved in

blog creation? You need to create a blog program. And by a program,

we mean more than sending out an executive email. We mean

something that has a theme, incentives, training, a formal guidebook,

and more. Even 1:1 blogging consultations if you have the resources

available. You need to create a bang and a lot of excitement around

your new program.

IntroductIon

At Marketo, we chose a fun theme based on a popular movie trilogy.

Something we knew would resonate with everyone. On the day of the

launch we went around and hung up posters, passed out stickers, and

sent out emails announcing the new program. The next step was setting

up training classes on how to blog and embarking on a grass roots

campaign with all of our internal stakeholders from different departments

within the organization to get them involved. We also offered really great

incentives for the program to get people initially excited to contribute!

The program is still new so the results are being compiled, but in the 3

months it has been since we launched the program we have gone from

having 3 regular bloggers to over 30!

One of the key assets we offer to our employees to help them with

their contributions is a guidebook that goes over program specifics and

gives a brief tutorial on blogging. The following ebook outlines the exact

guidebook we give our employees when embarking on blog creation.

Take this guidebook, update it with your own company information

and you are on your way to creating a culture of content creation and

collaboration.

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BloggIng Program SPecIfIcS

Welcome to our internal blogging program. The goal of this program is to

get all our employees involved in the our blog. Why do we want you to

blog? We know that the employee team can be a fantastic resources to

our prospects and customers, and it’s time to unlock the vault. Our blog

helps significantly with sales, lead nurturing, branding, public relations,

SEO, and customer service, and we need your help!

And that’s not all. This program gives you access to a ton of awesome

prizes and some great personal branding, which is especially important

because it builds credibility within our industry. More on that in a bit.

In this guide we will discuss everything you need to know to be part of this program. We will tell you all about the program itself, let you know our blogging guidelines, and give you some great initial knowledge so you can hit the ground running.

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Blogging IncentivesTo get you pumped up about blogging, we decided to put the good

stuff first.

Ongoing Rewards ProgramTo qualify for the rewards program, your submitted blogs must meet our

guidelines, be approved, and published on the blog (more details on

that a bit later).

You win prizes as you go. So you don’t have to cash in or save up. For

each milestone you hit you will receive the corresponding prize.

$1000 Airline of Choice Gift Card

Nikon D7000

Macbook Air

Lenovo Yoga

Jambox

Beats headphones

$200 Nordstroms Gift Card

Xbox 360

iPadMini

Microsoft Surface

$500 Nordstroms Gift Card

Canon Rebel

An awesome t-shirt (male and female sizes avaliable)

ContestsWe also want to make sure that bloggers are recognized for their

achievements on a quarterly basis, so we are giving away trophies for

the following achievements:

• Most shared blog post

• Post with the most page views

• Best overall post

1 Published Post 3 Published Posts 7 Published Posts 20 Published Posts

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Building Your Personal Brand Through BloggingWe wanted to spend a few moments to discuss how blogging can help

you create your own personal brand. Through blogging you can be

seen as an expert in your industry by your peers, customers, and even

prospects. Maybe you are an Account Executive or a Sales Consultant

and are looking to close new business, wouldn’t it be awesome if you

could send them a few of your blog posts to show your expertise and

build trust? Or maybe you are in professional services and are working

on an engagement with a client, sharing one of your posts can further

position you as a thought leader.

Whether you are in sales, marketing, support, engineering, or another

area of the company, being a known blogger helps you build relationships

with your customers, prospects, and industry peers. It shows that

you know what you are talking about and are an expert that can be

leveraged. There is so much amazing institutional knowledge we have,

getting your name out there through blogging is a great way to shine

internally and externally.

Internal RolesBefore we really dig into it, let’s spend a moment to discuss who owns

blogging internally and who you can go to for advice.

Managing Editor: (Add the name and email address of your

blog manager.)

The managing editor is your first line of defense. All blogging inquiries and

posts go through the managing editor. He or she is available for blogging

consultations (described later) and any questions you may have. All posts

will be sent to him or her initially for review, edits, and approval.

Executive Editor: (Add the name and email address of the person who

is the executive editor of the blog and gives final approval.)

The executive editor has the final say on what gets published and what

doesn’t. All posts have to eventually go through him or her.

Submission and Approval ProcessOnce you have completed your initial copy, there are a series of steps to

be aware of: Include your unique blog approval steps. Try and be as

detailed as possible.

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What If You Are Not Comfortable With Writing?We know many of you may not feel comfortable with writing but you still

want to participate, so we wanted to address this concern up front. That

is totally OK. We realize not everyone is a natural writer, so we want to

make sure you have support.

Blogging Consultations

If you are worried about your writing or are not quite sure how to format

your first blog, we are going to offer blog consultations with the Managing

Editor, (include the name and email address of your managing editor.)

