The world around us is changing and at a pace that is nothing short of scary. The Darwinian principle is more applicable to the world of business than it has ever been. Everyone is scurrying to be different, to be ahead of the curve trying to figure out a way to attract new customers and keep the old ones coming back. Cheap tricks don’t work anymore, price is no longer an advantage, your competition will run the same discounts if not better when you run them. So what do you do? how do you survive? the answer is by adding value to your customer.
Marketing geniuses have said, “people don’t buy products, they buy value”. This theory is proven exponentially accurate in today’s times, customers prefer companies that can add value to them not just by the products they sell but by giving more than that, by sharing insights, knowledge, tips and tricks and making life a little more easier for them. Content marketing is the new sales tool used by every big company to add this value to it’s customers. And when it comes to content marketing the biggest weapon a business has is its blog. It feeds into your Social Media efforts and opens an amazing line of communication with your customers.
Below is a list of our top reasons why blogs are important for businesses:
Build Credibility: All big companies blog. If you’re content is insightful and well written it will boost your company’s image. Sharing information that is helpful to the customer will go a long way in developing goodwill.
Better SEO: Create links to your original site. If you use good keywords in your posts you double the chances of customers finding in organic search results. A regularly updated blog is held in high regards in Googles eyes and will boost your SEO big time!
Establish Authority: Blogs create a unique opportunity to share your expertise with people. This in turn allows you to establish authority and position yourself as a thought leader in your vertical.
More PR opportunities: What can be a better way of putting out content that let’s journos find you than your own blog. Your blog can be a place to create and share news worthy content with the world. This way, you’re letting them come find you.
Adds a communication channel: Mass communication channels are scarce, the good ones are paid and the free ones are not good. In this scenario creating your own channel is a wise decision in anybodys book. Good content will always make people come for more, this puts you at an advantage of sharing important things that you would’ve had to pay for otherwise. Additionally, you can also share important announcements via your blog making sure you reach your customer via every media possible.
Engage Customers: This is the sole purpose of any content marketing activity. It’s not easy but with a blog you do not have to limit yourself to a certain type of content only. You can touch up on multiple topics and choose the ones that engage your customers the most. Also, as we mentioned above, your blog can create a never ending supply of content to be funneled through your social media channels. So whenever you’re running out of ideas, share a snippet of an interesting blog article, could be an interesting data point or a thought provoking quote, either ways, you’ll have a lot to share.
There you have it, we hope we’ve managed to convince you to start. If you’ve already started make sure you continue adding articles regularly, your customers and the search engines will love you for it. Drop in a comment with your experience if you’ve dabbled with blogging in the past.
