“business blogging is a low-cost way to create opportunities to get your website found by the people that you want to find it”
A blog will change your business.
We’ve lost count of how many times we’ve heard “I used to blog, but I got too busy” or “I don’t have anything to write about.” Even today, in our content-driven online world, we come across businesses who think of their blog as a discretionary spend, something to dip in and out of, or that they’d love to do but simply don’t have the time or money.
The truth is; you need a blog, and you need to blog regularly.
What’s the Function of a Company Blog?
Blogging is a surefire way to get your business out in front of people looking for your products or services on the internet. For a business peddling its wares online, a company blog is your ever-changing window display – the means for you to tempt window-shoppers inside.
“A blog is a simple, easy-to-use platform for connecting with and sharing timely and relevant information with customers”
Day in, day out, we produce meticulously-written, rich and engaging short-form content for our clients’ business blogs, fun and purposeful articles with a clear strategy – to tell their brand story and earn their business more publicity.
And we see the results.
Not only is your blog a powerful tool to connect, captivate and converse with your customers, it has a real impact on your bottom-line, too.
The Business Case for Having a Company Blog
“60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers”
In this article, we’ll make our case for why you need a company blog. We think it’s a pretty strong case too, but we’ll let you be the judge of that. By the end, we hope, you’ll be energised to stop making excuses and start writing. After all, blogging can be fun, not to mention educating, fulfilling and extremely profitable in the long run.
Still with us? Great. Let’s get into it.
Make Your Voice Heard
“A blog is your pulpit, your publication, your journal”
Your company blog is your soapbox, a platform for you to speak up loudly in your unique voice to your audience. It’s your chance to let your individual personality shine, make real and lasting connections with customers and define your brand story, in your own words.
“When writing your story, don’t let someone else hold the pen”
It’s the way you say it.
The tone of voice that you use in your blog is also very important. This is your means of humanising your business and making connections with people. The way your blog is written should therefore reflect your unique personality as an expression of who’s behind the brand, their values, what drives them and what they want to share with the world.
Your voice is what sets you apart – so it should be unique and authentic, synonymous with your brand and instantly recognisable as such. There is a strong link between familiarity and trust, and if you communicate to your customers in a familiar, approachable voice, you’ll be well on your way to being a brand they can trust online.
Your company blog is your chance to communicate with existing and would-be customers about new products and services and share news, events, changes to your business offering and market trends. The important thing to remember, though, is that it is a two-way conversation. Your blog isn’t the online version of Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. Rather than an opportunity to preach from a pulpit, it’s your chance to converse in an open, honest way that isn’t overtly salesey. Tailor your blog to what your readers want, not what you think looks and sounds great.
“Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.”
Your voice should be laced with authority. Consistently creating regular, high-quality and well-researched blog content that is helpful to your target customer allows you to build a reputation as an authority and a thought leader in your field. A blog, in this way, is not just another part in a sales funnel, but a stand-alone journal that offers insights, information and ideas in its own right. Once you have shown customers that you have expertise and know what you’re talking about, you’ll start to build influence and edge ahead of your competitors.
“How else will you position yourself as a subject area expert and thought leader?”
Your company blog gives you have the power to influence. Make sure you use the right words.
“People don’t always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you made them feel.”
Increase Traffic & Reach
Your company blog plays a leading role in your marketing – in fact, it’s the beating heart of your content marketing strategy. It’s a key stage in your sales funnel and is integral to expanding the reach of your website. It drives traffic to your site and helps to convert that traffic into leads.
Do you really need more convincing than that? Oh well, ok then. Seeing as you asked so nicely…
Related Article: ‘The Value of Social Media – A Business Owner’s Guide’
How Does a Company Blog Drive Traffic?
Every new blog post is one more reason to visit your site.
Each is another way to catch a prospective customer’s eye, one more webpage for your target audience to discover. That’s one more indexed page, and one more opportunity to show up in key search engines and expand your organic search influence.