He or she would be happy to go over tips and work with you and

your post. Don’t hesitate to contact him or her directly if you have any

questions or concerns.

Copyediting

We will also work with you on copyediting. As long as you have a good

idea and good meat to your post, we will work to edit and format your

content so that you have a successful blog. So, even if writing may not

be a strength of yours, we can help. And over time, you will improve

Content GuidelinesNow that you are all excited about the incentives that are tied to this

great program, let’s talk about what you should write and some general

content guidelines to keep in mind when creating your posts. As

mentioned above, you will only be eligible for incentives on blog posts

that are accepted and published to the blog. We will of course work with

you to get it right, but here are some general things you should initially

keep in mind when crafting your ideas and posts.

Post Topics

We know you are already thinking about what you want to write about!

Basically, we want to give you the creative freedom to write about

whatever you are passionate about related to our space. However, if

you need some guidelines about what to write, try to think of topics that

are related to (but not limited to) the following:

(Include a bulleted list of topics you typically discuss in your blog. Be

as detailed as possible.)

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Important Content Parameters to Keep in Mind

Below are some additional guidelines you want to keep in mind when

crafting your post. This will help your post to be approved and then

published on the blog.

• Post should not be promotional: We want our blog to continue being a neutral, unbiased source of information for our readers.

• Your post should say something new. With every blog you write, you should learn something once it is completed. Try to not re-hash old topics that we’ve already covered, so we can keep the blog as fresh as possible.

• Your article should be original: We want to make sure that we do not have duplicate content, so please make sure all content submitted is original content to exist exclusively on our blog. So if you have your own blog, please make sure that you aren’t posting things twice.

• There are no length requirements: A lot of people ask about length, but we publish blogs that vary in length. So take as much space as you need to get your point across. If it is a longer blog break it up with some subheadings or bullets, which we will get into later in this guide.

• Legal Content Guidelines: Make sure you comply with your company’s social media policy.

Program MetricsHow will the success of this program be measured? The overall program

will be measured on:

• Number of bloggers

• Number of blog posts

• Visitors to the blog

• Shares of each blog

• Subscriptions to the blog

• Comments on the blog

1049112

268K

14K

2693

548K

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How to Be a maSter Blogger

Getting StartedOK, so you know you are ready to write a blog, you understand the

process, and are ready to get started. This section includes information

to help you jumpstart your 1st (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc) blog.

Some of the following sections reference Ann Handley’s “Content Rules”.

Industry Blogs

Be sure to check out our blog if you haven’t already. There are

also quite a few industry blogs that you can take a look at for more

content ideas. Take a look at this list of blogs we admire:

• Briansolis.com: Discussion about the impact of technology, culture, and business

• Chrisbrogan.com: A variety of topics relating to social communities and the elements of digital business.

• Chief Marketing Technologist Blog: From Scott Brinker, the CTO of Ion Interactive, who talks about the combination of 2 powerful forces: marketing and technology

• Copyblogger: Fantastic resource for content marketing and blogging

• CreativeCriminals: Collection of cool brand videos and other visual content

• MarketingProfs: Great blog covering the latest trends and thought leadership in marketing.

• Mashable: All around good blog that discusses many trends in marketing and technology

• Social Media Examiner: Great blog on all things social

• Content Marketing Institute: Everything you need to know about content marketing

• Convince and Convert: Jay Baer works to help businesses create value from their social media and marketing efforts

• Velocity Partners: A UK-based firm who opinions on Marketing are always provocative and very relevant

• ViralBlog: Good mix of B2B and B2C content on viral ideas and social trends

Make sure you include the blogs that you follow and think are good

examples of what you want to strive for.

Ideation

One of the most difficult parts of writing a blog is figuring out what you

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want to write about. The more your ideas can resonate with our blog

audience, the more your post will be read and shared! Luckily, we cover

a wide variety of topics in our blog, but here are some tactics you can

use to help you during the ideation process:

Questions You Get Asked: Often, the best blog posts answer

the questions you get frequently asked. Find yourself answering

the same objection or topic over and over? Write a blog post about

it! The more customer and prospect questions we answer on our

blog, the more likely people are to find us when they want answers!

Scan Your RSS Reader Daily: A great way to get fresh ideas and

inspiration is to sign up for a free RSS reader or aggregator. Then

do a search for blogs that are relevant and subscribe by clicking

on the RSS feed and adding it to your reader. Organize your feeds

into folders and sort by category for easy scanning. By becoming a

regular blog reader, you will learn what is tending in our industry.

LinkedIn Groups: There is no shortage of opinions on LinkedIn.

Find the most active groups related to our industry by searching the

Groups tab. An easy way to tell which groups are most active is by

the number of members and discussions. LinkedIn Answers is also

a fantastic place to tap the knowledge of your professional network.

