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Blogging 101: Cadence, ROI, & Lead Nurturing

Kayla Mejer |5 min Read

Blogging 101: Cadence, ROI, & Lead Nurturing

The art of blogging began in the late 1990s and has grown into a powerhouse resource for gaining a positive ROI, increasing brand awareness, and boosting search engine optimization (SEO). In fact, B2B companies with well-established blogs typically receive 67% more leads than companies who don’t prioritize blogging.

But blogging can be tricky and often doesn’t yield immediate results. Honestly, blogging is only effective when it’s executed with a strategic plan in place. That’s why we’ve put together this article highlighting the breadth of all that blogs can do to enhance your marketing initiatives. From increasing brand credibility to leveraging blogs in lead generation and nurturing campaigns, we’re covering it all in Blogging 101. Class is officially in session.

How Often Should You Be Blogging?

The best marketing strategies state that you should blog 2-4 times per week. That's a lot, we get it. For lean teams with limited resources, we would recommend blogging at a minimum of 1 time per week. This will provide the highest results when it comes to increasing organic traffic. Not to mention, this will ensure your site remains active and also provide you with multiple blogs to leverage in your lead nurturing campaigns.

While it’s important to keep a steady stream of blogs publishing on your website, it’s also important to ensure your blogs are educational, relevant to your audience, and interesting. At the end of the day, B2B buyers value quality over quantity. What you really want to strive for is having a high quantity of high-quality content on your blog. To do so, we recommend developing a forward-looking content creation plan for all of your marketing content. This way, you’ll be better prepared to not only write your blogs, but also coordinate your lead nurturing campaigns in tandem. 

Keep in mind that the amount of blogs you publish per week or per month will differ from other organizations, including your competitors. This is because the size and capabilities of your marketing team may limit your ability to produce quality content on a consistent basis. If you feel as though your marketing team could use some extra support when it comes to content creation, it’s likely time to consider hiring an outsourced marketing team.

What is the ROI of Blogging?

You’ve probably heard the saying, “slow and steady wins the race,” right? Well, the saying rings true for blogging. We know that blogs — no matter how riveting or informative — take time to accumulate an ROI. But that doesn’t suggest that blogging is a waste of time. It’s actually quite the opposite! 

HubSpot reports that marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to earn a positive ROI. As a matter of fact, studies show that B2B businesses that blog more than 11 times per month garner 3 times more organic traffic than those who only blog once a month. So now the question is, how can we determine the ROI of blogging? Luckily, there’s a formula to help us figure it out.

How to Determine Your Blogging ROI

When calculating the ROI of your blogs, we recommend choosing a set time frame such as any given month. Luckily, the formula to determine ROI is simple.

First, you’ll want to find your blog revenue (how many leads become customers after reading something on the blog at some point in their purchase journey) for the month. To do this, it’s best to use software like HubSpot to find the exact revenue amount. 

Next, you’ll want to add up the total cost of how much money you invest in blogging. This could include employee wages, the cost of software, and any additional expense. 

Finally, you’ll use the formula below to calculate the total ROI of your blogging efforts for the month.

Blog revenue – investment / investment 

So let’s say your total revenue influenced by the blog is $10,000 for the month. And upon calculation, you came to realize that your total monthly expenses (investment) is approximately $1,200. Here is what your formula will look like:

$10,000 (blog revenue) – $1,200 (investment) / $1,200 (investment) X 100 = 733% 

Voila! You have your blogging ROI of 733%. In general, a good ROI for any marketing initiative has a 5:1 ratio. This means that for every dollar you spend, you receive $5 in return. 

So, how can you increase the ROI of your blogs? 

Start by focusing on optimizing your blogs for SEO and creating more educational content on a consistent basis to increase your ROI. A great way to increase traffic to your blogs is to leverage them in lead nurturing campaigns. Let’s take a look at how to effectively use blogs to nurture leads.

How Can You Leverage Blogs in Lead Nurturing Campaigns?

Showcasing blogs in lead nurturing campaigns is a great way to increase the traffic to your blogs and it also helps position your brand as an expert on a given topic. For instance, say a new lead comes into your CRM because they downloaded a guide on how to accelerate CI/CD pipelines. Using software like HubSpot, the lead can automatically be put into a lead nurturing campaign that focuses on how your product improves CI/CD pipelines. 

In this campaign, you share helpful emails that tee up blogs on CI/CD optimization and enhancement which are sure to peak this new lead’s interest. Plus, these resources illustrate your brand’s expertise on the subject matter at hand, increasing your brand credibility.

Here’s the best part. 

The more a lead interacts with your marketing efforts and brand in general, the more lead scoring points they’ll receive. Thus, this lead has an increased chance of becoming a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and be more likely to make a purchase. Therefore, leveraging blogs in lead nurturing campaigns boosts the effectiveness of your campaigns and increases the likelihood of leads converting into customers. Sounds like a win-win situation to us!

Final Thoughts