What Is Blog Marketing? – The Definition

Attracting new customers is a critical business process for achieving steady growth. Over time, with the advent of new internet technologies, marketing approaches have changed.

Many people prefer to go online to search for answers and learn more about a particular topic. For that reason, blogging and social media have become the most popular digital marketing methods in recent years. If done correctly, it can bring amazing results. We will cover some of the tried-and-true blog marketing tactics in this article.

But before we go on, let’s take a look at the definition of marketing and see how blogging fits into all this.

What is marketing?

The marketing process involves a business effort to reach out to as many people as possible. The result of well thought marketing strategy should be a higher number of customers. It makes it possible for the business to grow, increase profits, establish brand recognition, and give value to its clients.

No matter how good your service or product is, it is essential to put yourself in a position to be more discoverable. That is the most important function of marketing. It puts you in front of people’s eyes, making business growth stable and faster.

If this sounds complicated or confusing, you can learn the ins and outs of marketing through a good digital marketing certificate program. It will help you get a deep understanding on how to use all available marketing channels to promote your blog in the best possible way.

Definition of blog marketing

Over the years, different types of online marketing strategies have emerged. One of the more popular methods is blog marketing. An approach that comes with a wide variety of benefits and takes advantage of different search engines such as Google and Bing.

Blog marketing includes the creation of textual, audio or video content on your blog site. It’s a practice that has a direct impact on a brand’s discoverability.

When a person is searching online, websites that offer quality content related to phrases typed into the search bar will emerge in the top results. It allows brands to increase their visibility and search engine traffic.

This method of marketing can be quite successful, as many companies have already used it to improve their business.

Like all marketing methods, blog marketing comes with pros and cons.

The pros of blog marketing

Blog marketing is a long-term strategy. When done properly, it is a highly effective marketing method that brings incredible results. The following are the main pros of blog marketing for your business:

• Organic traffic increases to your website. The primary goal of running a blog marketing strategy is bringing organic traffic to your site. The more people end up on your site, the higher the number of potential customers that are likely to buy your products or services.
• Becoming an authority in your niche. The better the content you share with people, the more influence your brand is going to have. By actively blogging, your brand becomes alive, and people start building trust within your brand. If more people see you as an authority in your niche, there’s a good chance that you’ll see an increase in sales. Assuming that you have strong calls to action to increase conversion rates and offer quality products.
• Low-cost advertising. Blog marketing is relatively cheap, all you have to do is find a writer who will regularly publish posts on your blog. Often, employees within a company can write content, or even the owner himself can invest time in content creation. No matter the approach, when compared to other methods, this is one of the cheapest ways to advertise your brand.
• Long-term results. Running a blog marketing strategy means that you are there for the long term. You can expect some serious results only when your blog is at least a year old and has enough useful content. But, once the results start coming in, they scale well, making both your first and last posts equally valid.
• A great foundation for other online marketing channels. No matter what digital marketing approach you are planning, you need to build a blog. It is a necessary foundation for social media marketing, inbound marketing, and email marketing. Without it, it is almost impossible to create a steady marketing approach.

Even though these benefits are significant, blog marketing also brings some cons to the table. Let’s take a look at what those are.

The cons of blog marketing

There are some downsides to blogging. So, before starting a blog, make sure that you are aware of them. It will help you create a better plan that will bring you good results:

• It takes time to build good content. Time investment is the biggest downside to creating high-quality content. You need to establish a plan that will allow you to invest time in your blog. The whole process is quite demanding but, when done properly, incredibly rewarding.
• The results will come gradually. The benefits of a high-quality blog can be seen only later down the road. It is the primary reason why people steer away from it. The risk of hiring a writer only to feel the benefits after a year of blogging is something that not everyone is willing to take.
• You have to be consistent. Having an inconsistent blog is worse than having no blog at all. The inconsistency is going to be noticed by both the customers and search engines, bringing a bad image to your brand.

Being aware of these cons will help you build a better blog marketing strategy. Before you start making a blog, make sure that you know that it will take some time to make it efficient. Being dedicated, and consistent and creating relevant content is the only way to ensure that blog marketing is successful.

Blog marketing tips

You have to create a sound plan before starting your blog marketing campaign. It is the only way to determine how high of an impact your blog is going to make on your business. Creating a blog is easy, in technical terms. The real challenge comes when you start looking at the type of content you are going to create.

Let’s take a look at a few tips that will get you going in the right direction.

• Define your target audience. Who are you writing this blog for? It is the first question you should be asking yourself. It is going to let you pick the right topics for your blog, and it will help you establish a particular style of content you need to create.
• Establish a publishing schedule. Before you start writing, make a commitment. How often are you planning to write? Is it going to be once a week? Three times a week? Every day? No matter what kind of publishing schedule you create, make sure that you stick to it. Take into consideration how much time you have on your hands and create a publishing schedule accordingly. Make sure to prepare 10-15 blog posts and use them when you start falling behind schedule. Always make sure to have backup articles in cases of emergency; it will help you stay consistent.
• Create content that matters. What does this mean? Well, you should create content that your audience is going to find useful. Share your knowledge with other people in the industry. High-quality content is the only way to turn your blog into a success. It will take more time to create such content, but the long-term results are going to be much better. Figure out what you are going to write about, put yourself in your customer’s shoes and consider what type of information they will find useful.
• Use different mediums. Enrich your content with video, images, and audio content. Various people enjoy consuming content differently. Provide more options for your visitors, as it will bring better results. Additionally, images and video material carry a much higher sharing potential. Thus, the next time you are providing statistics in your content, consider adding an infographic; it will reach out to a much higher of people.
• Know your goals. From the moment you start planning your blog marketing strategy, start considering what you want to achieve with your content. Do you want higher traffic? Do you want better conversion rates? Do you want high brand authority? Thinking about these goals is going to help you pick the direction of your content.
• Make a promotional plan. It doesn’t all end when you publish a blog post. Think about strategies that you could use to promote your content. Reach out to influencers and establish a social media presence. It is a great starting point for your blog promotion.
• Track results, improve, and repeat. Once you have taken all the above steps, it is time to pull out the Google analytics pages and see how well your content is performing. See what kind of content has the most views and shares. Analyze the results and fine-tune your plans for better performance. After that, repeat the whole process.

These tips will help you create the right blog marketing strategy, one that will make a significant impact on the future of your business.

Conclusion

Now that you know what blog marketing is and how to do it, it is time to start making blog marketing plans. Don’t forget that quality always beats quantity. Thus, make sure that every piece of your blog content is well-researched and has value for the reader. The results will come later on when your blog becomes a reliable resource.