As we’ve written many times, blog posts are one of the most useful marketing assets you can have.
There are several benefits to starting a blog for your business, including:
- Raising the online profile of your company
- Demonstrating the expertise and capabilities within the company
- Supporting your other marketing activities (such as social media and SEO) as part of a larger strategy
- Presenting you and your company as a thought leader in your field
But, with so many other marketing activities to choose from (especially if you have limited resources) how do you know if it’s the right time for your business to start a blog?
Your business should have a blog if…
Your target audience frequently Googles questions about your industry
A blog can help you show up in search results for relevant audiences when they are at an earlier stage of their buyer journey and may be searching for answers to relevant questions rather than specific products or services you provide.
You can write blog posts addressing the questions they frequently ask you or research what they’re Googling with tools like Soovle and AnswerThePublic.
Your USP isn’t price
Blogs are a great way to educate your audience about your business values and the benefits of your products over a competitors – especially if you don’t want to place an emphasis on price.
As mentioned above, blogs can help you reach users earlier in their digital buyer journey while they’re still forming opinions about brands and researching all their options. Without blogs, your brand risks only showing up later in the journey when users are ready to buy and making cost-based decisions.
You often have long calls with customers
If you often have long calls with customers, chances are you have a lot to say and nowhere else to say it… In our experience, these calls tend to include stories about your business history, information about your vision and values, answers to questions being asked by the customer, and educational sessions to help your customers solve problems.
A blog can help you be more efficient with your time (and provide greater value to your customers) by providing you with an online location to put all the information you want to tell people and find yourself repeating a lot.
You struggle to find things to put on social media
Blogs are a LIFESAVER when it comes to social media as there are so many ways you can repurpose your content for these platforms.
Repurposing blog content in this way can be very effective and can require little effort. By using the information you have gathered during your research, and the blog you have written, you can create a range of social media posts. There are lots of simple and effective ways you can repurpose blog content on social media:
- Rewrite sections of your blog for social media posts
- Copy content directly from your blog into a social media post
- Pose a question you discuss in your blog, add a link for further information
- Create a poll relating to your blog content
- Share a link to your blog in the comments on relevant posts
You have high engagement on social media
While the last point assumes that you may be struggling on social media, it may also be worth considering starting a blog if you’re doing well on social media…
While social media is great for raising brand awareness and driving affinity for your company, your followers are often only given the incentive to click through to your website to view products and services.
Again, you should consider at what stage of the buyer journey you want to target your audience – only users who are ready to buy are likely to click on these types of links, however users at all stages of the buyer journey will find links to informative and inspirational blog posts interesting.
Think you should have a blog for your business? Here are 7 simple steps to start your blog.
Don’t have the time or confidence to write blogs within your business? Reach out to our team! By getting to the core of your business we can produce blog posts your audience will love – leaving you to focus on running the company.
