Blogging as a Marketing Tactic

Blogging is, in many ways, overlooked as a viable marketing approach. However, while social media, display advertisements, affiliate marketing, and influencer marketing get the majority of the focus, blogs are what truly enable you to connect in a real, personal way with your audiences. Unfortunately, a lot more goes into blogging than some other forms of marketing. Businesses need to ensure that their content is consistent, high-quality, and well-researched, all of which require a dedicated team of specialists working for the cause.

It’s no surprise, then, that few businesses want to make the required investment. Take it from us, however, that it’s well-worth it. While undoubtedly difficult, blogging goes a long way towards building a more robust business that experiences prolonged, sustainable growth. This is because blogs:

Create a more personal atmosphere. Modern consumers are savvier than ever before—an unfortunate by-product of this is that they’re also increasingly distrustful of most marketing efforts. Blogging, for the most part, is immune to this—and is therefore a critically important tool to add to your toolbox—because it advertises your products or services in a less formal, indirect way. You can incorporate humour, anecdotes, and personal experiences that all spice up the delivery of your content, adding a new dimension to your marketing. This helps customers relate to your business, improving your retention efforts.

Establish you as an authority. Blogging is difficult. This is due not only to the technical prowess required—the writing itself—but also the content. Writing highly effective blog posts necessitates that the writer conducts careful research, synthesises the most pertinent information, and presents it in a logical, coherent way. It’s a lofty challenge, but successfully doing so can position your business as an authority on any covered topics, building a great deal of trust in the process.

Can be optimised to improve SERP positioning. By now, every business is aware of the value that meticulous search engine optimisation efforts can bring. By carefully adjusting content to incorporate keywords, location details, headers, and more, you can appropriately respond to a wide variety of queries and greatly improve the discoverability of your website—blogs, being text-rich, greatly facilitate this process. Writing blogs according to the most popular current search terms enable you to draw in more traffic without “keyword stuffing” your content, improving SERP positioning in a customer-friendly, authentic way.

Are an integral part of inbound marketing. Rather than chase your customers all across the globe with your marketing, have them come directly to you with a strategically planned inbound approach. Blogs are a lynchpin to this strategy, as they can subtly promote your products, incite interest and questions, and drive readers to reach out to your customer service representatives for more information.

Deliver long-term value. While we’re labelling this as a positive, blogs can, unfortunately, also work against you in this area. Many writers identify popular trends or topics in the contemporary news and draw inspiration from them to write blogs with high initial appeal. It’s a good way to get quick spikes in traffic, but it’s not sustainable. Without carefully balancing your ratio of trending to evergreen posts, you’ll be saturated with an abundance of content that has little lasting appeal. In order to ensure that you avoid this, focus on curating topics that will have value to readers for years to come—informative guides, case studies, and how-to posts are all great at this. While it’s true that technology is always changing and could render one or two posts obsolete over time, a healthy dose of variety will ensure that the vast majority of your posts will still be viable.

When looking at it from an outsider’s perspective, it’s understandable why businesses may be averse to adding blog posts to their repertoire—it’s certainly one of the most difficult marketing tactics to get right. However, the value that it can add to your business is truly astronomical. This article has listed a few of the biggest benefits that you can expect to experience, but it doesn’t end there. As you add more types of posts and styles to your portfolio, you’ll undoubtedly uncover a few more. If you’re interested in giving it a shot but don’t have the staff on hand to make it a reality, consider reaching out to an experienced team of content marketers. They’re sure to have the knowledge and know-how that you’re looking for to get the job done.