What Is Blog Marketing? More Importantly, Does It Work?

Blog marketing is big business, and it’s our business. Countless brands use it to promote themselves and grow their online presence, but what exactly are they doing? We’ll talk about what blog marketing is, how it works, and the advantages and disadvantages of business blogging today…

What Is Blog Marketing?

Using a blog to reach your target audience and, hopefully, draw attention to your business is the whole point of blog marketing. Business owners using blogs to market their brands will post a variety of content, including written posts, pictures, videos, and even audio recordings, in order to attract more customers.

Most of the time, these posts are meant to educate the readers about a certain aspect of an industry or reveal some ‘behind the scenes’ information about the business, all while subtly promoting the products and services being offered. Some business owners even use their blogs as a source of feedback, asking their customers to leave their opinions and suggestions in the comments!

Nowadays, you’ll find most business blogs attached to the brand’s online store, though some people will choose to host their blog on a completely different site. Regardless of where you find it, a business blog will always include backlinks to products and services, as well as options to create an account or sign up for a newsletter to stay updated.

How Does It Work?

Blog marketing works by showing potential customers that there are real people behind a brand, who care about their customers’ opinions and are genuinely trying to connect with the people who support their business.

Posting educational and helpful content on a business blog makes that brand seem more trustworthy – they’re trying to help their customers understand the industry and answer their questions, instead of just shoving a promotion in their faces. It also demonstrates that the business’s owners actually have industry experience and are willing to share their knowledge. Likewise, posting more personal content like “Meet The Owners!” makes the brand seem more trustworthy as it shows a more genuine and laidback side to the brand. A lot of people prefer to support businesses that are open about who they are and what they stand for, and a business blog is the perfect place to talk about those things without the risk of being too unprofessional.

Pros Of Business Blogging

There are truly countless pros to business blogging and blog marketing, and you can find just a handful of them below:

1. It’s super affordable

The low cost of this kind of marketing is one of the main benefits of using a blog to promote your business. You’ll only really be paying for the domain name and web hosting, which costs very little compared to other marketing options like posting ads. Running the blog itself can be done by virtually anyone who knows the basics of writing, and pushing your blog to the top of search results doesn’t require any monetary input if done correctly. Because of this, having a business blog is a fantastic option for small businesses that may not yet have a significant marketing budget.

2. It’s easy to do

You can create a blog that looks professional and get it published in a matter of minutes with the various blogging platforms that are widely available these days, making it easy to master blog marketing. There are also countless guides and courses available online to teach you all about blog marketing strategies if you’re a “do it yourself” kind of person, or skilled and experienced professionals that can do the work for you!

3. You’ll boost traffic to your website

Hosting your blog on the same site as your general business website can help to significantly improve the traffic to it. Consistently publishing new content will give people a reason to keep returning to your site, and chances are they’ll stop by to check out your products or services while they’re at it. Also, increased traffic and regularly returning readers will alert search engine algorithms that your site is worth boosting, and you’ll end up near the top of search results in no time!

4. It makes it possible to make more money

When your blog gets a lot of traffic, you might suddenly get calls from other companies offering to sponsor a post, send you affiliate links and products, or buy advertising space on your site. All of these will not only give you an extra source of income, but will also show your customers that other brands trust you enough to work with them. In exchange for a sponsored post, you can even have your products advertised on another blog. This will expose you to a wider audience and increase your chances of getting more customers.

5. You’ll develop a closer relationship with your customers

As we’ve mentioned before, people like supporting brands that they trust, and running a business blog gives you the perfect opportunity to develop a closer relationship with your customers. A business blog is much more personal than a newsletter or a paid ad, as it encourages the customers to interact with the people running the business. Using a relatively laidback yet still professional writing tone will show your customers that you’re an approachable person, and not just a money-hungry brand looking to make as much profit as possible.

6. It’s a modern solution

Millions of people have some sort of online presence, or at least use the Internet regularly. This means that they are much more likely to see and be interested in a brand that uses the online world to market itself, rather than sticking to traditional poster and TV ads. With a business blog, you can demonstrate your overall competency as a brand by demonstrating that you have at least a basic understanding of the online world. You will not only be advertising your goods or services, but you will also be demonstrating that you can adapt to changing times.

7. It’ll establish your authority in the industry

A successful business blog can really help you establish yourself as an authority figure in the industry of your brand. Having a blog full of up-to-date, relevant, and well-researched information about your industry and topics surrounding it will demonstrate your competency to both potential customers and existing competitors. Your blog has a chance to become the primary source of information about similar products and services and the industry you work in if it is done correctly.

Cons Of Business Blogging

While business blogging is overall a pretty great marketing technique, there are still some downsides that you need to be aware of before starting. Here are the most significant ones:

1. It can be time consuming

Even though starting and maintaining a business blog are relatively easy, consistently producing high-quality content for your blog can take a lot of time. This is especially true if you work on your own, as you’ll have to split your time between blogging, stock management, answering questions, and a lot of other tasks. Depending on exactly what you post, it can take up multiple hours of your day, and you won’t always be seeing the benefits either. While the main aim is to promote your business, it can be quite discouraging if you’re basically doing 5 extra hours of work each day for seemingly little profit.

2. An oversaturated market will kill your blog

Again, a lot will depend on your brand and what you write on your blog, but the business blogging market is already overcrowded in many industries. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the competition when using blog marketing as a lot of the best techniques are already common knowledge and are severely overused.

Combined with the work you have to put into each post, you may find that this oversaturated market will soon lead to decreasing site traffic, falling sales, and even bad online reputation if your blog starts lacking in quality. It is essential to keep in mind that starting a business blog is not a means of “getting rich quick” and that your brand should ideally already have a competitive advantage in the form of better or cheaper products; otherwise, you run the risk of wasting a lot of time and resources on something that might not succeed.

3. Accessibility may hinder your blog

A lack of accessibility for your target audience may cause your business blog to fail completely, just like an oversaturated market. What we mean by this is that if your target audience doesn’t generally have access to the online world, or they simply don’t use it very often, you probably won’t get much site traffic. Suddenly expecting someone who only uses the Internet to check the weather to suddenly become an avid blog reader is quite unrealistic and will definitely not reap any benefits.

As a result, you’ll need to carefully consider whether starting a business blog is the most effective way to market to the people you want to reach. Chances are, if the demographic is mainly customers over 40 or those who live in more deprived areas, you’ll be wasting your time promoting a business on a platform that your target audience won’t have access to. Instead of networking with potential clients, invest in a different strategy and use your blog to network with other brands.

4. Increased exposure means increased demand

If your blog does become successful, you may find yourself overwhelmed with the sudden demand for more high quality content and products. If, up until that point, you had been the sole person working on the blog and you suddenly have an audience of 10,000 readers to please, it can be pretty daunting.

If you aren’t adequately prepared for an increase in demand, you run the risk of losing potential customers due to their expectations not being met. Worse yet, this might spiral out of control and result in a ruined reputation because you couldn’t meet the increased demand. You need carefully consider whether you’ll be capable