When you think online marketing, one of the words likely to come up next is, “blogging”. The art of compelling would-be customers through text on a screen is a staple of the modern advertising scene, and for a lot of very good reasons. Blogs are versatile in what they can do for your business, from generating exposure to collecting feedback. Blogs are relatively simple to run, and freelance writers could easily fill the position with the right guidance. For customers, blogs are also a window into your company’s true identity — an identity which is yours to control.
For those who are unfamiliar with the benefits of running or commissioning a blog, consider these four reasons:
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They’re Built for Interactions with Customers
Your standard blog includes more than just well-crafted content. The comments section is an invaluable tool to detect user feedback and concerns with either your product or services. From here, you or a professional digital marketing firm like Sherwood Integrated Solutions can assess what business directions should be taken, and how best to address your customers’ insights in a way that contributes to their affinity for your brand.
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They Make Your Brand Name Synonymous with Customer Interests
A blog also helps you interact with your customers by touching on interests they’re likely to have. Your company’s selling point or brand identity is almost guaranteed to intersect with a popular hobby or cultural phenomenon, and a blog can be your business’ way of connecting with these interests–something which consumers in the age of the internet are sure to appreciate.
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They Connect Your Name to Customer Needs
A blog is also a good way to cast a line out to the proverbial sea, and see what new customer needs have emerged since you last updated your product line. Businesses wrack their brains trying to come up with a way to gather user feedback when the most intuitive direction has always been waiting to be taken: ask for it.
Articles which encourage customers and readers to critique your industry or the category into which your product or service falls can be one possible way of surveying their changing demands while giving the impression of sincere interest in improving their experience with your products. This is one of the trickier plays in the handbook of blogging, so it might call for external help from specialized agencies like SherwoodIS.com.
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Running a Blog Gives You Greater Control over Your Brand
Rather than waiting for the market to decide for itself what your company is about and what it wants to accomplish, a blog is your way of getting ahead of the curve and cementing your own business’ corporate identity. The written word is a free form of expression, and everything from the content to the tone of a blog can be selected for how well they reflect the identity you want for your brand.
This is a blessing for startups and new businesses which have yet to achieve the status of a household name, as your creative team has total control over the narrative you want to set–a narrative which, in case it needs saying, has to be consistent with the quality of your product or service.
All told, blogging is an important part of a business’ repertoire of marketing options. It can be as in-depth as a technical journal of your company’s attempts to perfect their product, to as light and enjoyable as a fictionalized account of a day at your company’s office–whatever the details, blogging is a positive direction to take.