Crowdsourcing: Post a social status asking your audience for

content topics and suggestions. You will be surprised how many

people will respond with some great ideas! And ask around the

office of course. Your team members likely know what is on the

mind of customers and prospects.

Leverage Current Events: Blogs that play on current events are

always very popular. Maybe you just saw a movie you loved, or read

an interesting book. Tie some educational marketing or sales lessons

in with some of the themes. The relevancy will resonate with your

audience and the post will be shared more.

Frankenblogging: You might not be able to frankenblog quite yet,

but keep this technique in mind when thinking of your next post.

Many bloggers often end up with a growing number of half-written

posts. Find a way to tie them together! The idea is to find a common

theme or link between two of them and combine.

Post Title

Now that you have your idea, you are ready to write. Pay special

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attention to the title of your post, as this is what is going to draw them

in. And play around with it a little to see what works best. Here are

some simple blog title formulas that always work really well:

• How to…

• Secrets of…

• Why Your…

• Question titles like How much does…?, How often do you…?

• The Worst…

• The Truth About…

• List titles like Top 10…, 5 Best…

Be sure to check out the following posts from Copyblogger on how

to write awesome blog headlines:

• http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/

• http://www.copyblogger.com/how-to-write-headlines-that-work/

• http://www.copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work/

Take a look at some actual Marketo blog post examples:

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First Paragraph

Now that you have attracted the reader in with your awesome title, how

do you hook them into your blog? The first sentence and paragraph are

key to enticing a reader to stick around. So what are some easy wins?

Start by asking a question, state something controversial, discuss a pain

point, note a fact, or mention something universally interesting to your

readers. You can even draw from your own personal experience if you

think it will resonate with readers. Remember relevancy is key.

Here are a few examples of openers from the Marketo blog:

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Post Formatting

You want to make sure that your blog post is easily digestible, so

breaking it up using headings and bulleted/numbered lists are a great

way to format your blog.

Another good way to break up a blog post is to use bulleted or numbered lists to pull out your key points. Here are examples of these tactics:

To break your post up using headings, simply go through and pull out the key points. Take a look at what we mean:

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Add Images

Your post will come to life through imagery, so think of what you can

include and how you can include it. A few words of caution; don’t

include imagery that doesn’t add to your post content and don’t include

stock images. If you do decide to include images in the blog body, make

sure they are original! Take your own photos, do a Google search for

funny photobombs or memes, and make sure that they are engaging.

You can also include graphs and other images that support factual

information in your post.

Conclusion

When you are ending your post, it is a best practice to end in a way

that invites interactions. One of the objectives and metrics we track

are blog comments, because that means people are engaging with

our content. Plus, interacting with people who comment on your post

is a great way to get yourself out there as an expert! So, to invite

interaction, end your blog with a question. It can be general like “What

do you think?”, but it is better if your question relates to the post

content. Take a look at an example:

Here is an example of a post with images. Note how they directly relate to the content.

You can see how this incites conversation around your post! Take a look at some of the comments:

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SEO ConsiderationsSearch Engine Optimization and keywords are important to think about

when creating your blog. The reason for optimizing for top keywords is

that it increases overall traffic to your post and our site, helping it rank

on Google.

Please reference (insert a link to a spreadsheet with your top

keywords). to get an idea of what concepts we are trying to rank for

and even more importantly, the key pages that we want to rank. Where

possible, use a keyword in your headline. And then in your post, add

natural links where appropriate to the key pages or to other blog posts.

Don’t just slap in keywords, make sure that they make sense in the

context of your post. Feel free to reach out to a member of the blog team

if you need some assistance.

Blog PromotionEvery blog post that you create will be promoted through our social

channels. Each post will be promoted on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter,

and Google+.

We also encourage you to promote your blogs through our own

social channels.

Take a look at a great example of natural keyword insertion from one of our recent blogs:

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go out and Blog!Now that you are totally excited for this new program, go out and start blogging! Remember that you have a variety of resources to pull from if you get stuck. Please reach out to the blog managing editor, if you have any questions at all.

We are excited to see what you guys can come up with!

Marketing Software. Easy, Powerful, Complete. Marketo, (NASDAQ MKTO) uniquely provides an easy-to-use, powerful and complete marketing software platform that propels fast-growing small companies and global enterprises alike. Marketo® marketing automation and sales effectiveness software streamlines marketing processes, delivers more campaigns, generates more win-ready leads, and improves sales performance. With proven technology, comprehensive services and expert guidance, Marketo helps thousands of companies around the world turn marketing from a cost center into a revenue driver.

Contact Marketo: +1.877.260.6586

sales@marketo.com

www.marketo.com blog.marketo.com