Well, we already know that small businesses had to rethink their digital marketing strategy due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. So, where does that leave us in the new...
Businesses - big or small - can benefit in a variety of ways from having an active blog on their website.
We'll explain how adding a content marketing strategy to your marketing budget can help you boost SEO rankings, drive traffic to your site, generate leads via form submissions, qualify those leads, provide more relevant assets for sales to share with prospects, and ultimately - build trust, add value and grow your customer base.
How Blogging Drives Your Overall Content Marketing Strategy
CONTENT MARKETING AND BLOGGING QUICK HITS"
Check out these helpful statistics that outline the value of blogging and content marketing for your business (all stats are from this Demand Marketing infographic):
- 91% of B2B Marketers use content marketing
- 86% of B2C Marketers use content marketing
- On average, they spend over 25% of their budget on content marketing
- 80% find content marketing central to their work
- 62% of companies outsource their content marketing
- Per dollar, content marketing generates 3x as many leads as traditional marketing
- 82% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content
- 59% of B2B marketers consider blogging the best marketing channel
- Blogs create 434% more indexed pages for a brand and 97% more indexed links
- On average, businesses with a blog produce 67% more leads per month
Boost SEO Rankings WITH A BLOGGING STRATEGY
You can't step into content marketing without talking about SEO or search engine optimization. This topic is extremely important since most people use search engines and your content marketing strategy directly affects your rankings on that platform.
<<Download our Free SEO Guide for Small Businesses>>
When you create blog posts that follow a defined keyword strategy and are optimized for on-page and technical SEO elements, your links will climb to the top of the page over time. Relevant keywords and long-tailed keywords are chosen based on search traffic, difficulty, your target audience, your products and many other factors so you can rank better and drive more website traffic.
Studies have shown that companies with blogs will receive more links to their site, and increased website traffic directly correlates with increased revenue.
Grow Your Customer Base BY PROViDING RELEVANT CONTENT
The goal of a small business content marketing strategy is to attract people to your business. Blog posts are the easiest and most effective way to offer informative. engaging content can help potential customers become aware of your brand, consider your services and decide to partner with you rather than a competitor.
Today, everyone does some research online before buying anything. Having a blog that describes your industry expertise alongside the benefits of your products and services can encourage them to choose you over someone else.
Companies that produce regular blog posts get almost 70% more leads than companies that don't.
Build Trust
Small business blogging also allows you to build trust with your target audience. The content on your blogs will create a brand image and personality for your company, and readers will begin to understand what you value and how that relates to them.
As your sales team works to qualify and close opportunities, they benefit greatly by being able to follow up a prospect request or question with a specific blog on that subject. Guides, eBooks, infographics and blogs are all great ways to establish that you are specialists who have the answers.
By showing up consistently with solutions in their inbox or their search engine inquiries, you position yourself as an industry expert - proving to existing and potential customers that you're the industry leader they're looking for and the right choice for their business.
Provide Additional Value to Your Customers
Another aspect of your blogging strategy should include providing additional value for your customers. You want to continue cultivating your partnership and engaging with them even after they've purchased. This will improve the overall customer experience and help you develop brand loyalty as you launch new products and services.
For example, if your small business is in the food industry, consider a blog post that offers creative recipes that utilize your products. This free information adds value for your target audience, but it also gives them a reason to buy from your brand.
In other words, educating your customers before you sell to them is an essential part of small business marketing.
Is your blog driving traffic, leading to form completions and helping your sales team close business? Do you even have a blog yet?
Every content marketing strategy starts with a conversation. To build an effective blog for your brand, partner with the experts at STL Marketing Department who will develop a content marketing strategy tailored to your target audience and the execution to see results as soon as possible!
