If you believed the reports that blogging was dead or that you didn’t need to find a place for it in your marketing strategy, well, think again. A newly released study from Hubspot shows just how wrong those reports were and why blogging absolutely belongs in your small business marketing plan.
Hubspot’s annual State of Inbound Marketing study was released recently and highlighted some growing trends when it comes to businesses, blogging and why the two may just go hand in hand. Impressively, Hubspot found that over the past two years, the percentage of respondents with a company blog has grown from 48 percent to 65 percent.
For those keeping score, that means if you’re not incorporating a blog into your marketing efforts, you can now consider yourself in the minority.
Go ahead; wrap your head around that.
Perhaps one reason for the increased adoption of blogs as a business tool is how cheaply they allow businesses to convert new customers. Fifty-five percent of companies who blog indicated this channel came at “below average cost,” citing more traditional advertising like trade shows, PPC, direct mail and telemarketing as all being more expensive. Even more important, 57 percent of those using company blogs say they’ve acquired a customer through a blog-generated lead, an increase of 11 percent since 2010. Yes, more than half of those blogging are seeing new leads from their efforts. If that’s not a reason to dedicate more time to blogging, I’m not sure what is.
And if you’re wondering how to get more leads via your blogging, well, it turns out you may want to start by increasing your number of posts. Hubspot’s survey showed a direct correlation between blog post frequency and new customers acquired.
According to the data, the percent of companies who acquired a customer through their blog breaks down this way:
- 33 percent: Blog less than monthly
- 49 percent: Blog monthly
- 72 percent: Blog weekly
- 76 percent: Blog 2-3 times a week
- 78 percent: Blog daily
- 89 percent: Blog multiple times a day
Yowza! If you’re surprised by the numbers, you really shouldn’t be. Blogging and small business marketing go hand in hand. As a small business owner, consistent blogging gives you an opportunity to build credibility with potential customers, to build up your authority, to create news around your brand, and to woo the search engines.
Not sure where to start or what to blog about? Here are 100 blog topics your small business can use today to build awareness, credibility and trust. Now get going. Your customers are waiting.
[“source-smallbiztrends”]
