Blogging is one of the best marketing tactics that you can employ. It's no longer a 'nice to have' for companies that really want to grow and get the edge in competitive markets. It provides many benefits, from lead generation to building brand awareness, so if you don't currently have a blog, it's time you consider it.
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B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month. [Source: HubSpot] |
In this article, I will go through the key reasons why you need to make blogging a priority for your company. Providing helpful compelling content to your audience can have a huge impact, and here's why...
Blogging is the No.1 way of organically attracting qualified traffic to your website. When you publish and promote a blog with relevant and educational content that interests your intended audience, you will attract visitors and drive traffic to your site.
The chart below from HubSpot shows the average correlation between traffic and the number of monthly blog posts. You can see that the more blogs you post, the more traffic your website will attract. This in itself should be enough to convince you to get started!
Whenever you create a blog post, you add a new page to your website. With each new page indexed by search engines comes a new chance for you to show up in search engine results. Writing regular blogs has the added benefit of showing Google and other search engines that your website is current and active.
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On average, companies that blog receive 434% more indexed pages [Source: HubSpot] |
When you start driving traffic to your website with your new blogging strategy, you need to make sure they are optimised for lead generation. To do this, you need to include a call to action for an offer (some free valuable content in return for some of the visitor's basic information) which sends the visitor to a specially designed landing page that captures this information and allows them to download the offer.
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B2B marketers that use blog posts get 67% more leads than those who don't [Source: HubSpot] |
When a visitor provides their details in return for an offer, you know that they are interested in your product or services, which makes them qualified leads. By converting these visitors into leads, you are increasing the likelihood of them becoming customers if you nurture them properly and have a solid sales process in place.
The chart below from HubSpot shows the average correlation between the no of leads generated and the number of monthly blog posts. So as you can see, business blogging is a powerful lead-generation tactic.
Did you know that blogging is not just for attracting visitors? It's also a great tactic for closing more sales. Blogs are a great asset for your sales teams, and they should be using them during the sales process to answer questions your prospects may have. Great content relevant to your prospect's needs will help them solve problems and build trust between you and a potential customer.
Your sales teams need to collaborate with your marketing team to ensure that the content being created will be useful during the sales process too.
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47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. [Source: HubSpot] |
By using social media to promote your blog posts, you are extending your reach and giving your company new ways to be found by people who may not know you exist. Put a content calendar, including a posting schedule, in place to ensure it's an efficient and effective process. Make sure you check your buyer personas to see what social media channels you need to be posting on for maximum results.
(Check out our recent blog post on the importance of defining your target audience How to build a solid foundation for marketing success)
Having a blog gives companies a great opportunity to show their expertise and helps them build authority in their industry. If you regularly blog about topics that help answer your visitors, leads and existing customers' questions, you can build a reputation, trust and authority as an industry expert.
Don't forget that existing customers that are continuously educated will be happy ones and will go on to become brand evangelists and may recommend you to other businesses.
Blogging is a great way to build brand awareness. By regularly promoting your blogs on social media and other relevant sites like Medium you will be able to build awareness of your brand and the value you can bring to potential customers.
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Increasing brand awareness is the top organizational goal for 74% of B2C companies using content marketing strategies. [Source: Content Marketing Institute] |
If you want more information on how to increase your brand awareness, check out 7 Powerful Ways of Using Content Marketing to Increase Brand Awareness.
Blogging allows you to connect with your website visitors. This can be accomplished by asking your readers questions at the end of your posts to get the conversation going or by allowing comments and feedback. By reviewing and responding to your reader's comments, you can create a relationship with your audience and build trust. By doing this, you will also gain valuable insights into what your customers are looking for and how you can help them solve their problems.
By including Share options on your blog post, you create an opportunity for your audience to share the blog with their own network. If your blog post is high quality and relevant to their needs, they will share. So be sure to include social sharing buttons on each blog post to make it easy for readers to share the posts.
You may know that inbound link building is very important for SEO. Another great side effect is helping increase your authority. If you are creating blog posts with great content, then other websites will share your posts and create links taking their visitors back to your website. In fact ...
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Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website. [Source: B2C] |
Your blog is the core of your content marketing strategy. With some effort and cost, you can achieve BIG results. So to recap, the key benefits of blogging are
From a practical standpoint, blogging is just something that you must do. There are too many reasons to ignore it as a marketing strategy.
Check out 10 Steps to Writing an Optimized Blog Post where we go through how to structure, optimize and create the perfect blog post.
Originally Published: Mar 27, 2017. Updated 2023.