Top 8 Reasons Why Your Brand Should Have A Blog

Why You Should Invest In Brand-Owned Content

Hollywood Branded has been blogging for a long time now—over 10 years now. And we're not the only ones! Brands all over the world are blogging, everyone from Coca-cola to Duolingo to even the smallest of companies. The content they write is specifically written to provide value and education to those reading it. Really, blogging is just brand-owned content.

But why blog? Well, blogging has so many benefits that lead to long-term results.  In this blog, Hollywood Branded shares how blogging for your business can increase website traffic, generate sales, and cement your brand as an expert in the field. 

What Happens When You Blog Consistently

I am delighted to congratulate one of our former Hollywood Branded team members and writers, Alexa Mancilla, who has had her first media mention as a marketing professional thanks to a blog she wrote for Hollywood Branded, which had a quote picked up by a media outlet in Vietnam! Congratulations, Alexa, on becoming an internationally recognized thought leader! Add that to your resume, and share it on LinkedIn! The content she wrote will continue to build and reach new audiences with her name attached as Google and AI technology continue to expand our presence across the world. 

This is an excellent example of what we endeavor to teach our team. Writing benefits both the individual and agency. It's why one of the job requirements of working at Hollywood Branded is that team members write blogs about pop culture and brand partnerships. Through this marketing tactic, we develop our team into becoming recognized thought leaders. Even as interns straight from college. 

Your Company Can Do The Same Thing 

I can promise agency and brand owners and execs everywhere, unless you have a built-in team focused on writing, when you propose this, you will not be met with welcoming smiles of joy and happiness. Over the years, I have heard mutters of every complaint under the sun that I require writing as part of being employed. Some people don't always love it, and there can be big sighs and grumps when due dates are approaching. Of which I have little tolerance for, as I write weekly, if not more, and know that this marketing strategy is what feeds our agency and keeps team members employed.

That's not to say that complaints come from everyone. Most of our team find pride in writing, and once they start hearing compliments coming their direction on sales calls, or see their name in an article, the light in their eyes switches on, and they get it. The trick is getting your team to recognize that their writing benefits them and the company - equally.

Why This Blog And My Newsletter

It's been fascinating to have an audience of readers who follow my writing. When I go to conferences or even on zoom calls, I often am greeted by "I love your newsletter," "Wow, your team writes such great content," or "I caught that podcast episode the other day when you were talking about...".

Now for that podcast - I've recorded several hundred interviews. I remember everyone I interviewed, but it can take me a moment to dial into whichever podcast episode they are referencing. So if you see me staring blankly back at you for a moment while my brain is frantically trying to dial it all in - and I smile brightly at you, you'll know what's going on. Names and my brain are not friends.

Our team blogs on a routine basis - a minimum of three to five new blogs are produced each week, with older articles updated and scattered in if they are evergreen. The blog, and our agency podcast, are our inbound marketing system. It allows us to create massive amounts of content relevant to our potential brand partners while also being of high value to the Hollywood industry.

We have readers across every major talent and management agency, studio, streamer, and network who read our content to learn how others approach brand partnership deals. Companies ranging from Fortune 500 to emerging entrepreneurs are guided by the insights on pop culture that our team writes and explains.

Our blog is read, and the podcast is listened to in every major country. Our data insights from our readership and listeners show where American pop culture truly is widespread and drives awareness. Those stats mirror our international client base of brand and agency partners we work with - and who typically initially learn of our agency through Google searches, landing on our articles over and over again.

That's how most of our clients find us. It's not from our outreach and knocking on their door. Typically, a client will be searching for product placement, celebrity endorsements, or influencer marketing and will read enough articles we've written or press where I have been quoted to establish our agency as a leading vendor to explore working with. Or the only partner to consider.

When I first started blogging in 2012, it was to do something with my long-winded answers to brand marketers trying to understand how our little niche of advertising worked. After spending an hour or two writing a detailed response and explaining the intricacies someone needed to know to decide, it seemed a shame to say goodbye to all that work.

Our blog was born after I attended a two-day conference led by Robb High, who suggested all agencies write to build trust. I had long-winded emails I could tweak, ready for that very purpose. Those "how to do" blogs then led to articles called "how to avoid marketing mistakes," and the ultimate name for the podcast was born. Marketing Mistakes (+ How To Avoid Them) which you can check out at this link or on iTunes and most other places you can find podcasts.

