How to Use a Blog to Market Your Business
Did you start using a blog to market your business only to abandon it because you weren’t getting the results you wanted? You’re not alone. Businesses across a variety of industries create a blog because it seems like everyone else is doing it. But then they lose interest, or don’t prioritize putting the needed time into it, and it becomes a black hole on their website. Having an outdated blog is often worse than having no blog at all – visitors may even wonder if your business is still operating if you used to blog and then suddenly stopped. A blog can help you build the foundation for an effective digital marketing strategy, but it is critical to figure out how to blog effectively for your business.
Blog Benefits for your Business
Is blogging good for your business? Even without knowing what your business is, the answer is most likely “yes.” Using a blog to market your business offers many advantages to your company, including that it:
- Improves your search engine optimization (SEO) and drives traffic to your website
- Supplies content you can repurpose for social media, webpages, and other channels
- Increases opportunities for leads
- Establishes your company as a thought leader
- Produces long-term results and builds lasting relationships
Tips for Using a Blog to Market your Business
Blogs are great marketing tools, but to be successful, you must carefully consider your approach in how to use blogs for marketing. Here are key things to remember.
- Set your goals. Other than selling more of your products and services, what do you want your blog to do? Are you using your blog to market your business through increasing brand awareness? Highlighting expertise, events, or lesser-known products? Landing new customers and clients? Before your blog can be successful, you must know your purpose, because every decision you make stems from it. Having one just because you think you need it is not a powerful purpose, and your readers will notice.
- Determine your target audience. Identifying your target audience is almost as important as setting your goals. How can you know what to say, or where, when, and how to say it if you don’t know who you are speaking to?
- Offer informative and helpful content. What does your audience need, and what value can you add in exchange for their time? Even though your ultimate goal for using a blog to market your business is to make a sale, it’s important your blog isn’t one long sales pitch. Readers will lose interest quickly if they feel like they are watching a commercial.
- Incorporate calls to action. While your blog should be mostly informative and not “salesy,” you still want to be direct about the action you want them to take after reading it. If one of your products will help them fix the problem you address in the piece, link to it. If you want them to tap into more of your expertise, ask them to schedule a consultation. If you want to continue building a relationship with them, ask them to subscribe to your newsletter or email list.
- Share on social media. Your blog and social media platforms go together like peanut butter and jelly. Use your social media to direct people to your blog and repurpose blog content for social media.
- Cultivate your email list. Using a blog to market your business can help you build your email list, and growing your email list will increase your blog following. Employing both can help turn first-time guests into repeat visitors and help form long-term connections.
- Commit to it. Consumers won’t have a lot of confidence in a company that can’t demonstrate consistency or follow through. Creating an editorial calendar and automating your posting can help ease your burden. It takes time for your blog effort to manifest into ROI, so don’t get discouraged and don’t give up.
Using a blog to market your business takes time, effort, and patience, but is a relatively straightforward, easy, and inexpensive way to add to your marketing strategy. And now that we have educated you on using a blog to market your business, it’s time for our sales pitch. Paradigm’s digital media strategy consulting services are carefully designed to help our clients succeed by supporting their marketing strategy development and ensuring every tactic meets their goals of raising brand awareness, reinforcing the message strategy, and achieving a direct ROI. If your business could benefit from those same services, contact us today.
About the Author
Kaitlyn Wilcoxson, Account Group Supervisor, is a data-driven, problem-solving marketing guru who, as one of the firm’s longest employees, has worked with almost every client Paradigm has ever partnered with, and has been instrumental in their success. Kaitlyn ensures Paradigm’s clients and internal teams are positioned for growth. She manages resources, develops team members, monitors the quality of deliverables, and manages process and procedure planning. She was awarded the Gold Level Stevie® Award for Customer Service and Sales Manager of the Year in the 17th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.
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