When we post new content on our blog, we all hope that people will find it interesting or useful enough so that they buy in to our ideas. At the very least we want them to keep coming back to read more of what we write about. But what we really want is for them to act on our offer and ultimately buy something from us. That is the whole point of doing painstaking blog work after all, right?
There are two main reasons why your blog is probably your most potent promotional channel and even more effective than traditional advertising.
1. Trust
The first reason is simply because people these days tend to be critical about traditional advertising. They would sooner trust what a friend recommends than trust what an ad says. By consistently posting information that is personal, useful and relevant to your audiences, you have the opportunity to build a level of trust with audiences that no billboard, print ad, TV commercial or radio plug can ever attain, regardless of how true their messages are. It doesn't happen in an instant, of course. It takes much hard work and patience to cultivate relationships and build trust.
2. Reach
The second reason you should be blogging is no less compelling than the first. Blogging lets you build an audience. And each person who follows your blog is a potential source of new audiences. Do you remember how bankers like to say that compounded interest is one of the most powerful forces in the universe when it comes to multiplying your money?
Audiences sort of work on the same principle. The secret is in getting your readers to promote your business or your ideas for you. This kind of audience interaction results in virality that gets your blog posts pushed toward people outside your own immediate circles. The larger your circles, the more opportunities you have to develop fresh new leads.
Put in perspective, blogging gives you a potent one-two marketing punch you simply cannot ignore. You get people to trust you and do what you ask them to, and you get to work on building that trust with more and more people. Summed up in two words: INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY.
The caveat, of course, is that you must be a blogging beast to reap the benefits of this wonderful marketing channel. It starts with great content, content that is relevant, useful and compelling to the reader. It takes consistency. You need to build a cadence of blog content that your audience gets used to and comes to expect from you on a regular basis.
You also need to be at the top of your technical game. Your blog posts should have headlines that tug at the audience's attention. They should be easy to scan so that readers instantly form a picture of what the entire blog post is all about, and feel the need to read it in its entirety. There should be links to your other blog posts, as well as links from highly regarded external domains and websites.
Pulling this off won't be a walk in the park, no doubt. But if you can get this done, the rewards blogging gives your business will be absolutely awesome in the coming year.