No need to be subtle here. While there are other intended audiences for a blog (staff, media, other bloggers) and all of those are important, the audience that corporate bloggers are usually trying to connect with is current and prospective customers, because they believe that’s the best audience to affect the bottom line. That’s not really true 
but we’ll cover that on some day that isn’t my first day. Right now, you have a problem: nobody reads your corporate blog. Here’s several tips to increase your blog’s readership that you haven’t thought if.
1. Communicate more (and more briefly) on your business website.
Most of have a website and then have a blog about the website. The blog works great as a easy publishing tool, allows you to communicate without the normal hassle of updating a website. Your ecommerce website has been carefully designed to attract visitors and convert them into paying customers. Some things are too important to leave to only the blog (a demo of the new upcoming website, or heaven forbid, a fraud alert) so you occasionally have to add a new informational page to your business website. Instead, get in the habit of running those communication pieces through your blog. Using a demo of the new website as an example. You would confine the necessary updating to your site to one line of text on the homepage or in your header
“New Design for WholesaleWidgets.com coming soon. (Hurray!) Check out the blog for more details”
The blog is perfect for these kind of communications, but is often left out of the loop, because blogging isn’t part of your IT staff’s core responsibilities but updating the ecommerce web site is. Change that now. It’s a dumb mindset that probably no one is truly attached to. If you want the blog to be important enough to be a part of your customers’ habits. You must feed the blog with information that makes it important to your customers.
2. Tell Your Mailing List About Your Blog
This is really important and most don’t do it. See, I’m a simple guy and I have simple thoughts. I say to myself that if I want someone to read my blog posts and learn more about the company, the best candidate to do that is someone who is already reading and appreciating my communication. Hmmmm, where do I already have customers that do that? On your mailing list of course.
If you haven’t done it yet, give over a choice chunk of your next newsletter to informing them that the blog exists. If you have interesting material on the blog that would still be of interest to your customers, highlight that in this article. Going forward, make sure that the blog is promoted in every newsletter, this promotion can just be a line (“Details about our new green laser pointers. Check out the blog!”)
3. Give your readers incentives to visit your blog.
I’m not kidding, pay people to be there. Give them blog-only coupon codes with shipping discounts or a free item. If you’ re in a B2B niche like the wholesale industry, promote your customers in blog firendly ways–create a post about a customer, and the first five commenters win a fun sample item from that customer. My favorite way to incentivize the blog reader is with recognition. If your readers are end users, when they win a contest, try to get a picture or a statement from them. If your readers have their own business, let them win a link to their company from your blog.
4. Get your customers involved in the blog.
Blog posts aren’t really supposed to be articles. The end goal is to establish a conversation with your users.
Send an email to customers that comment on your blog, to establish a relationship. This will bring more comments. Ask the most frequent commenters to create a guest post on your blog. Run a fundraising drive for a local charity through your blog, and warmly recognize all your customers who contribute. Blogging is a common enough activity, that you should be able to find customers with blogs of their own, add them to your blogroll.
Honestly, the hardest part of a blog is the beginning when no one is reading it. But, stick it out, find ways to ask your customers to read it, and you will profit from it. The longterm payoffs, especially in terms of customer loyalty are well worth it.
Other Great Blog Posts on This Subject:
Six Essential Questions for the Business Blogger
Old Media and New Media Working Together
Thanks for the link Joe! I agree about the “hardest part is the beginning.” New bloggers often feel a little awkward “talking to themselves” or the ether, but you never know who is out there catching your words of wisdom and benefitting from them.