The blog, podcast, and all our press have provided fantastic growth opportunities for our agency. We went from always selling our agency benefits and who we are on every single phone call to being able to spend the time qualifying the caller instead actually. We rarely have to go over more than a gloss of who we are and what we do for brands - as they already know when they pick up the phone and call us. It's an absolute game-changer.

I'm A Last Minute Writer

I'm a massive procrastinator, typically writing the day before it will be published, often feeling the midnight pressure of an approaching 6 am Monday publishing deadline. Somehow, over these last ten years, I always get it done. But there are moments of panic that still occur.

I'd love to cross the newsletter off my list earlier in the week, and I do on a rare blue moon. The reality, though, is that my weekdays are so chock-full of meetings from dawn to dusk, with international calls starting early and running late, that it's hard to have a moment of silence to hear my thoughts and be able to speculate and come to life.

I experience many last moments of hoping I won't have writer's block, as my cup always runs over as an agency owner with extreme time deficits. There is just no time.

But I still find time to write and podcast.

Because those two massive undertakings have changed our entire agency business.

Our team, by now, knows not to complain too loudly about their requirement to write - because brand partners who join our agency after reading about us online are a primary source of the projects they get paid to work on.

The Power Of Content

Creating content that you own and control and which leads back to you - is the most cost-efficient form of advertising over the long haul, except for Product Placement that airs on screen globally across the decade to come.

Ads produced that run for a short window doesn't have a long shelf life. Blogs because of everything I am sharing here. Product Placement? Because come on folks, you know I'm going to preach from the rafters about this as one of the best marketing practices to activate if you know me or read this newsletter.

That is why I'm such an advocate of businesses of every type creating content. Words. Videos. Images. Whatever. Content is what gets your brand to stick in people's minds. It makes them remember you and remember you when they are ready to take action. Not just at the moment you have hit them up with an ad.

When I write my newsletter, I usually have a specific person or client in mind that I'm writing to. The topic is always inspired by some conversation I had, an article I read, or content I watched.

It allows me to focus better and tell the story of the solution I am trying to explain.

When I get that dialed in, everything else flows - and gets read by whoever is up for a dip into pop culture when this hits your inbox, later in the week when shuffling through old emails, or saved for a day when there may be a relevant need.

So why DO we blog? Keep on reading to learn more...

Reason To Blog #1: SEO

The magic words: SEO. There are very few keywords relevant to the agency that we write about where we don't pop up on the first page of Google. But we are always looking for more! Blogging has allowed us to be found easily on Google when people search for either short or long-tail keywords.

When you write a blog, you want to develop short and long-tail keywords that will drive the average Googler to your information. If the words typed in by the research hit the exact words - Google's algorithm SHOULD serve you up front and center. Or at least not a few hundred (or thousand) pages buried down into similar content. That's why the type of content and quality of content you write - and the overall optimization also matter. With those, it's easier to get first-page positioning.

Our videos and infographics also end up ranking on Google's first pages based on what metatag data we reference them as.  These pieces of content, including our blogs lead people to us.  Those people could be prospective brand partners, production partners, media outlets, future employee hires... it opens doors, and it creates relationships while establishing Hollywood Branded as an authority.  And the team that works under the agency as a thought leader. 

Reason To Blog #2: Understanding Clients 

Blogging has also enabled our team to understand our brand marketer clients' struggles better. It is overwhelming to produce content and manage that production. There is a need to develop rinse-and-repeat systems for your sales and marketing teams that work. I'm not saying that most agencies don't understand marketing and sales in real-life practices from the brand side (okay, yes, I am saying that).

It's true, though. Most agencies, as service professionals, need help understanding the building of a 'thing' to sell. And a blog, affiliate marketing extensions, and product merch lines that then get added - allows our agency to have better insights and real-world first-hand experience. It's not just that we are producing work for a client; it is also for our agency and growth. So we want to get it right as it directly impacts the agency's day-to-day, and the team can see and feel that.

