The Power of the Blog Post: Top 5 Benefits for Content Marketers in 2020

Business blogging provides the ideal opportunity for marketers to drive online visibility, establish trust and authority, and build the foundation for long-term success with their target audience.

By KPI Target

To blog or not to blog? Well, spoiler alert right up front — the answer is yes, you should blog. If your business has not already made blogging an integral part of your overall content marketing strategy, there’s no better time than the present to get started.

Developing an effective blogging strategy can be compared to building the foundation of a house. While the blog itself is the house (the place where all of your valuable content lives), the individual blog post is the building block used to construct a strong and lasting foundation.

Creating relevant and valuable content based on the identified needs of your target audience attracts viewers to your page in a non-promotional and inviting manner. Rather than interrupting your audience with content they’re not looking or asking for, provide them with solutions to their pressing challenges and questions, and you’ll establish the trust and credibility needed to drive sustainable growth down the line.

But first thing’s first. That foundation needs to be built … not cobbled together. The key to successful blogging comes down to consistency. Once you have a rock-solid understanding of exactly what kind of content is uniquely valuable to your target audience, it’s time to get to writing.

Here are five of the main reasons that blogging should be at the heart of your inbound marketing strategy in 2020.

1. Drive People to Your Website 

Creating consistent and relevant blog content drives up to 55% more website visitors by making a website more findable by search engines. This is a function of increasing the number of indexed pages on your site and updating your website regularly with fresh content.

Consistently updating your website with fresh content signals to search engines that your site is active and engaging people with content that is relevant to their searches.

Blogging is also a fantastic way for you to achieve greater visibility on your social networks. When you create a blog post that provides real value, people are far more likely to share these posts within their own networks, extending your reach to a new audience that may not have heard of you before.

Too often businesses waste opportunities to utilize social media as a means to drive qualified and interested leads into their inbound funnel. Creating original content specifically for your social channels is perfectly fine, and necessary for maintaining ongoing dialogue with your base.

But if you can create a workflow in which your social media activities drive interested viewers back to your website with engaging blog posts, then you’re really setting the stage for success as an authority in your areas of knowledge and expertise. 

2. Establish Authority in Your Market

While being an “authority” may have fewer measurable benefits to your business than website traffic and other such quantifiable metrics, it is an indispensable component of achieving credibility, which is paramount to your long-term success.

Your customers and prospects are constantly seeking value in the way of answers to pressing questions and challenges. A blog serves as the repository for your business’s answers to these questions. When you “give away” helpful information and prove to be a valuable resource for your targets in their times of need, you establish authority and credibility.

When a company is willing to provide free resources, it also creates the perception that this is a company that wants to do right by its customers. And typically, this perception is right on.

Ask yourself, are we establishing authority in our target market by providing people with content they actually need?

If so, you’re on your way to building that all-important trust factor with your targets.

3. Build Trust with Your Targets

Making valuable content available is a proactive step toward providing authentic value to your customers and prospects. It signals to them: This is a company that I can rely upon because they’re not constantly harassing me to take action when I’m not quite there yet.

When you consistently create and deliver value for your targets without asking for anything in return, they will be more inclined to think of you when it comes time to make a purchase. And when they do arrive in the sales funnel, they’ll be much more likely to trust your advice and recommendations because you’ve helped them in the past.

4. Convert New Traffic Into Leads

Trust is an important aspect in converting prospects, but blogging alone goes a long way toward steadily increasing conversion rates over time. Companies that consistently create blog content generate up to 67% more leads than those that don’t blog.

By educating your audience with helpful blog posts, you increase their familiarity with your industry and work. Your blog informally guides them to your paid offerings and tactfully embedded CTAs, as they pursue the knowledge and insights that you provide.

Embedding relevant CTAs within your blog posts gives you the opportunity to retain the viewer on your site and guide them to other helpful resources, such as white papers, webinars, eBooks, and case studies, to name a few of many possibilities.  

5. Differentiate & Personalize Your Brand

Blogging is an ideal way to personalize and humanize your brand and offerings. As a format, it’s shorter than longer-form content and should be easy to follow and digest. Your readers don’t have to be experts to understand the post. This makes it an ideal medium for your business to create a unique “voice” and “tone” that resonates with your particular target audience.

Consistent blogging often helps brands develop their personas and better understand how they want to be viewed by the public at large.

Ultimately, whether you’re interested in generating more leads, increasing conversion rates, or building a reputation on service and authority in your market, a blog has the power to help you achieve your goals.

Blogging with consistency and conviction is a commitment that should be at the heart of every business’s personalized marketing strategy. If you can take the long view, and prioritize sustainable strategies over short-term tactics, you’ll be rewarded with compounding returns.  

Get in touch to learn more about how KPI Target is helping businesses large and small leverage blog content to create marketing strategies that provide real value and drive tangible results.