Companies that published over 15 blog posts in a month got over four times more leads than companies that published four posts or less, a survey by Hubspot indicated. As a digital marketing tool, a business blog can be effective in selling your products to the right audience. Follow these points to ensure you are successful in your marketing campaign.

Goals

The first step to reaping the rewards of business blogging is to set up a well-defined goal. This goal will normally come through your marketing and sales targets and feed into your content marketing plan. If your goal is to establish yourself as a market leader, then your blog posts should be thoughtful pieces about the industry with less hard-selling in the copy. If your goal is to increase subscription to your service, then your blogs should centre on benefits of your product with call-to-action links embedded in the articles.

Create a Content Plan

A content marketing plan is a strategic approach to digital marketing using valuable and relevant content consistently. After you have a goal at the back of your mind, your content plan will tell you what type of content to create and share across your business website and social media platforms. It helps you determine how much of your content should be written, and how much should be graphical.

A content calendar is a key component of your content marketing plan, as it shows the frequency of posts across your business channels. Cluttering audience news feeds with your content is a good way to get ignored. Do your research to find the right time to post on each platform. Stick to it, and measure the performance regularly to keep your digital marketing target in sight.

Good Website

Using a business blog to market your business goes beyond just having a website. For digital marketing to be effective, your website needs to be functional and appropriate for the kind of customers you appeal to. You should not use ambiguous page names unless you are in the business of selling ambiguous page names.

Also, your business website should be mobile responsive. Over 60% of all searches are done on mobile devices now. And so if your website can’t fit on a mobile screen, users are not going to be able to read any blog post or content you publish. Your business blog is a marketing tool. Invest time and resources to add features and plugins that make it easy to navigate and to collect data.

In addition to having a good website, your social media profile should be active. Consistently sharing content from your business website on these social media platforms will give you more coverage and improve your marketing.

Call to Action

Your business blog is not to showcase your writing prowess. It is a digital marketing tool. To make sure you are sending the right signals about your product, incorporate some of your marketing goals and systems into the blog posts. Adding a mailing list subscription, for example, makes it easy to gather personal information that could serve as a basis for your email marketing campaigns.

A call-to-action can also include coupon redemption links that could further feed into your email marketing campaigns. It could be a share button that calls on users to post your product on their social media platforms in return for a favour. Remember that your call-to-action should always be relevant to the blog post. Don’t give people discount coupons to your designer clothes when the article is about how to build an automobile in their backyards.

Blog

As a digital marketing tool, business blogging is only productive when your blog posts are optimised for audience consumption. Your blog title should be catchy and still be able to send the right message. This means the reader should not come out of the reading experience feeling cheated.

You should also use relevant images to attract a reader’s attention. The reality is that many readers judge a book (blog) by its cover (featured image). If your image is poorly formatted, it doesn’t entice them enough to click and read.

Your business blog should also be optimised for search engines. Toward this end, you should research the keywords related to your niche market and spread them throughout your blog’s copy. Also, find a tone and stay true to it. If you are creating a laid-back atmosphere, be consistent. If you have a business tone, be true to it. Mixing up things will leave your audience confused.

Business blogging can be an effective digital marketing tool if done right. If you are unsure how to go about it, Gesatech’s digital marketing bundles will help you create content and manage user engagement across your business platforms.