In these times, where 87% of companies use video as a marketing tool and social networks are the main communication channel, including a blog in our marketing strategy may not seem like a winning solution. However, blogging opens up endless opportunities for marketers and remains a profitable investment for companies that want to establish a strong brand image and eventually increase sales.
Still not convinced? Did you know that marketers who manage and maintain a blog are 13 times more likely to get a positive return? These stats are just one example of how your business could benefit from having a blog.
This article gives you three reasons why blogging should be part of your 2022 marketing strategy and share tactics to help you get the most out of your blog.
Why you should include a blog in your marketing strategy for 2022
1. To increase traffic to your website
A blog is a sure way to increase traffic to your website, simply because 77% of Internet users read blogs. Furthermore, websites with blogs have 434% more indexed pages. This means that a blog would make it easier for your website to be found on the internet, as long as your blog posts are well written and optimized.
To succeed in both endeavors, you should create a separate strategy for your blog, based on SEO and in line with your content marketing strategy. It should include at least five things:
- The goals you would like to achieve and the factors you will use to measure results.
- The type of audience you are writing for.
- The formats would help you present the content in the best possible way.
- An editorial calendar indicating the frequency and topics of the publications.
- A list of channels to spread and promote the content.
But creating a blog strategy is only part of the battle.Quality writing is critical to engaging your target audience and converting your leads into new customers. To find more valuable and interesting information about writing for blogs, you can visit Copyblogger, Convince & Convert, and Grammarly.
Promoting your blog on social media is another way to boost your blog content. It’s beneficial for content and social media marketers as they won’t need to create content from scratch and can share a blog post with an emotional caption. Meanwhile, content marketers will get more traffic to the blog and, consequently, to the website.
You can also create a subscription to your blog to calculate the number of subscribers (and unique visitors) and send them a daily, weekly, or monthly email newsletter with the content you want to promote.
Of course, in addition to including videos in our business social networks, it will also be an excellent idea to include them in the posts that we publish on our blog. In this way, we will offer better quality content, but also the time spent on the blog will increase, and therefore, we will have better-positioned posts in search engines.
One of the tools that will help us do this is FlexClip, which, in addition to being very easy to use, will allow us to create high-quality videos in just a few seconds.
These tactics, implemented collectively, will help you increase your website traffic. The amount of effort and resources you put into your blog should depend on the overall marketing goals you want to achieve.
2. To promote brand awareness
As your blog and website get more traffic, more people will learn about your business, products, and services. However, you need to make sure you target your potential customers with the right messages. This is the setting, and you need to ask yourself a couple of essential questions.
What makes people choose a particular brand and speak highly of it? Why do people become fond of particular products or services? Surely the answer will throw up reasons like value for money and praise from your friends or co-workers. But let’s not forget brand awareness…a crucial factor in the customer decision process. In other words, establishing brand awareness is essential because people prefer to buy products or services from familiar brands.
So it would be best if you spent time establishing a tone of voice for your blog posts and the types and formats you’ll use to present the content.
Set a tone of voice
In short, tone of voice is how your brand communicates with your audience, and it helps you better express your message and your brand personality. Having set a particular tone of voice, you can share what you think about different topics and your feelings towards your customers. Your tone of voice may vary slightly from channel to channel, but it should generally match the style in which you conduct marketing communications with your customers.
If you were to remove logos and branding and ship an item to your customers, would they know the sender is your brand? This is the key to finding a particular tone of voice for your brand, and it is the strategy that will help you stand out from the competition, not only with blog posts but with your website and social media profiles.
Decide content types and formats
Based on your tone of voice, you can define types of content for your blog. Ideally, it should be diverse, educational, entertaining, and interesting. If you publish articles three times a week, you could write educational articles on Mondays. It could be guided on finding the perfect products on your website in minutes, becoming a member, getting discounts, or becoming a contributor to your blog.
In addition to posting diverse content, your blog posts should be easy to share. You can integrate share buttons on your blog so that readers can send your articles to their friends and subscribers directly on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or any other favorite channels of your audience.
What’s more exciting, having great content on your blog will help increase brand awareness and also provide you with opportunities for new collaborations and partnerships. But remember that blogging is a long-term strategy, and it takes time to start seeing results.
Read more: The Main Advantages Of Creating Interactive Content For Your Brand
3. To generate more contacts
When you post regularly, people will tend to come back to your blog to read more content and engage more with your brand. Here, your task is to make sure that you use tools that will help you generate leads.
Use CTAs
We have already mentioned that most of your posts should include CTAs that encourage users to visit your website and buy or try your products and services. In addition to text CTAs with a hyperlink, you can make CTAs with a button that stands out.
Here is an example of ours.
A couple of weeks ago, we launched a “non-stock” search filter that allows you to quickly find unique images among the 145 million files in the Depositphotos library. We created this filter because authentic images are a more significant trend in visual communication and help businesses engage audiences more effectively. The message was simple: we want your Depositphotos experience to be as seamless as possible, and we suggest you try the “out of stock” filter, which will cut down on time spent searching for the perfect image.
Offer benefits and exclusive content
A great way to convert your readers into leads is to offer them a few perks. You can give them a discount on their first purchase in exchange for their contact information, such as their emails, phone numbers or other relevant information. You can also entice them with a lure: a free downloadable ebook, video, or list. All this will not require much effort, and will give you the results you have been waiting for.
Hubspot uses lures like nobody else. When you browse your blog for a while, you will see a couple of pop-ups offering you free downloadable files in exchange for your email address. Let’s admit it. We fall for this type of offer because its usefulness outweighs something as light as giving our email address.
If you want to get the most out of your blog, you should also watch other blogs. You can get inspired by your content, analyze your tactics and see which tools help you reach larger audiences. Try to be inspired as an artist instead of copying, and you will see that your efforts will bring you excellent results.
To learn more and read helpful tips, check out these articles:
1. How to use photography to influence consumer behavior.
2. How to use Pinterest for your business: Tools and tips that help.
3. Let’s talk about writing: Email subjects that ask to be opened.
