Should My Company Start a Blog? Your Guide to Content Marketing
If you’ve made it to this section on the AFFIRM website, you’ve probably noticed that we enjoy blogging, but you might be wondering if a blog is right for your company.
The short answer: yes! Blogs are a popular and effective form of content marketing. In this post, we’ll define content marketing and explain why you should have a content marketing strategy.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing technique that builds relationships between an organization and its customers by providing valuable, high-quality content. Blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts, social media, and e-books are all forms of content marketing.
Unlike advertising, content marketing is not explicitly promotional. It provides educational and/or entertainment value beyond your product or service itself.
If it’s not promoting your product, why should you care? Like we said above, content marketing is all about building relationships. Your content makes your customers see you as valuable. And when customers see that value, sales go up. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of content marketing.
Why Should You Have A Content Marketing Strategy?
Here’s just a few ways content marketing can support your business goals:
Content Marketing Establishes Thought Leadership
Whether you run a Fortune 500 company, a B2B small business, or an Etsy shop, you are an EXPERT at what you do. People trust your company for a quality product or service, and you can deliver.
Content marketing showcases your unique expertise, otherwise known as “thought leadership.” Your content establishes your company as a credible and leading resource in the eyes of your current and potential customers.
For example, we at AFFIRM are experts in all things marketing and communications. We use the content in our blogs to show people that we understand the qualities of a good marketing campaign, and this helps us build relationships with new customers. Case in point? Our blog on Visual Note-Taking helped us secure several projects and new inquiries.
Content Marketing Expands Your Reach
Content can help your business reach new customers beyond your physical location. Let’s use our AFFIRM blogs as an example.
Content can boost your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). When someone types something in the search bar, the search engine will “read” every website and try to find the best websites for that search. If you have a blog, e-book or another form of content marketing, you increase the number of your company’s key words on your website and make yourself more visible to potential customers.
AFFIRM writes many blogs about social marketing, one of our fields of expertise. When someone types “social marketing” in the search bar, our website is more likely to be in the results because our blogs use those keywords. As a result, our blogs reach people from all around the world. Yes, around the world. Our two-part blog series on Grammar has enjoyed visits from China, France, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and many more!
Your content can also help you engage and build a following on social media. People go on social media for connection, information, and entertainment. You can provide all that and more with relevant, high-quality content.
Content marketing can also support your public relations efforts. Due to the decreasing number of staff journalists, especially in trade publications and local news, media outlets welcome well-made content from businesses. Turn your blog post into a bylined article and pitch it to a relevant publication, and you might be able to reach a new group of potential customers.
Content Marketing Shows Personality
People buy from people, not brands. Your ability to create long-lasting, friendly relationships between you and your customers is crucial to your business’ success, especially if you run a B2B organization and/or provide a service. Customers want to know not only what you can do, but who you are.
We find that some of our clients’ most popular social media posts focus on employees, not the company itself. People love seeing themed office parties, learning about employees’ hobbies outside of work, and reading about how companies first began.
This more personal form of content marketing does not, and should not, make up your entire content strategy, but try to add a personal touch to some of your content. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Content Marketing Can Save Money
Unlike advertising, you don’t have to pay to distribute your content marketing (although paid amplification can certainly support your content marketing efforts). Your content can live on your website, newsletters, and social media pages, and still attract potential customers. This makes content marketing a relatively inexpensive form of marketing communications.
However, while content marketing can save money, it might cost you time. If you want to see real results, you need time to strategize and develop high-quality content. Your content will not be successful if it is poorly made and/or does not align with your marketing goals.
And that’s where we at AFFIRM can help. We work with you to develop a content marketing strategy that achieves your business goals. We can help you create videos, infographics, articles, blogs and more that can create real results. Contact us to get started.
