The word “blogging” typical conjures up the image of a person sitting in front of his or her laptop, sipping on coffee, and writing a reflection piece about his/her day as if the document on the laptop is a journal. However, blogging is no longer only used on the individual level. Businesses increasingly use blogging as a marketing tool in an internet-driven world.
Blogging is considered “inbound marketing,” a method of marketing that provides customers with useful information as a way of attracting customers to their sites. In 2011, HubSpot (a marketing software company) released a survey showing that 65% of businesses now use blogs as one of their marketing tools. The modern world heavily revolves around the internet, leading to 57% of companies seeing benefits in using blogging as a method for customer acquisition and 27% of companies citing their blogs as “critical” to business. In addition, the cost of inbound marketing is significantly lower on average than the traditional forms of marketing (Source).
Businesses also use blogging as a way to appeal to customers on a more personal level. Marketing is no longer thought of as simply getting people to buy your product. Companies now want to create a brand around the products and appeal to people in an effort to create loyal customers. Blogging not only gives customers and potential customers valuable information, but also gives people an opportunity to get to know the company better. Sweet Leaf Tea is one of those businesses that has successfully used blogging to reach out to customers by “humanizing their blog while staying true to their brand.” (Source) Looking at the combined benefits of blogging, it is not a surprise that so many companies now prefer to use blogging, including different forms of social media, to garner attention and acquire customers.
Article by Jenny Z.