Reason To Blog #3: Establish Expertise 

The goal is to bring value and insights, produce well-written content, and do so on a steady, ongoing basis that sets up a routine where people expect to tune in to read your content. It doesn't matter if your readers don't read every single one of your blogs. They will read enough of your writing - and see that it is not a one-hit-wonder to establish you (and your team/company) as a leading expert in whatever it is you do. After all, to explain something - you do need to know how it works. And if you can define some things relevant in a similar niche, say pop culture marketing as an example, then that expertise status deepens and expands.

Many people are alarmed that we are giving away all of our industry insights. I'm okay with it. Except for our core competitors, it's very different telling someone how to do something. And then having them go out, develop the systems and processes (and in our case, the MASSIVE relationships) to do it. Plus, I have over 26 years of knowing what NOT to do from some pretty intense learning experiences. So we know how to do the things we do inside and out. Rinse and repeat. Brands, not so much. So it takes the 'scary' out of sharing away.

A brand can use the information we provide and do it independently. And when they are ready to up the ante and do something bigger and more outside their comfort zone - our proven process of getting it done, and having taught them to start, will hopefully still be in their memory when they look online for help.

Then there is the question of our competitors. What if they know our trade secrets of how we work?!?!? Oh, come now. There are no trade secrets at stake. They do things in a different process than we do; we do things in another way. But at the end of the day, we are getting similar results - the brand placed into the content, the celebrity endorsement deal locked in, or the influencer content being produced. Our industries are so built on relationships and knowledge - that my sharing knowledge that ups someone else's ability to do things better ultimately benefits Hollywood Branded.

We create a more uniform way of doing business, and our agency is held as a thought leader to their employees. Those same employees may one day come to work for Hollywood Branded, as this is a tiny industry of expertise. It's just knowledge. It's how you put it into practice that matters. I wish our competitors did produce more content. I'd love the opportunity to learn from them as well. Only one does go to any level of attempting content production, and it's the biggest in the bunch. We consistently go against them in new biz pitches and media interviews. Our thought leadership allows us to shine bright and be seen. Not so bad for a self-funded independent agency that doesn't have a tech billionaire as its owner as that behemoth of an agency does.

Reason to Blog #4: Future Clients Get Reminded About Us 

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten an email out of the blue from someone who said, "I was just in a meeting where we talked about (product placement, celebrity, influencer, whatever...) and your blog that I get each week reminded me that I should reach out to you.

Or someone thanks my team for not being perpetual stalkers and says we give them enough information through our blog and email newsletters to keep us top of mind for when the conversation becomes more relevant. It's a lot better than having a sales team doing endless follow-up calls and helps makes those deals that you thought might be dead come back alive down the line. And we are here for the long haul - whether we have a conversation with someone this month and start a program or the program creates a year later. Or three.

52x a year of a welcoming email with valuable info in an inbox sure beats out a "are you ready to talk yet" email. Even if this newsletter is placed in a file, if they search their inbox for those short or long-tail keywords, Hollywood Branded will pop up.

Reason To Blog #5:  Media Attention

I have over 26 years now of experience in this field. More than any of our competitors, I'm often reached out to by media outlets to weigh in on different branded entertainment and celebrity stories. Why me versus other agencies who do what we do? Because I do press and I write. I've made myself a brand in its own right. My name pops up attached to significant media outlets - the largest in the world. I'm searchable from TV interviews with international outlets and across the digital landscape.

I made that happen with my focus on education and sharing insights. I built my brand by providing value and insight. The fact that my brand and my agency's brand are intertwined allows me to monetize that media exposure to an even higher degree.

Any company in any brand category can do the same thing.

Reason To Blog #6 Sales

We need an extremely active outbound sales strategy. Through the years, I've learned that endless cold calls are just that. Endless. And could have been more productive. Our team hates them. I'm the first to jump on any AI sales opportunity solution - and if you know of an awesome one, let me know. If you look at where our business comes from - it is from inbound marketing.

It is what's proven to make our phones ring and our inboxes fill up with requests for more information.

All of our blogs have Call to Actions embedded in them - with offers to download content or watch the video, all exchanged by payment of the name and email address of the reader. That's our spiderweb, but we're a very friendly spider. We don't stalk, and we wait for those interested to come to us with questions. We, of course, continue to share content based on the articles they have read and the content they have downloaded, as we believe this will help solve their questions and own research. Our inbound marketing program is built entirely on education. We provide solutions instead of cold sales interruptions. I'm not saying we don't cold email and dial for dollars - it's just that it doesn't work either. Not even close.

