In short, the answer is an unequivocal yes!
Blogging is often misunderstood and a misused tool in your marketing arsenal that can be a highly effective tactic that is capable of influencing potential customers and turning them into real ones!
Personally I hate the term blogging – for me it conjures up an image of a technical geek who sits in a dark room stalking groups and forums on the internet spouting off their views and opinions……..so let’s quickly put this image aside and call it what I think it should be called – website news content!
Whatever you call it; business blogging, inbound marketing, content strategy or microblogging – the whole purpose of blogging is to create and share content that builds your brand, engages with your audience, delivers website or social media enquiries and engagements which ultimately result in increased sales.
Make it relevant
As long as your content is relevant, adding regular news content to your website can also have a positive impact on the trust rating of your website. Engaging content will help you be seen as an authority on the subject and this can help to increase the chances of your website appearing on page one of an organic search.
Though not usually achieved in isolation, quality content could mean not having to spend as much time or money managing expensive sales campaigns such as pay per click.
Execution
When executed correctly blogging, is a concept that can be easily applied across both your on and off line marketing strategy. In an age that is so heavily dominated by Google and other social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin, it’s important to consider how your content can be used on use these platforms to reach millions of people, and drive more traffic to your website.
In order to make full use of your blogging potential, are our top tips to blogging are as follows:
- Understand your target audience – By understanding the needs of your readership you can carefully tailor your content to solve their problems. By establishing personas your business wants to attract, blogging can be used to educate, inform and entertain audiences in a way that will effectively lead them to trust and most importantly, like your brand.
- Take your content seriously! – This doesn’t mean the content has to be serious, but the production process certainly should be! All too often we see content writing left to the part time PA or handed to an already stressed and busy employee. This can save money on a copywriter, but at what cost is the delay and the impact of this person not doing their day job!
Developing clear and concise content is an art that cannot simply be delegated. It requires thought and a schedule to generate ideas and accumulate articles that appeal to the personas you have identified. Even if you only publish one good quality article a week, that is far better than writing three or four willy nilly articles that fail to target your reader’s needs.
- What are your audience asking you? – Once you know their problems, fears and where they lack expertise, you then have the themes on which to write your articles. Their questions should always be your greatest inspiration in terms of content generation. Using these topics will enable to let your audience understand your business and how you can help them.
- Think outside the box – All industries have different news, and by tapping into their developments and happenings you can then use some of these ideas to curate content that relates back to your business.
- Set your expectations – Like most good things in life, they don’t just happen overnight, and the same can be said about blogging. Overall it might take you between 12 and 24 months to build the authority required to attract the attention you are looking for. Each post you publish will gradually increase your traffic and authority, so it really is a worthy investment of your time if you want to achieve your desired business growth.
- Forget what you’ve been taught – Think about what you personally like when you read a blog article. Invariably, it will be articles that involve short sentences that are also a quick skimmable read. Apply this to your own writing by using three or four sentences max in a paragraph, and throw in a one word sentence every now and then for dramatic effect. Also use sub headings when appropriate and don’t be afraid to use bullet points to condense your information when applicable.
On its own blogging can’t be considered as your entire digital marketing strategy, what it should do in fact is be part of a fully integrated marketing strategy.
Integrated marketing
We have always championed the notion that the most successful marketing strategies incorporate a balance of on-line as well as the perhaps more traditional off-line marketing tools such as PR, direct mail and good old personal selling.
A regular flow of quality content can serve many purposes:
- It can be added to your website and represent website that is regularly updated
- It can be shared on your all your social media platforms to reach new audiences
- It can be used within your e-news to educate existing subscribers
- It can be used to add credibility to personalised sales approaches both in person or by email
- It can be edited into a press release to raise your profile in both on and off line publications
We hope these tips give you a better insight as to how blogging can be beneficial for your company.
If we can help you improve the effectiveness of your marketing strategy, please do not hesitate to get in touch.