Ask Olive is a place to get your most pressing modern marketing questions addressed by the experts.
Question
I get the impression that no one actually reads on the web, and our company doesn’t really have a lot to say, so does my brand need a blog strategy?
Answer
Yes, yes it does. Before we dig into why, we’d like to make an important note about the argument that no one actually reads blogs. Most of the evidence backing up this argument is anecdotal, stemming from individuals who say they’ve never read a blog themselves before. But, in most cases, we’ve found those individuals have actually read a blog without realizing it. There’s a variety of terms brands can use to describe their blog from knowledge base to thought leadership to insights, but a rose by any other name is actually still a rose. And chances are you’ve read that rose.
Now, for the important part. Olive, as a brand, is living proof of what a blog can do for your business. We’ve dedicated a great deal of time, effort, (and sometimes tears) to keeping the Olive blog current, relevant, and insightful. Even at a time when we saw others in our industry trend toward websites with as little content as possible, many of them abandoning blogs altogether, we believed in the value ours could bring to clients, prospects, and our agency.
This belief paid off. Our consistent content efforts have helped us make our way up the Google ranks, and the insights we dole out have generated more leads than we can handle. There’s really no better testament to the power of brand blogging than that.
But, don’t take our word for it, let’s take a look at the facts. Every time you publish a blog post, it provides fodder for what our project manager calls Father Google. Not only is each post a new page for search engines to index, but it’s also a new opportunity to generate more links to your site (97 percent more links to be exact). This not only contributes to boosts in search rankings, but also gives your brand more exposure through the sites/social profiles sharing your posts.
Now, you may be thinking, so what? I’m not looking for web traffic. I’m looking for leads. Well, there’s good news on that front as well. B2B companies that blog enjoy 67 percent more leads than those that don’t. Plus, those leads cost an average of 62 percent less than those generated through outbound means.
What’s more, the opportunity to generate these leads is only going to grow. Experts predict 85 percent of customer relationships will be managed online by 2020. This means the best way to introduce yourself to your customer will be online. And, as the fifth most dependable source for information, a blog is also an opportunity to turn that introduction into a trusted relationship.
Now, we can list benefit after benefit and make the argument that your brand needs a blog (though, let’s be honest, there are a number of exceptions to this rule, we aren’t really absolutists), but the reality is even if you decide you need a blog, you shouldn’t start one if you can’t support it. The only thing worse than no blog at all is a blog that isn’t getting updated on a regular basis. The need for consistency extends beyond frequency, each post should support a greater content strategy designed with your brand voice and goals in mind. Fortunately for you we have plenty of resources to help you out on that front.
Yours in Modern Marketing,
Olive
