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5 reasons your business needs a blog marketing strategy in 2019

Julie Ewald blogging, content marketing, content strategy, SEO Leave a Comment

Whether you’re selling products or services, online or off, your business can benefit from a blog greatly. But, simply tossing some blog posts in WordPress won’t do the trick. Blogging doesn’t have that much in common with Field of Dreams. Just because you publish doesn’t mean they’ll come.

You may or may not have heard that before, but believe me, it doesn’t matter what your company does; if you are trying to use your site for B2B lead generation, it needs both a blog and a blog marketing strategy to thrive.

So, why is blogging with a strategy such a big deal for your business (and your bottom line)? Well, I’ve got five reasons why it’s so vital in 2019, as well as how you can integrate a blog into your B2B marketing plan to capture the attention of the right audience and bring in solid traffic and quality leads consistently.

1. A blog marketing strategy drives relevant organic traffic to your website

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The top reason you should keep a business blog is to drive traffic. Not only will blogging influence the number of website visitors you’ll receive, but also their quality. Top-notch content that is relevant to your industry attracts a specific audience — people who are more likely to be interested in what you have to say and possibly buy your products or services.  

Blogging can skyrocket your B2B lead generation campaigns. When you attract the right people to your site, this will increase your chance to convert them. Instead of trying to reach whoever may happen to pass by, you’ll get to focus your resources better, as you dedicate more attention, time, and money to your target audience.

2. A blog is a cost-effective way to establish your business as an expert resource

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With a blog marketing strategy in place, your blog will then become a perfect vehicle to drive brand awareness. At the same time, it’ll allow you to establish your business as an expert resource.  

How can you achieve that?  Aim for your business blog to cater to a certain niche with content related to what your business does. Such blog posts are valuable to the readers because they provide insights and in-depth information about their topics of interest.

Let’s say you sell tropical fish, for example, and blog about how to best care for fish and clean out aquariums. Your visitors will realize that you know your stuff and will come back for information every time they need an expert opinion on fish and aquariums. The more posts they read, the more likely they’ll turn into a lead and possible customer when they are in the market for some more fishy friends.

The secret is to have a blog marketing strategy in place, where you plot out meaningful, relevant content that you’ll produce. It means that every blog post you ideate has a purpose related to your overall B2B lead generation objectives. Identify what you want to achieve with every piece of content you craft, then make sure you create it in line with your business goals. Writing for the sake of writing gets traffic for the sake of traffic. 

3. Blogs can create new sales funnels

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A business blog allows you to guide website visitors through the sales funnel. Let’s see how it all integrates into your B2B marketing plan.

First, a consistent blog is full of content that can make people aware of your brand and what you have to offer. Blog posts are excellent top-of-the-funnel pieces that can attract customers in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.

Second, as you guide your visitors through various pieces of content, you can shape their buyer’s journey and get conversions. But that blog is how your business gets folks into the funnel in the first place. Your blog turns into a valuable tool that can give you higher control over the number of people who arrive at the bottom of the sales funnel — more blog traffic should mean more conversions on and on down the line.

For this to happen, you need to create content with the end in mind, blog posts that make it to the forefront of your prospects’ minds and guide them towards a buying decision. This should be educational content, which explains to website visitors how they can solve their problems. Moreover, your blog posts should always include a call to action that tells your audience what you expect them to do further — something stage-appropriate that inches them further down that funnel.

4. A blog is an instrument that speaks directly to your audience

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A blog makes it much easier for a brand to communicate with a new audience and generate new leads. That’s because conversations are more natural when you give away quality content than directly selling to people. For businesses with long sales cycles (like most B2B companies), a blog is a cost-effective way for them to open conversations and nurture leads.

In North America, 93 percent of B2B marketers use content marketing for lead generation, and many of them also document their marketing efforts for increased ROI. That’s because content marketing, like any other tool out there, doesn’t work without a cohesive strategy in place, overlooking a company’s blog.

5. The whole SEO strategy is based on blogging

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Search engines love new content. So, blogging consistently can help keep your website’s content fresh and relevant. Furthermore, if these posts are optimized for the right low-competition targeted keywords, you’re giving your domain a bit of an SEO boost.

But blogging improves your SEO in more ways than one. A high-quality blog improves your metrics because people spend more time on your website and can also bring some valuable backlinks to your site. (But, alas, those backlinks don’t always build themselves, either.) All these are indicators for Google and other search engines that your website adds value to the public, making it a relevant and reliable source of information. In the long run, better rankings bring in more visitors and paying customers.

The takeaway

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Blogging helps you build new business relationships and consolidate your existing ones. At the same time, it enables you to gain trust, build awareness, and position yourself as an authority in your industry… all while pushing your SEO and boosting your rankings.

But these were just five of the reasons why your business needs a blog and a corresponding strategy to make a go of things in 2019. Even if you don’t have the time or feel you lack creativity, you should still find a way to plan, build, and maintain this valuable resource and B2B lead generation source on your site. That may just mean working with someone like me to make it happen. 

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