Mini Business Times: 10 Reasons you need a Business Blog TODAY or risk crying tomorrow
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Do you need a business blog? The answer is definitely a loud and confident yes! Here are 10 reasons why you need a Business Blog TODAY or risk crying tomorrow. And trust me it’s not just about the sales your entire business will be dramatically improved because of your business blog. Not convinced? Let’s Begin.
#1 You need a Business Blog because even the biggest companies have Business Blogs
Business Blogs are not just an in thing recently. It has been around for quite sometime and big companies now put in a lot of time, effort and money creating business blogs to improve their sales, brand and customer service. Do you realize that the biggest names today have business blogs?
Disney Parks has a business blog set up to connect and engage more people so as to attract more customers to their theme parks. Think about it, even Disney, a world renown brand is putting a few of their chips on their business blog, should we as entrepreneurs do so too? By the way if you want to learn how to do it well in terms of branding and attraction the Disney Parks business blog is really good as a case study. They are engaging and professional all in one blog.
Proctor & Gamble has a business blog too! My teacher always told me success leaves clues. All you have to do is to figure out what the successful people are doing and copy them!
#2 You need a Business Blog to better target your customers
I remember one of the biggest lessons i learned in University in Marketing 101 was about target marketing. Who are your target markets? A business blog well done would help you reach out to your target market and even give you a clearer distinction on who they are and what they need!
When you have a business blog you can better understand your target market by talking about a certain topic and then reading through their comments!
Procter & Gamble’s Business blog is actually targeting men. Check out how they are doing it! Different targets speak a different language therefore it is a constant conversation and you might start of with a business blog that you think is good but as you converse and blog more and look at the comments you might want to tweak your blog for better targeting.
#3 You need a Business Blog to add more value to your clients
This cannot be simply defined by giving you an example. However, in doing the best to give you what you want i’m going to explain it. There are many things that could create value for a customer, most companies focus on the product or the service. The better ones focus on the pre-sale, on-sale, and post sale. The most engaging and exciting businesses give value at every nook and cranny possible.
On the internet, a lot of value is giving information that is not available on the FAQs of your website. Answering questions of customers is a great way of providing more value through your business blog. Another way of providing more value is posting content that are viral and a little different from everyone else. Interesting and weird pictures, information and videos could do a lot of magic by adding value to your customer.
You don’t need to be very informative all the time. Sometimes it could be something out of the blue that you wouldn’t put on your website but is still relevant to your business.
#4 You need a Business Blog because customers want to know you care
This is not all about telling your customers you love them and want them to be yours forever. Rather, it is more about hey i’m here, at least a few days a week to tell you about what is happening, what is interesting, and things you might not know about our business.
In addition to that, the difference between a website and a blog is the element of “everydayness”. Your input in your customer’s everyday life would be an excellent way to keep them and even get more of them.
I learned this sometime ago: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’ I believe this is from Dale’s Carnegie’s teachings. Check him out. He’s awesome.
#5 You need a Business Blog so that you can get a following
Believe it or not people actually love following something they like. It forms sort of their identity; their sense of belonging to a group bigger than their circle of friends. You want a following because every time there is a special promotion and holiday sale you don’t have to spend the extra dollar to advertise to reach your market (you can and should advertise but it would save you a lot of money if you have a following).
One of the reasons Justin Bieber is successful because he used a right avenue to attract, retain and excite a huge following of beliebers. There are many ways of doing this but a business blog is one great way of doing it:). Maybe Justin could consider doing up a business blog too.
#6 You need a Business Blog so that people can share you
You need a Business Blog so that people can share you. A business blog is another piece of the social media puzzle. It’s great to be able to tweet to your followers or status update your fans but it would add an even mightier touch when you have a blog post that is hot and very shareable (i didn’t know there was such a word). Like my blog if you know me and have been following me for a while, i always tweet my blog post, Facebook update my blog post, AND i also allow YOU to tweet it and google+ it.
<- Go ahead take a 2 seconds to tweet this if you have been enjoying this so far. Click Tweet and Click Google+ Your friends would be happy you shared with them a great blog post.
See what i did there? *wink wink* If something is good you’ll share it right?
#6 You need a Business Blog to rank better on Google
This is a no brainer but i’m going to say it anyways. Having a business blog would allow you to rank for more keywords and therefore attract more potential customers looking for your product or service. If you know how to do SEO properly on a blog post it can do magic for your business. Just imagine, having a hundred blog posts a year each with 1 or 2 keywords ranking on the search engines.
You probably won’t be able to do this with your website because if not you will confuse the person who lands on it. A blog is a great tool to generalize your market and then put them through your sales funnel whether it is to create a buying relationship or to make a sale there and then!
The more keywords you rank for, the more traffic you get. The more traffic you get the better your business would be!
#7 You need a Business Blog to expand and exemplify your brand
Branding is something we cannot ignore in our world today. If you have no brand at all you will forever be struggling because you will seem like a random choice from a sea of same businesses offering the same products and services. With a brand you stand out and become a preferred choice even at a premium price.
Your business blog is a great way to expand and exemplify your Brand. After thinking through your beliefs, visions and mission statements, sit down and think about your brand and learn how to show it on your blog. A couple of tips on showing your Brand on your business blog includes: showing how your business deals with situations good and bad, culture of the company as exemplified through events and/or sharing plans to improve product and service.
#8 You need a Business Blog for free market research and promotions
Even though you’re probably the person posting posts, if you do your marketing correctly you could also be getting a lot of free market research from the people commenting on your blog post, like which links they like, what kind of content they respond to the most and what do they share the most. Companies invest immensely on research to get these information.
Also as said earlier, your business blog can act as a great billboard for advertisements with which you do not need to spend a single cent on. Have a new product? Blog about it. Have an event? Blog about it. Solved a big problem? Blog about it. Need to apologise for something? Blog about it. Need to celebrate something? Blog about it:)
#9 You need a Business Blog for more Sales
This is a given if you do everything correctly and to your best ability. However that is not the best reason you need a business blog today or risk crying tomorrow. The best reason is #10.
#10 You need a Business Blog because your competitors will realize they need it too
If you are in business, you will have competitors. If you don’t educate yourself now and take massive action on the newest ways to market and promote you will lose out. When your competitors realize how much better their business would be by blogging what do you think they will do? Do you think they would do whatever it takes with all the training and education to succeed in business blogging? What would happen to your potential customers then? Who would they go to? What about your current customers?!
Conclusions on why you need a Business blog and do it Today
It is no longer an option whether or not you want to have a business blog. The benefits far exceeds the effort put in to grow your business. But the pain of not doing it (because it can affect your business) is too much to bear. However, having said that there are things to learn and get good at before owning a successful business blog. If you are serious about setting up a blog that can dramatically improve your online presence, add more value, understand your market, create a following, connect with more people (more potential customers), brand yourself and out-beat your competitors you need to educate yourself and take massive action now.
The Empower Network is the blogging community that does just that. We are a group of serious entrepreneurs who love to share and connect and get results. If you are ready to take your business to the next level it is time to educate yourself with the best training in the industry of business blogging.
Put in your email and watch the video. At any point you realize you are ready to go all out and become a master of business blogging you can click on the link to join us. Empower Network’s Business Blogging Education is unparalleled on the internet. There is no other group on the internet that has so many successful online marketers gathered together to share their expertise on marketing online and therefore no platform like ours to learn and practice and get results fast.
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