And that's why we use Hubspot now as our sales and marketing software. It's CRM that is built to help us keep track of and communicate with those individuals who have shown interest in our influencer and entertainment marketing programs. And we get a lot of other insight into what people are interested in without having to be daily experts at software programs like SEMRush or Google Analytics (although we have a team who uses those too).

Photo Credit: Hubspot.com

Reason To Blog #7: Team Development - Learn. Do. Teach

It is an absolute job requirement that everyone at the agency writes. No writing, no job.

To some, that may sound harsh. I've certainly been faced with many agency owners in various groups I belong to - shocked that this would make our team (okay, me) value an employee more or less than another. It's how we get clients. And it's part of the core value of what I have built this agency on: Learn. Do. Teach.

The blog allows individuals to learn. They have to do research and develop a point of view. The youngest team members develop their professional voices and learn how to transition from a college essay to writing in a way that engages and is interesting to read. Even our more established team members, when they first come to the agency, have a moment of learning as most have not spent their careers giving knowledge to others. Usually, they've spent it scrambling to get the work done.

The blog allows individuals the opportunity to teach what they have learned. If new, they take this newfound knowledge they have and craft it into an understandable message that others will learn from. If they have years of experience - our team becomes teachers, providing insights into best practices and how things work - with thoughtful points of view provided based on decades of experience.

And with luck, the blog reaches the right potential client partners, and we open the door to our agency being able to do more work, creating pop culture projects and partnerships.

Besides that - learning how to write a blog, knowing how to create an intro, a few supporting reasons of support, and a wrap-up conclusion leading to a call to action from the reader teaches our team to write better strategies and provide better POVs for clients to learn from as well.

Reason To Blog #8: Content To Repurpose

While writing blogs to create content was not the original purpose of why we wrote... it's become the backbone of our entire content marketing strategy. Our How-To blogs are repurposed as the inspiration for our agency infographics, e-books, and even my podcast. We take snippets from them and use them for our social media - and of course, we use all of our social media platforms to drive awareness back to our blogs.

We've taken some of this content and turned it into email marketing campaigns and Slideshare decks. And all of our blogs are shared through our e-newsletter every week.

Our Learn.HollywoodBranded.com Marketing School takes our How-To's and repositions them as classes based on the specific subject matter that we make money from selling in curated courses.

The content for my first book was more easily accomplished because of the massive amounts of content I had already written, which I could pull from to build out chapter upon chapter.

Everything we produce at the agency in terms of e-books, videos, infographics, and research studies, we have blogs written to support that content. It is a never-ending content cycle that builds and gets more defined (and helpful!) with each new piece created.

Our Blog Goal

Our content marketing has one goal: To teach, solve problems and provide information that no one else does. And we do it in great abundance. We provide the knowledge to support how marketing budgets are spent. Our agency guarantee is established and stands true - that by working with us, they will save more and get more out of the campaign (that they would never learn to ask for) with us than without us.

Blogging is just brand-owned content. And while every brand, whether targeting consumers or businesses, should have an active voice, what matters is that the brand has any say.

If your brand is still getting ready to start blogging and creating content, think about ways you can leverage 3rd party voices. Consider influencers and other content creators. Find ways to build brilliant product placement programs where your brand becomes interwoven into their social posts, TV shows, music lyrics, or feature films. 

It's Time To Get Blogging!

Eager to learn more? Check out these Hollywood Branded blogs below to learn how to leverage your brand's blog and content to gain sales, build a following, and become a thought leader in your space. 

• How To Get Your Team To Blog
• How To #22: 6 Steps To Make Blogger Partnerships Work For Brands
• How Blogging Helps B2B Brands Get Sales And Customers
• HB Round-Up: Content Marketing 101
• Top 8 Ways To Leverage Branded Content Marketing

Looking for more in-depth insights into creating content for your brand? Make sure to check out our Marketer Content Playbook! In the playbook, you will gain a deeper understanding of how other companies are content marketing successfully.