I would like to revisit a previous discussion about TOFU. No not the food that we all love to hate, but rather top of funnel tactics and content and how marketers leverage them to drive awareness and engagement among your target audience. Of course one of the hardest parts about embarking on TOFU activities is creating that content that is compelling to your prospective reader but not self serving. As I’m sure you know by now, TOFU content usually tends to NOT be about your company or your company’s products or services. This content has to be about something of interest to your audience. So what is a marketer to do to attract subscribers to your content when your expertise lies in your intimate knowledge about your products?

A tactic that many B2B marketers have used to tackle this very issue is to first establish thought leadership in an area of interest to your audience. Once your audience begins to view you as an authority in the space, they are more likely to engage with you further through the process of “subscribing”. This is the thought process behind most B2B blogging. Find a subject of interest to the audience, research the topic extensively, create informative content paired with insightful commentary and then post these on a blog that your audience will read and then eventually subscribe to. Kind of like this blog you are reading now.

The nice thing abot blogs is that users are trained by past experiences to know that eventually, you will want to communicate to them about a product or service you provide. Once you have established the relationship, they are fine with that and actually welcome it. The other nice thing about blogs is that they increase your rank on search engines organically, provide easy connections back to your other online properties, and they are trackable.

But don’t just take my word for it. Blogging also falls into Step 1 of the HBR blog post entitled How to Become a Thought Leader in Six Steps (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/how_to_become_a_thought_leader.html):

1. Create a Robust Online Presence.Not everyone can immediately jump to international prominence (CNN probably won’t book you as a talking head if you’ve never been on local TV). But everyone can start here, with an online beachhead. Blogs are particularly good because they showcase your knowledge — and search engines prize the frequent stream of fresh content. Most blogs are unloved and unread — but yours can be different with a little time and elbow grease. Good content is key, of course, but so is making friends (online and off) with other bloggers to create a virtuous, networked circle.

New to blogging and still unclear as to how it can benefit a B2B marketer? Download the attached eBook on B2B Blogging from HubSpot here: An Introduction To Business Blogging – HubSpot.