More Than Just a Corporate Blog

There are many reasons why you shouldn't underestimate your corporate blog. It is a great marketing tool that helps you build your brand image, communicate with potential clients, and drive traffic. Most of all — it allows your team to grow as professionals. By writing about their experience (both positive and negative), they continue pushing their own boundaries and showcasing their skills.

The workflow in EmailSoldiers is transparent for every employee encouraging them to grow together with the company. The blog is one of the marketing tools and our folks understand why it's so important. That's why the editor doesn't have to ask twice for new material — everyone is eager to share a professional insight or a tricky case study, despite the workload on client projects.

We asked our authors who actively post on our blog to tell us their ideas about our corporate blog: why we need it, what makes them engage in writing, and what the driving force behind the articles is. They also told us where they post besides our blog.

Our blog is probably the main promotional tool for our company.

As time went by, we published more and more types of content: articles, case studies, newsletters, whitepapers, posts on social media. It allows us to secure ourselves a spot in the media space, making sure we find our audience. Advertising isn't our style — there's no use in spending so much money on gaining leads who don't really know why they're here. They just click on the ads, having no idea what we do. That's why we decided to promote our agency by creating a stir in the infosphere.

I'm among the people writing for our blog.

I'm mostly interested in sharing my experience and best practices:

• we did a thing that may be useful to you;
• we've tried something, but there's still room for improvement and new ideas;
• we use this tool — you should try it too, here are its pros and cons.

In fact, I write about the stuff I enjoy working on. If there's a cool tool, I want to recommend it to others, so I'll write about it. I like getting positive feedback on my articles, but my favourite part is the illustrations that we create together with our illustrator

In one of my articles, I talked about "revisions" in marketing — what you should recheck once every six months and what — every year. We immediately thought about elves sorting Christmas toys. That's how the illustration of elves making a revision appeared. It was so cute that I couldn't wait for the post to go live.

One more thing that motivates me to write for our blog is building my own brand. I think it's essential for career development: companies contact me, offering to join projects. That's why I know, that even if I'm out of work, I'll never be out of work (pun intended). I have a blog of my own, but lately, I haven't been active there. I'm more interested in posting on my Telegram channel where I share advice. I also have a Facebook page with a small audience.

Writing articles comes naturally to me: both from a rational and emotional point of view.

Creating articles is one of the ways to do it. Apart from the practical side, there is an emotional component to writing. You share a "sacred knowledge" and receive feedback — just like sending a meme to a group chat.

As for every article in particular, the triggers can be different. The idea of writing an article on the communications plan came to me after a failure. I asked myself, "Am I doing something wrong?". To answer the question, I had to analyze and systematize my experience in plan design. When all the systematizing was done, and I made sure I did nothing wrong, I realized that there was enough material to create an article. A thing you did for yourself can be useful for others as well.

I'm happy that here, at EmailSoldiers, writing articles isn't only a rewarding activity — it's a part of the corporate culture. I believe it enhances our reputation on the market. It also influences the atmosphere in the company motivating us to act decisively and giving a sense of an academic setting.

There are many things that inspire me to write for our blog:

• when I feel competent enough to share my expertise in this or that case (like with the article on lead capture — I was itchy to share it);
• when I try something new and exciting (even if it doesn't work the way I wanted);
• when I want to see how our readers react to different types of content in our company blog (I often track analytics);
• when I want to share my take on something;
• I'm okay with putting out content that doesn't always blow your mind (many people are afraid of it).

It's clear that our blog is the source of organic traffic, but there's more to it.

Our blog helps us stand out among other agencies and motivates us to work harder:

• we're not afraid to tell about the mistakes we might make along the way — it's a bold move that makes us seen;
• our content is high quality, enhancing the status of our agency and professionalism of our employees;
• we share our experience in things that others would prefer to keep secret and take money for;
• instead of publishing endless numbers of case studies showing how cool we are, we concentrate on helping people solve their problems.

I can't really define my sphere of expertise, as I see myself as a diverse employee. But it doesn't mean that I can do everything perfectly. I reflect on my experience in my articles.

Every time my article is published, I feel anxious — will readers dig it? I always track the analytics and responses to see if there's feedback. At the same time, I feel relieved, as preparing an article is a huge thing for me and I want to see the results.

As for me, the company blog is valuable in three ways:

For our company: it's an opportunity to showcase our skills and approach to work to our potential clients. This way we show them that they can trust us, encouraging them to collaborate with us.

For our team: it allows us to create our own knowledge base and gives the opportunity to exchange experience within the company. A couple of weeks ago one of the copywriters suggested an idea inspired by our case from three years ago. If it wasn't for the blog, she wouldn't know we did something like that.

For authors: it's a way to organize the pieces of knowledge in their head. Telling others about a topic, you may come across some new things you haven't noticed before and study it on a deeper level.

Our corporate blog is a means of promotion and shaping our brand. Even though for now it's a headache for the Marketing department, because it's difficult to figure out the actual efficiency of the blog, it's still important.

The corporate blog is great for teaching our staff. It saves us a lot of time, as our content is really cool.

I like to work on tasks that make you look for interconnections and causes. It's so rewarding to see the results of your work structured in an informative report with illustrative visualization. And I love including them in my articles on analytics and forecasts.

I've gotten used to seeing my articles in our corporate blog, though at first I was anxious — what if something was wrong? It's always a pleasure to get praise for a job well done. But it's even more pleasant to know that your articles are actually useful.

Our head marketer was completely right in saying that the corporate blog is our main promotion tool. It helps us build trust with our clients, inviting them to work with us on a long-term basis.

Now I have only a couple of articles of my own, but I read lots of other sources.

