Blux "Content Managers Can Build Blogs and Generate Leads Without Coding"

Blux is at the forefront of developing AI marketing solutions aimed at boosting corporate sales. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Ko Shin-yong, the Content Director at Blux, to delve into the company's innovative approach. Blux offers cutting-edge products like AI-powered personalized product recommendations and hyper-personalized CRM marketing. Renowned clients such as Daiso, AboutPet, and DailyShot are leveraging Blux's solutions to maximize their marketing effectiveness and drive sales growth.

Could you please introduce yourself?

"Hello, I'm Ko Shin-yong, overseeing all content and PR initiatives at Blux. I began my career as a journalist and have dedicated over 15 years to writing. Throughout my journey, I've amassed extensive experience in various fields, including editing, content marketing, and consulting. I was deeply impressed by Blux's commitment to utilizing content as a pivotal marketing strategy and their culture of respecting the content team. This alignment with my own values led me to join the company in June of this year."

It's impressive that Blux places significant respect on its content team. How did this influence you?

As many content professionals would agree, despite our best efforts, the results of our work aren't always immediately visible, which often leads to our contributions being overlooked. In some organizations, content teams are even sidelined from critical projects.

However, Blux's management genuinely believes in the branding power of content. They prioritize sharing Blux's unique narratives and customer success stories with the broader audience. This approach resonated deeply with my personal vision. With the goal of 'growing the company through content—the area where I excel most,' I was inspired to become part of the Blux team.

We heard there's some exciting news at Blux recently. Could you share more about it?

"Our CRM marketing service was launched in the first half of this year. Even though it's a recent addition, we're already engaged in Proof of Concept (PoC) projects with numerous companies and are in discussions with several well-known large corporations.

We believe this swift traction is due to the high satisfaction and outstanding results our existing product—the Personalized Product Recommendation Service—has delivered to our clients. This success has naturally elevated expectations for our CRM marketing service as well."

What channels are you currently using to acquire corporate customer leads?

I oversee content marketing, while our B2B sales team primarily focuses on lead generation. The team attracts corporate clients through outbound cold emails and LinkedIn cold messages, and collects leads by utilizing Google search ads and LinkedIn ads. Additionally, given the high unit price of our products, networking through business card exchanges at offline marketing events has proven to be an effective method.

I am also working to acquire leads through our Blux Magazine. Although I've only been with the company for about three months and haven't yet quantitatively measured lead acquisition through content, I believe that persuading through content via the 'dark funnel' is effective. We plan to design a content-driven funnel to consistently acquire leads.

Note: The 'dark funnel' refers to parts of the buyer's journey that are not easily tracked by traditional analytics, often influenced by content marketing, word-of-mouth, and other indirect channels.

What challenges did you face before adopting inblog?

Before I joined Blux, the decision to use inblog had already been made, so I'm not fully aware of the specific circumstances. However, I was told that after reviewing various tools, the team chose inblog.

Initially, we considered Sanity, a Headless Content Management System (CMS) that offers a high degree of design freedom. However, it required significant development effort and a lot of resources for maintenance, so we abandoned the build midway. Next, during the process of building the Blux homepage with Framer, we tried to use Framer CMS, but since it's not a professional CMS tool, it didn't meet our needs.

Ultimately, due to these unsatisfactory experiences, we sought a simpler and more straightforward CMS, leading us to choose inblog.

I was aware of inblog but hadn't used it myself. After joining Blux and using inblog for the first time, I found it very convenient and user-friendly. SEO tasks could be easily integrated by following the guides, and since it didn't require extensive development resources, it was extremely useful for me, as I have to handle all content aspects alone.

Headless CMS: A content management system where the backend (content repository) is separated from the frontend (presentation layer), allowing content to be delivered via APIs to any device or platform.

Were there any drawbacks when you first started using inblog?

I appreciated that inblog was designed to make SEO tasks easy. However, I found it slightly disappointing that the function guides were somewhat limited and that the menus didn't support Korean. Since I was unfamiliar with the service and everything—including menus and help resources—was provided in English, it was challenging to quickly grasp all the features.

Fortunately, as I became more accustomed to it, I found it increasingly easy to use. I really liked that SEO-related tasks such as heading tags, meta tags, and URL slugs were separated and easily understood at a glance, allowing for immediate application.

In fact, while using inblog, I considered other CMS platforms like WordPress and Ghost due to some functional limitations. However, the more I evaluated them, the more inblog's strengths stood out compared to its weaknesses, making it difficult to switch to another platform.

Especially in startups, where development resources are often scarce, being able to build a blog and create content without any coding knowledge was a significant advantage. If I had to set up a blog for startup content marketing without choosing inblog, I think I would choose inblog again. (Laughs)

Many companies use platforms like Naver Blog, Tistory, and Brunch as their owned media blogs because it's easy to manage content marketing with a small team. However, as internalizing blogs through domain connection becomes more important and the significance of Google SEO is expected to grow, I believe inblog's influence will increase as well. For startups aiming to grow rapidly without missing out on branding through content marketing, I think inblog is the best service.

What is your favorite feature in inblog?

As a content manager, I'm most satisfied with the environment where I can focus solely on content without worrying about SEO. It's a major attraction that even people unfamiliar with SEO can create high-quality SEO blogs by simply following inblog's process.

Personally, I hope that features providing SEO scores, like 'Yoast' or 'Rank Math,' will be added in the future. Additionally, if there were quantitative metrics that could be shared with team members, content managers would be even more motivated to work harder. (Laughs) It would be fantastic if functionalities were added that allow content managers to confidently showcase their achievements.

What business results have you achieved through inblog?

Since I joined the company, our blog traffic has increased by more than three times compared to before. By continuing to publish diverse, high-quality SEO content using strategic keywords, we anticipate even more remarkable results in the future.

Lastly, do you have any advice for potential customers considering adopting inblog?

For startups or companies embarking on content marketing with a small team, inblog is the best choice! It's easy to use without any need for development knowledge or collaboration with developers.

Moreover, for content managers who aren't yet familiar with SEO, inblog is the optimal solution. By simply following the SEO processes within inblog, you can create high-quality SEO blogs without the need for an SEO expert. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to start content marketing effectively!