What 750+ Sales Coaching Blogs Taught Me as a Marketer

If people think “Sales Coaching” is a buzz word now, they definitely didn’t think so back in 2009 when we first started blogging about it. Since then, my EcSell Institute team members have written over 750 blogs all about the importance, impact and application that sales coaching has on organizational growth.
Blogs really have had an integral part of EcSell’s brand. When prospective leads, clients or our followers sit down to read an EcSell blog they can expect research-based claims, expert advice and tactical takeaways. Topics can include anything from sales leadership development, specific activities proven to grow sales, measuring coaching performance, to all things sales coaching related.
We’ve gained pure, organic SEO rankings during this time which has given us the ability to spread our message to thousands more, but this took time. The Principal Marketing Manager at HubSpot, Pamela Vaughan, said it best on the Louder Than Words podcast, “Success doesn’t happen overnight when it comes to blogs.” It took HubSpot years to drive 2 million monthly views to their blogsite.
Kind of like how it’s taken since 2009 for “Sales Coaching” to become the buzz word it is today. Unfortunately we do not have 2 million visitors to our blogs every month, (#Goals) but we still have thousands of views each month that have brought me key insights nevertheless.
Here are 6 insights I’ve gleaned from over 750 blogs:
1. Collaborations are key
- Being able to collect the insights from another expert in the field is incredibly valuable to share with your company’s audience. Differentiating your content with different viewpoints and tone is refreshing for your readership. And best of all, whoever you collaborate with will have a following slightly different than yours so don’t forget to ask the collaborator to hype up the blog just as much as you and your company will.
2. Promotion matters
- Do not just post a blog and then throw your hands up and think, DONE! This is only the beginning my friend. It takes strategy, dedication and constant promotional efforts to get a blog read and most importantly, shared. Find different ways to share the blog that’s different than just your social media platforms. For example, shoot a quick video about what’s in the blog and share it on your company’s YouTube channel and then provide a link back to the blog. Video is KING!
- For example, this blog was published in March of 2013.

- I had published it but it wasn’t promoted. In May of 2016 I gave it a facelift (see #4) and started promoting it not only on EcSell’s social media channels, but the entire team’s. We also did a Monday Management Minute video over the blog. (You can check out our YouTube channel here.)
3. Think through the Call-To-Action
- Give readers some context before trying to shove a CTA at them. Build trust and credibility and provide value first (jab, jab, jab), then right hook with the CTA (Gary V. reference of course). I like to have the CTA in mind prior to writing the blog and think through what I want the reader to do after he or she is done reading. Then I do what I call “alignment” — I make sure the title, the keywords, the body, the closing, CTA and URL are consistent.
4. Old blogs need a facelift

- Sometimes I read our blogs from 2009 and want to silently cry to myself. There’s no amount of Botox that could fix them. But then I remember we had to start somewhere, and I’m glad we at EcSell are always willing to just start. And yes, much of the formatting, CTA’s and the tone are not where we are today, but that’s okay! You can still go into old blogs and give them a much needed facelift without harming your SEO ranks. Some examples could be changing the graphic or photo. Reformatting the text or visuals. Adding an additional excerpt sharing what you’ve learned since then. Maybe include a more relevant CTA, subscription option or video. Enhance it, don’t completely revamp it.
- Whatever you do, DO NOT mess with the original URL, title or keywords. Some of our highest performing blogs were from 2009 and by messing with these things it could potentially drop our rankings and lose traction.
5. Let analytics drive your content
- There are certain times when you need to share new ideas and findings with your audience, and other times where you need to keep driving home an idea or topic that’s getting a lot of hits. If you see this — high monthly searches/visits, high CTA rates, increased share volumes, quality leads — keep pumping out content on that topic. Don’t change gears so fast. Throw fuel on the fire instead.
6. Don’t forget about visuals
- The brain processes visuals 60,000x faster than any text. Enough said.
This analysis hopefully didn’t feel like paralysis. And if it did, you’re not alone. Comment below and let’s get a conversation going on best practices or pains we’ve endured in the blogosphere. There’s clarity in groupthink and I’m happy to help facilitate this.
And fun fact, my colleagues over here at EcSell are moving to Medium! Yes our 750+ blogs will still be available on our website, but the good stuff and new findings will be shared here. So go ahead and follow us.

Can you tell I had my CTA in mind beforehand;)

