Business and marketing have undergone a sea change after the advent of the internet. The conventional techniques of attracting customers may still be working, but the results from blogging can be far-reaching, effective and faster.
Benefits of blogging for business and marketing
People who are new to this concept may want to know firsthand, ‘what is business blogging?’ For them, it can be sufficient to mention here that it is a marketing channel like email marketing, direct mail or social media, etc. that can help in leveraging the growth of a business.
Attracting customers to any business is tough these days as the cut-throat competition in all sectors is getting increasingly fierce. So, whether it’s a personal or business brand, blogging can help a lot and provide the needed mileage for any brand. The visibility of the brand can improve significantly, and that can support and enhance the business growth.
We look here at some of the significant benefits that can accrue from business blogging.
Significant benefits of business blogging and barketing
Educating the prospects
Starting a business blog is different from starting a personal blog. A business blog is primarily a publishing platform that can help in speaking directly to the prospective customer and educating him all about the business and its offerings.
Educating is far more powerful than conventional marketing content as it aims to understand their condition and find out what type of queries that they may have. Hence, it is a more relevant and trustworthy approach to building a customer base.
Benefits of search engine
These days, search engines attach more importance and preference to websites that have crisp, original and fresh content.
Many types of research have also proved this point beyond doubt and have thrown up results to suggest that websites that have blogs are able to get 55% more visitors than websites which do not feature blogs.
Far evolved skill set
Business blogging is a very useful, valuable and marketing skill that can fetch far-reaching results. A blog can help in providing helpful insight into the thought and the communication process of a brand. A lot of blogging related content can help in realizing all of this.
A useful alternative to the FAQ
A lot of websites have a separate Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section. Even for websites that do not have this section, a business blog can be an ideal option so that commonly asked questions can be answered with an in-depth approach and through videos, diagrams or pictures.
Additionally, the FAQ section can also be developed through it. For websites that have an FAQ section, the blog can be added as a link so that more information can be accessed by customers whenever needed.
Type of virtual sales call
Writing a blog will ensure that you will have to master the subject and creating original content can help in gaining more confidence regarding a product or service.
Customers who are far away can also understand the brand, and that can help in getting connected with them. Hence, it can serve as a virtual sales call.
Any topic can be addressed in depth
Customers or prospects may be more interested in certain aspects of a product or service. If a topic needs clarity, that may not be possible to address in this section.
Whereas, a blog can put more focus on keyword topics and longtail any keyword with the needed importance. This can be thoroughly addressed in depth with all the valuable resources and information.
Develop and create new products
Reason to start a blog is essential for any business, as a volume of blog content can be encouraging for many customers to get engaged and solve many problems.
It can act as a type of a mini personal R&D lab wherein the business can engage with the customer and crowdsource fresh ideas for new products or services from the existing offerings.
Provide adequate public relations
Blog posts have a potential to reach maximum people with the least effort. Unlike status updates or press releases, blogs are far more powerful due to attractive features like cross-posting publishing platforms and different types of aggregation services. Therefore, it can act as a superb medium of public relation tool.
A very long search life
Long after a blog post is published, it can still leverage traffic for a considerable time. It is because of the search engines index each published page of a blog post. Effectively, what it means is that a business has far more opportunity to be found with a blog compared to one that does not have a blog.
Helps to attract organic traffic for a site
Attracting organic traffic is one area that blogs can particularly help in. New visitors who may not have an inkling of the business may be attracted to a business site due to a business or marketing blog. This may happen because of the content that is there in a blog. Sooner than later, these new visitors may become customers and add value to the business.
Apart from the benefits mentioned above of blogging for business and marketing, there are also some other secondary benefits of blogs. For example, before investing resources or time in any new big campaign, a blog can be helpful to test out the efficacy or responsiveness of a product for the intended customer. It can also help in understanding the persona of the brand in a better way. Moreover, things like event information or product releases can be made more meaningful and reach out to a large audience.
There cannot be a better time to start a blog than today because it is a type of channel that can have a tremendous impact in a very short time as customers can directly get most information regarding a product or service. There may be a few readers at first, but gradually, once the word of mouth and search engines start taking notice, it can develop within no time and traffic can be boosted tremendously through it.
This article is a blog submission.