Business blogging has become all the rage as a relatively cheap, but integral part of a robust marketing strategy. The financial investment is minimal, but blogging takes a serious time commitment.
For a while, it’s like you’re talking to an empty room. That’s why most blogs fail. But blogging can do more than send traffic to your site.
If you’re wondering if blogging is worth it, consider the following ways blogging could actually save you time and make you better at your job.
Educates and Qualifies Prospects
So how could carving out two hours (at least) each week to research, write, format, and publish possibly save you time?
No matter what you do, you probably find yourself answering the same customer questions over and over. Wouldn’t it be great to have a resource to send them to?
With a business blog, you can create infinite resources for your clients to educate themselves. That way, you reduce the amount of time it takes to educate and qualify prospects.
Promotes existing offers
Promotion of existing offers while answering a customer’s question is what HubSpot refers to as, “combining context with content.”
For example, let’s say I’m searching for a reliable way to come up with ideas for my blog. I’ll go to Google and search for “coming up with ideas for my blog.”
HubSpot pops up on the first page of Google with their blog post called How to Think Up a Year’s Worth of Blog Post Topics in an Hour.
This looks promising, so I click on the post. In the first paragraph, there’s a link to Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator. Why? Because HubSpot knows that if you’re asking this question (context), you’d probably find the topic generator (content) useful.
As a reader, I get the answer to my question and I get a tool to solve the problem associated with my question.
As a marketer, your blog post gets your content offer in front of customers who are most likely to want it.
That way, you don’t waste time searching for relevant prospects.
Increases Business Efficiency
Publishing valuable content on a regular basis takes serious thought.
Hopefully you already know all your clients’ pain points, common questions, and buying patterns. If you don’t, business blogging will force you to think about those things.
Even if you already know all this, verbalizing those common questions and pain points will help you in unexpected ways.
For example, when I created the framework for my blog I realized that all my clients fall into one of three categories. This helped me come up with topics specifically tailored to each one of those categories.
But it also led me to other ideas about my onboarding process.
I realized that the first thing I should do when talking to a new client is figure out which category they fit in.
Then I could send them a form specifically tailored to them, with questions related to their needs.
It makes me look more professional because I’ve anticipated many of their questions, and it makes the onboarding process much more efficient for both of us.
It’s so easy to get stuck in old patterns, but blogging gets you thinking about innovative solutions to common problems.
Shows Off Your Expertise
Business blogging is all about helping the client. It’s not supposed to be about your business.
But answering questions and solving problems is your business. A business blog gives you the opportunity to show the client what kind of professionalism and expertise they can expect from you.
That means you don’t have to spend as much time gaining their trust. You’ve already built it with your helpful blog posts.
Drives Traffic and Converts Prospects to Leads
At the highest level, business blogging drives traffic. By publishing and promoting your posts consistently you’ll drive traffic to your website.
Additionally, a good blog with valuable content and relevant content offers converts site visitors into leads. When it’s done right, a business blog gets visitors more engaged.
Consistent blogging is good for SEO because it creates new pages for your site.
These new pages present more opportunities for readers to engage with your business. Increased engagement results in better performance in search engines.
Better performance in search engines drives more traffic, and the cycle continues.
As these results compound on each other, you gain regular followers instead of chasing lead after lead without much return on your time.