"It’s hard to imagine celebrating holidays without special food, decorating, gifts, and big gathering," begins an article by Money Management International. "But consider how you can enjoy the spirit of the season on a budget."

Several of the MMI tips for budgeting during the holidays relate to all that effort you put into your business blog posts. In offering business blogging assistance, I stress some of the same ideas that apply to holiday prep.

Don’t get left with leftovers.  Prepare only what you need.
The nice thing about blogs is that extra content that is too much for one blog post can be used in another.  Focus on one core idea in each post, holding those extra thoughts for another day (with blogging, "leftover" ideas can actually "hold" for another month, or even another year!) Each post should have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business.  The beauty of business blog writing, though, is that you can use the other thoughts for later posts.

Speaking of putting ideas on "hold", one great corporate blog writing sustainability tip is to keep a blog idea file, online or in a little notebook or folder. Articles you cut out of newspapers or magazines, notes on ideas gleaned from a seminar, from listening to the radio, reading a blog or a book, or "the rest of the story" carried over from a blog post that was getting overly long. Your folder of "ingredients" will make your job as a blog content writer a whole lot easier.

Stick to basics.  
Even though variety is a spice blog content writers must use, stick to a few basic "leitmotifs" or themes to form the backbone of your writing.  In writing for business, your themes are beliefs you hold about your industry that you think are important to convey to readers, or specific ways you successfully serve customers and clients.

Many business owners start out strong, but months or even weeks into trying to be blog content writers, their efforts fizzle, and they have trouble maintaining the discipline of frequent, regular posting (even if they recognize blogging’s importance to their marketing strategy and tactics development).

Since business blog writing is more like a marathon than a sprint, "budgeting" your efforts will help win the race!

In the financial industry, they talk about the power of OPM (other people’s money). As a professional ghost blogger offering business blogging assistance, I talk about staying up on trends through OPB (other people’s blogs).  Just the other day, I read a really interesting post from Steele Marketing Concepts called “Intent vs. Reach”. I thought the points made in that article were highly relevant for business blog writing.

“The goal with most advertising and promotion has always been the greater the reach of my message, the higher the odds it will connect with someone who is interested in buying my product,” the article starts out.  My translation: The more bread you cast on the proverbial waters,  the more likely you’ll see some ROI (return on invested effort).  Spot on, Steele Marketing; in discussing blog marketing strategy and tactics development with clients, I mention the power of frequency in business blog writing. In other words, when it comes to search engine optimization and getting indexed, more is better. 

Steele Marketing makes the point that social media have the greatest reach and the highest level of buyer intent.  Therefore, “not using online marketing tools tied to your website and other media means you are missing out on those buyers with the greatest intent to buy.”

This is the essential point that drives my work in providing blog writing services as well as corporate blogging training. Potentially, your reach through business blog writing is enormous – the entire blogosphere is the oyster for business owners! But even more important, I explain to new business owner clients, the people most likely to find their way to your blog are those already interested in what you do, what you know about, and what you sell – in other words, those with at least the potential intent to buy! In fact, as a freelance SEO copywriter, I write for, and to, already delineated target readers, the ones who have needs my client’s business is in a position to satisfy.

“I believe the implications are clear,” concludes Steele. “…if you are not already doing some level of email marketing, social media, and website optimization, is to get started.” As a ghost blogger offering corporate blog training, all I have to say is “Amen!”