When it comes to promoting your business on the Internet, some consider blogging to be even more effective than paid online advertisements. This is a tall claim, but it is very much the truth. Here’s why:
Blogging Establishes You as an Authority
Small Business Blogging is an aspect of marketing called content marketing, where you’re not actually promoting your company’s product, but rather what your company has to say. A well-written company blog could establish your company as an authority and thought leader in your industry. Informing your customers on issues related to your industry, and not just peddling product, could increase your stock with them as a trustworthy source. This trust may spread into how they view your products, as well as increasing brand name recall.
You can accomplish this by putting out articles about issues relevant to both your customers and your business. A moving company, for example, could write about the need for thorough inventory checklists to keep track of your belongings both before and after a move. They key here is to write things that your customers will find interesting and useful.
Blogging Gives Your Company a Personality
Not every company blog has to be a sobering advice column. Blogging can also be used to give your brand a personality (see cakes with personality). Having a personality humanizes your brand and makes it more relatable, therefore increasing your brand trust and brand recall when they think about the funny or interesting things in your last blog post.
If you do decide to go this route, you have to make sure that your blogging personality is in line with your brand personality. Comedic blog posts clash with a finance company’s image, for example. Instead, stay true to your customers and what they value. Art suppliers, for instance, can release blog articles about talented artists and share the works of art that customers have produced with their products.
Connect with Your Customers Better
In addition to the above points, blogging also allows customers to connect with you via social media marketing (which you can—and should—use to promote your blog posts). Customers can even speak to you via the blog post itself, as long as comments are enabled on your blog.
As with all social media, you should always be prepared to receive negative feedback as well as positive when you open up these communication channels. Don’t assume comments will always be about the topic at hand. Disgruntled customers with an ax to grind may use it as a vehicle for their complaints. Have a policy and action plan in place just in case something like this happens.
Blogging Increases Your Online Presence
This is especially true if the blog is tied into your company website as we did at Logo Design Works. Posting regular blog updates has a good chance of increasing your search engine rankings, especially if you use keywords properly. Google values keywords based on context, meaning they have to occur naturally within the framework of an article. Spamming a keyword ten times in the space of a paragraph might actually get you penalized instead. Consult an SEO expert if you’re interested in learning more about this.