Your company blog is one of the best ways to help visitors find your website. Regular blog posting alerts Google that your website is active, so higher quality, new content will perform well for SEO when it’s published.
Blogging can also feed into your social media marketing efforts. Fresh blog content gives you something to post about and link to, after all! It can be repurposed and reused as social media posts, and your Facebook and Twitter feeds can act as content repositories. Blogging and social media enjoy a symbiotic relationship, as well – blogging improves the quality and relevance of your social media content, while social media helps drive new visitors to your site via your blog. It works both ways.
How Does It Turn That Traffic Into Leads?
It’s quite simple – with a call-to-action. A strategically placed call-to-action at the end of each of your blog posts can be enough to take visitors through to your website landing pages, where they’ll be able to browse your products and services. It may also prompt visitors to join your community by sharing their email address.
Call-to-actions can also include the option to download lead-generating materials like ebooks, white papers or encourage readers to take part in free webinars or trials. These are all content assets that someone may be willing to exchange for their email information. A call-to-action is the hook that captures a blog reader and holds them in the sales funnel.
Learn & Have Fun
If none of the above reasons are enough to persuade you to start your company blog, then why not just do it for fun?!
Blogging can be fun, and an enjoyable way to learn new things about your business. Some say that the best way to learn about something is to teach it, and researching and writing new articles around your industry on a regular basis is no different.
You’ll not only keep up to date on the latest developments, but you might learn a thing or two along the way, too. For example, for the past year, our content manager Abe has been writing a weekly coffee column for our blog, with articles based around improving the office coffee experience. He was a coffee fanatic before, but I think he would agree that the experience has furthered his knowledge of coffee considerably!
Having written hundreds of blog posts, and sustained regular company blogs over long periods of time, we can vouch for the fact that it can be inspiring, creative and yes…fun. Once you start planning and writing blog posts on a regular basis, you’ll start to see ideas all around you and be surprised by the quantity and variation of blog posts you’re able to produce.
Who knows – in time you might find yourself looking forward to writing your blog every week?!
Who Are You?
“[A] blog allows you to create a foundation upon which all your work and your brand is anchored.”
Who are you? What is your voice? What is your key message? Do you have a clear idea of who you are and where you are going as a business?
The answers to these questions don’t lie others’ blogs, but in writing your own.
Even if you are just a little fuzzy on your key values and objectives, there are few better ways to lock them down than by trying to define them in a regular blog. We know that before you can create a blogging strategy and article content plan, you have to define who you are blogging for, and why. Without any clear focus for your blog, you’ll have no readers. Defining that focus is a valuable exercise for any business.
When we take over a company blogging strategy, we start with a blank sheet of paper. In the middle we start a spider diagram with the company name. With the first offshoots, we name a few of the key elements of the business and some of its core values. From there we start to break out into topic areas that relate, before breaking out again into defined blog titles. In the content planning process, knowing what your business is about and what you stand for must come first.
Purposeful, pre-scheduled content forces you to constantly reevaluate your focus, key message and identity. The hard work, processes and commitment that go into a regular and high-quality blog strategy keep you agile, conscious and responsive, focused. And those with focus are rewarded.
Writing a regular company blog is a fun and engaging way to focus your business, converse with your customers with personality in a unique voice, drive traffic to your website and tell your brand story. In today’s online marketplace, it’s how you can set yourself apart from your competitors, decide how your brand is perceived online and reach out directly to would be customers in an engaging, direct and informative way.
A blog is a marketing imperative, it’s the heart of any decent content marketing strategy. There’s no avoiding the fact that without a blog, your efforts will suffer and the sales funnel will stall.
If you’ve been waiting for it, yes, here comes the call-to-action.
Are you convinced of the need for a high-quality, consistent company blog but just don’t have the time or expertise to do it? Would you rather it was just ‘done-for-you’ by a team of experts?
We have a range of social media and blog management packages that have been created to give businesses like yours all the benefits of content marketing, without the hassle. If you’d like to know more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Thanks for reading, and good luck!
