Writing blogs is a perfect place for your audience to find answers to their challenges, for you to establish an authentic voice amongst the crowd of competitors, and for you to engage with your prospects and customers.
Before you think, that’s not a sales job. Think again. If you want to expand and grow your presence, and properly engage with your prospects, blogging is an easy tactic to implement. And, no, you don’t need to be Shakespeare. So, if you are yet to join the blogging world, here are 7 reasons you should:
1 – Trust
Blogging is a great way to quickly improve your influence amongst your audience and establish trust. If your audience likes your content, they will trust you more, and if they trust you more, they will be more likely to buy from you. Establish trust sooner rather than later and have more connected, high-quality calls.
2 – Credibility
Additionally, good blogging establishes credibility and authority in your industry. You want to be seen as helpful to your target audience, and in a crowded marketplace, credibility and authority is a competitive differentiator. Blogging should be educational, informative, original and emotive. The more good blogs you produce, the more your target audience will see you as the go-to industry resource. You are on the front-line speaking with prospects. You know their pains. Use it and offer valuable insights.
3 – Customer education
This one is particularly important if your product is a complex one. Blogging is the perfect tool for customer education. As mentioned, think about the pain points your customers have. Think of the questions they would like answered to solve those pain points. You’ll then know what content you can provide to educate them on finding a solution. Use your blog to talk about pain points and what your product can actually do to solve them. Remember, blogging isn’t selling. It’s providing value (before you sell).
4 – Brand awareness
If your business isn’t well-known, blogging is an effective method of building brand awareness. The more people in your business that are getting content out there, the more people will have heard of your product.
5 – Inbound leads
When a blog is shared on your website, it becomes indexed by search engines. That means it provides another way to show up organically in search engines, and tells each search engine that your website is being updated, and new content is being added. The more blogs you have, the more likely your search ranking will improve. And the better your search ranking, the more relevant inbound traffic you will receive. And that means more leads.
6 – Personality
Who’s behind the phone? Blogging is the perfect way to establish a personality, putting a face to the name. Blogs show your audience what kind of person and business you are, what you stand for, what you’re interested in, what tone of voice you have and so on. This personality helps to build stronger customer relationships, leading to more sales.
7 – Business opportunities
More traffic means more opportunities to convert that traffic into leads and sales. See every new blog post as an opportunity to get more revenue. Ask your marketing team to help with creating compelling call-to-actions in every blog post, such as downloading an additional content offering, or receiving a particular product discount. And share on the various social channels available.
Long-term potential
It might seem like a big ask for your sales team to start penning written content, but blogging really is a beneficial activity in the digital sphere today. If your team are struggling for content ideas, ask marketing for help. The two should be working continuously on creating content together. Contribute to marketing-led content. After all, salespeople are on the front line so know better than anyone what prospects want to read about.
The impact of blogging can be long-term. Your business will gradually improve in search rankings, meaning more traffic and cheaper leads, as well as your salespeople becoming more trusted and known in the industry, meaning better sales conversations. Most businesses are jumping on the blogging bandwagon, but many still don’t have a blog or aren’t utilising it properly. From an individual perspective, there is a massive opportunity to establish a credible presence.
