Building Leads Through Business Bloggi

No matter what type of business you own – online or brick and mortar – blogging helps expand your reach. As part of a content marketing strategy, business blogs offer a range of benefits, whether you want to focus on developing leads or create content that’s beneficial to your existing customers – there’s so much you can do with the blogs you post onto your business website.

It’s not enough to just put a website on the Internet and expect potential customers to immediately give you their business. With the amount of competition, you always need to be providing content that’s relevant and valuable if you want to develop trust and loyalty with future customers! Here are five reasons why a blog should absolutely be a part of your marketing strategy:

You’re always reaching customers

Unlike a business that closes up shop each day, your website is always ‘open’ for business. Isn’t that an awesome way to reach future customers at all hours of the day and night? Talk about getting more bang for your marketing buck! A business blog, once you create content, is there to be consumed for weeks and months down the line, reaching customers even when you’re not actively promoting a sale or service.

It shows you’re an active business

When a customer searches for a product or service and a business pops up, they’ll instantly see whether or not it’s updated, fresh and full of new content. Imagine you were shopping for a product and you landed upon a website that hadn’t posted any new blog content for months or years – would you think it was an engaging or active business? Probably not. When the website content looks stale, it makes it that much easier for customers to question whether or not you are up and running optimally. You don’t want that, do you? No way. A website with a current and updated blog shows you are still active and relevant.

You have a platform to educate

To elevate yourself above the competition, you want to look like the authority in your industry – the go-to when it comes to ‘knowing your stuff.’ Blogging allows you to consistently educate and develop trust as a valuable resource to your audience. Another thing blogs can do? It puts businesses on an even playing field. Whether you have a large budget or a modest one, the thing that matters most to the customer is whether they feel like you know what you’re talking about – blogs are a great tool for businesses of all size. Use the blog to answer common questions, educate about certain ingredients or processes used with your products, or even about the industry – your business blog allows you to really tap into the customer’s needs and wants.

You save money with advertising

One thing I hear most from potential clients is that blogging costs too much money, or it’s not in the budget. You know what’s costing you money? Not blogging!

Blogs are a cost-effective source of marketing and advertising, and one that compounds with value over time. Through consistent blogging and the use of SEO (when done from a place of value to the customer, not keyword stuffing!), you start to rise through the ranks of Google over time. When you let your blog go – or worse, you don’t have one – then Google has a harder time giving your website priority on the search engine.

Customers now typically go online first to research about a product, service or business – so don’t you want them to see your content at the top of the list? I’d like to think so.

Blogging builds leads

Every business needs to have a sales funnel – something that captures a customer’s attention and gives them a CTA, or call-to-action until they make a purchase. When you have consistent blog posts, the potential to highlight a CTA is so massive! When you get your audience onto a blog post, you can then ask for email addresses to stay in the loop or subscribe to ongoing content. Once you have that email address, you can move potential and current customers down the sales funnel as you start building a relationship, whether it’s through newsletters, promotional emails, or any other aspect of your email marketing campaign.

These are just some of the reasons why having a business blog makes sense. Need help? Send me an email so we can chat about your content marketing strategy!