Blogging for digital marketing

Blogging for Superior Results from your Digital Marketing Efforts

Blogging for Digital marketing
Blogging for Digital marketing

Digital marketing has radically changed the marketing landscape in the recent years. More and more businesses including big and small use the digital marketing channels for promotions. Search advertising, social media promotions and email marketing are some common channels that marketers use for the promotion of their brand. However, these are not the only effective channels and for higher impact you need to include blogging as a part of your digital marketing strategy. It is good for both online and physical businesses that want to expand their market and grow their customer base. Businesses use email marketing for lead generation mainly and social media and paid advertising for promotion of products and services. However, blogging can help you gain some extra edge and create extra impact from your digital marketing efforts.

 Whether it is a large brand with an international audience or a small one with a limited market, both stand to benefit from having a blog. Blogging not just helps you derive better results from your digital marketing but also helps you establish your credibility and grow trust. In terms of digital marketing, the advantages of blogging are more long lasting than the seasonal marketing campaigns companies run.  Blogging can bolster the results of your advertising and promotional campaigns. When you combine paid promotions with blogging, you will find that the engagement rate of and returns from your marketing campaigns is multiple times better and customer retention rate higher.

What is blogging and Why to blog?

Blogging first appeared during the 1990s and people mainly used blogs to keep personal online  journals. They were known as weblogs. However, blogging did not advance till the late 1990s until blogging platforms like Live Journal and Blogger appeared. WordPress, which is now the most popular blogging platform came during the early 2000s and blogging took off. In the course of time, entrepreneurs identified the marketing potential of blogging. Now, people blog for marketing and for several, their blogs are also a source of earning.

You can create a blog and start blogging for any reason and not just marketing. Some people are blog writers because it is their hobby. Others may be professional blog writers who use it as a source of revenue. Yes, a blog with a large reader base can also be an excellent source of revenue. Blogging is also used by educational institutions for sharing information and for distance education. Moreover, blogs can be used to express views and opinions. So, blogs serve a wide range of purposes and you can achieve more than just marketing and promotions through a  blog. Blogs are for education, connection, promotions and even to generate leads and grow sales.

Where does a blog fit in the digital marketing picture?

The picture of digital marketing has grown very large in the recent years. It encompasses everything from social media to email marketing, paid online advertising as well as video marketing and viral marketing through social media. Social media has grown the number of opportunities for digital marketers. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter are also superb channels for marketing and promotions.

However, despite the growth and popularity of social media, email marketing and online advertising, blogs retain a special place for themselves in the world of digital marketing. The digital marketing industry is growing fast every year. Google and Facebook are the leading players in this industry right now. However, there are other major players too including Microsoft and Yahoo.

Content marketing has continued to grow in popularity because of its effectiveness. For most businesses that use content marketing to grow their customer base, their blogs are among the leading channels of online marketing. The online advertising giants like Facebook and Google have their content blogs that are targeted at unique customer segments and meant to drive higher engagement.

What benefits can be obtained from blogging?

As already mentioned, Blogs are multipurpose channels which can be used to achieve more than just your marketing objectives. The advantages of blogging are many and so are the purposes of blogging. However, in case of businesses, it is mostly to promote products and services or to drive higher engagement. One simple content rich blog can amplify and grow the effect of your marketing efforts. Read more about the advantages of blogging for businesses and entrepreneurs below :-

Higher Visibility :-

Every brand wants to stand out and gain higher visibility than its competitors. This has a direct relationship with sales. For this purpose, businesses invest in paid promotions and try several methods of marketing including digital advertising and email marketing. However, blogging can also help you increase your visibility and interest and engage your customers in new ways. Blogging helps you be found. It increases your search engine ranking and when your blog ranks on the first page for specific search queries, more and more visitors come to your website through your blog and get to know your products and services. This increases traffic which you can convert into sales. Moreover, you can use blogging to attract new customers or bring the attention of existing customers to new products and services.

New customer acquisition channel :-

Blogging is great for marketing as well as customer acquisition. You can attract new customers using your blog. New customers who search for products and services online will find you in search results. You can even convert users into customers by using a blog to attract them and to get them interested. Your blog must have sufficient content for this purpose. You can include ‘Call to Action’ (CTA) buttons on these posts to direct your customers to the sales page. The landing pages of your blog do not just promote your brand but also help you acquire new customers and build new relationships. If your blog is rich in content, it will also help you get more organic traffic from search engines.

Connect with your customers and Engage them :-

Blogging is excellent for both customer connection and customer relationship management. Your customer is at the centre of everything. The stronger your customer connection, the higher customer loyalty you will enjoy. To establish deeper customer connections you can use your blog as a customer engagement channel. Your customers/followers can subscribe to your blog which will keep bringing them back when you publish new ones. For achieving higher engagement level, do not just promote your products or write only about your products and services but write on related topics which will prove useful for your customers. You can publish DIY posts or create  a beautiful collage of images and include them in your posts to engage your users. Suppose you own a coffee business, you can publish posts related to roasting coffee at home or selecting the right coffee flavor. Any business can find a large range of related DIY topics to write about. Fashion brands can easily find a large range of topics including the latest trends that they can blog about. This will help you establish better customer connection and strengthen your relationship with your customers. 

Grow trust and build your brand image :-

For a business to grow and stand out, it must have a strong image. Whether a small or a large one, business with a strong image stand out and have higher competitive strength. To secure a leading position in the market and be the  favorite of your customers, you need to build superior level of trust and a strong image. Businesses mainly focus upon quality of products/services, customer service and marketing to grow trust and build a strong image. However, a blog can also be a great tool for generating trust and building a strong image. Through your blog while you reach more customers, you can also build a stronger connection and use the blog as a customer service channel. Offer helpful DIY articles that help people and publish posts that  help customers understand your business better. On the one hand, it drives engagement, on the other it helps you win customers’ hearts.
You should also blog about your organizational culture, human resource policies and other aspects of your business including marketing. Letting people know about the values that drive you also helps strengthen trust level.