Blogging isn’t just something else you should be doing for your business. It’s something that you absolutely need to be doing for your business.
Today’s consumers require you to have an online presence and chances are high that your competition already has one. You could be losing customers to your competitors simply because you aren’t blogging already.
There are quite a few different benefits that blogging offers to your business, especially in terms of digital marketing campaigns. We’re going to break down 9 different ways having a blog will help your business grow and become more valuable.
1. To Stay Competitive.
Right now, there are probably quite a few other businesses that provide the exact same services and products that you provide. However, every business is different, so you need some way to emphasize your difference and show it to your potential customers.
Blogging gives you a way to show your customers and prospects how your business is different from your competition, display your unique personality and create a great customer experience.
Having a blog will also help you introduce yourself to your target market and give you a way to compete against larger, global companies.
2. Build Your Brand Awareness.
Building up your brand awareness and develop your messaging, while also showing your expertise is nice. However, that doesn’t necessarily give you a tangible result that’s convincing enough to get started.
If you’re the type of business owner that needs tangible evidence, Propel Marketing has released a study that shows exactly how a business can benefit from blogging. Here’s what they’ve found:
- Blogging helps warm visitors up to your business, making them more likely to buy.
- Businesses that actively blog bring in more leads than those businesses that do not have a blog.
- Blogging can be a highly effective addition to your advertising campaigns.
Also Read: Who are the millennials and how should businesses market to them?
3. Communicate with Your Customers.
A high-quality business website is typically built to interact with your existing customers in a one-way fashion. With a blog, though, you’re able to create new opportunities to have a two-way conversation with your audience.
This is going to help you establish a relationship with your visitors and pave the way for you to turn them into lifelong customers.
With your business blog, you can create content in a more personal and casual manner and have a conversation with your visitors in your comment section. It’s easy to exchange ideas and help your readers know that they’re being heard by your business.
4. Gain Customer Insights.
When it comes to marketing, the more information you’re able to gather about your target market, the easier (and cheaper) your marketing campaigns will be. You can install Analytics software that will let you dial into your blog’s demographics.
You can also get feedback from your readers through the comment section on your blog and in the comments section of the posts that you share on social media. By looking at the level of engagement on different posts that you publish, you can figure out which types of content your readers want to see.
Customers can also use your blog to leave reviews on your business which gives you additional feedback and helps show future customers what working with your business will look like. You’ll be informed of any potential problems so you can fix them right away.
5. Tap into Search Engine Traffic.
Major search engine algorithms love new content and blogging is the perfect way to give them what they want. SEO is a long-term process that involves quite a few different activities.
While blogging may not necessarily get you first page rankings overnight, it will help you enhance your ability to drive organic search engine traffic to your website on a regular basis.
When you’re creating content, make sure that you are writing for your readers first and that you’re including relevant keywords into the blog posts second. This will help ensure the search engines give you the favor you’re looking for.
Also Read: 5 Inexpensive Digital Marketing Channels for Small Businesses.
6. Display Your Expertise.
Not only will creating new content help you display your expertise to your visitors, but it’s also going to keep you at the forefront of your industry.
A blog lets you develop your knowledge and your communication skills, which are both essential to becoming successful. You’ll be able to earn your visitor’s trust and gain a chance to convert them into a long-term, loyal customer.
Not only will this benefit your business now, but should you ever decide to sell it, you’ll be able to reap a much higher price.
7. Increase Your Social Media Reach.
If you’re struggling to gain traction on social media platforms, it may be because you’re not blogging. Your visitors aren’t likely to share your barebones website across social media unless your posts are incredibly creative.
When you’re blogging, you are creating new opportunities for your content to be shared across social media platforms, while also giving yourself the ability to repurpose that same piece of content for different mediums.
8. Grow Your Email List.
Email marketing is an amazing way to stay in touch with your customers, but having a barebones website can make it hard to collect an email address from your visitors.
Your blog will help you grow your email list by creating new ways for you to incentivize your visitors into giving you their email address and allowing you to maintain communication with them.
If your visitors read your blog posts and those posts resonate with them, they’re more likely to trust you and trust the emails that you send to their inbox. This will let you keep your latest promotions, newsletters, and content in front of them.
Also Read: Email Marketing for Small Businesses – 7 Best Practices.
9. Generate Leads.
The ultimate goal for every business is to generate new leads so those leads can be converted into new customers. A blog makes this incredibly easy to do by giving your business access to multiple different traffic sources that a barebones website may not have access to.
Even though blogging may seem difficult at first, there are quite a few different reasons and benefits you should devote the time and effort into learning how to do it properly.
Once you establish a regular blogging routine, it will become easier and your business will grow as a result of your efforts.
Conclusion.
As you can see, blogging for your business has many benefits. I urge you all to start a small business blog to drive traffic, start connecting with customers in your industry and building your online business presence.
Starting a small business blog isn’t hard at all. You can leverage some free and readily available blogging platforms such as WordPress, Medium, Tumblr & Blogger to lunch your small business blog today.
On a final note, it is important that you create high-quality content on a consistent basis for your business audience.