I'm on cloud nine every time I see the result of my hard work.

I don't post anywhere else apart from our blog, because I've got my hands full. Even if I start a blog of my own, it probably won't be something job-related.

I have three main reasons to write for our blog:
1. Even though everyone in our team works in their own field, we have one goal. The working process reminds me of a conveyor — a complex task is broken into several smaller ones. You perform your task, passing the result to the next person. You need to make sure that this result will be clear to them, so they can do their part of the project. You've got to tell your colleague, "It'd be great if you did your task this way, and I could get this result". It's even more effective to create a collection of the best practices, which can be shown to the newcomers. Maybe others will find them useful as well.

2. I'm an engineer.

Apart from that, our clients read our blog too, so they'll see that we keep up with the latest trends.

3. Sometimes there is a task so extraordinary that it requires performing a set of experiments. It's a research-worthy task. Such cases are usually unique and you probably won't have to do it again. But still, it's worth sharing, as this experience may be useful to someone. And, naturally, you need to vent your emotions, as it was a difficult, yet interesting task. I hope that the readers will see that I'm a professional who is determined to tackle any project.

When I was a second-grader, I got an A for my essay about autumn. That's when it hit me — no one would care about poems you hadn't learnt if you showed your creative side. Since I wasn't a big fan of learning poems by heart, I got a lot of opportunities to develop writing skills. This became my own vanity fair, as the adults were quite eager to praise me. So my contribution to our corporate blog doesn't come from a strong sense of responsibility towards society, or from the desire to develop our brand. I write because it's what I do and that's it.

To me, writing an article is a way to sort all my thoughts and pieces of knowledge on a subject in my head. While creating an article, everything about the subject seems to be so new and exciting, but I'm sure in half a year I'll look at my work from a different perspective. I write because I want to tell people about my experience and hopefully receive feedback from those who've faced the same problem.

Once the article is ready, I feel happy, as I've managed to turn my experience into a meaningful text. At the same time, I feel anxious. What if only I find the article useful, but in reality, it's just common knowledge? But then I ask myself a question "Marina, was it common knowledge to you half a year ago?". If the answer is no, I feel relieved.

As for me, a corporate blog can and should be a company's open diary, where we share our insights and debunk myths, tell about our successful decisions and failures, and sometimes just show our skills. Reading a corporate blog (of any company) allows you to grow as a professional, soaking in the experience of other people. Sometimes you come across things that shock you, making you head over to Facebook to start a heated discussion with real people, not with abstract CRM marketing agencies.

I think it's important that everyone can use our blog to speak their mind — this makes our content more diverse and relatable. Our corporate blog is not a mere knowledge base with a set of guides — it is a collection of insider information from real experts. And it's great to be a part of it.

Apart from that, I have a personal blog on Instagram, which is also a kind of an open diary. I'd love to do more on social media, but I need to get rid of the imposter syndrome and find some time first.

I don't feel like an expert yet. To me, writing an article means digging deep into a subject and breaking it down, gaining expertise through hard work, and writing thousands of emails. :) It's not as easy as sitting down and telling everything about a subject you're really good at.

In addition to that, I treat our company blog as something sacred. When I wasn't a part of EmailSoldiers and didn't have much knowledge about email marketing, the head of our content team sent me a link to our blog and suggested I read it to get the full picture. I was in awe of the catchy illustrations and reader-friendly texts that made you feel at ease (but embarrassed). Another thing that shocked me was the fact that the authors were mentioned in every article. It wasn't a common thing. So, I perused the blog, like it was some exotic thing.

I think that we need to blog for several reasons:

• so that we don't get puffed up — the blog motivates us to grow and be open about new skills/events/findings and slips (let's be real, no one is perfect);
• to support our image of good guys who are ready to share their experience and knowledge;
• to drive traffic.

When my first article on creative subject lines saw the light, I felt my heart racing. I was sure that most of the visits were mine :D

Sometimes I write on social media, but not about work stuff. I'm thinking of starting my own newsletter. But this will happen only when time-turners are sold everywhere.

I, personally, get an urge to write for our blog when:

• there's a case study worth sharing;
• there's a question or advice you've been repeating over and over again — sometimes you just copy your own words and send them to others.

An article is just one more way to express myself :D

Sometimes we don't really have to do our work to help people (who can be our potential clients or just web-surfers). We can give them the necessary information, and it's up to them how to use it. It would be weird to take money for it, especially when you think "easy-peasy".

Apart from that, repeating the same task isn't fun. Explaining everything to everyone for free also doesn't look very productive — after some time you'll lose interest/want to start charging for it/have to drop other tasks.

Outside of work, I practice separate waste collection. There was a time when I wrote for a local page about it.

We could talk about our corporate blog for hours. It's hard to calculate conversions of this marketing tool. For EmailSoldiers, the company blog indicates that our employees are real professionals who understand that:

1. The company blog helps demonstrate our expertise to our existing and potential clients.
2. Content produced by the company itself and posted on the corporate blog makes the company more trustworthy.
3. The feedback on the articles shows if our experience is interesting and relevant to the audience.
4. The articles drive traffic — the bigger the cold target audience, the bigger the chances there may be our potential clients among them are.
5. The authors get to structure their experience and knowledge and create valuable content and share their experience with other people working in that field.
6. By posting on the company blog, every professional gets to grow and build their own brand.
7. Telling about your experience, even if it's negative, teaches us that mistakes shouldn't discourage us.
8. The blog is a great place for sharing things that would be unreasonable to charge for — we tell about things that our clients can manage on their own.
9. The corporate blog helps us keep our skills sharp.
10. Every author gets their moment when their article is published. It's a great boost for their professional side.