Blogging was one of the first digital marketing tactics to really take off. In fact, many of the other content mechanisms (vlogging, guest blogging, etc.) are direct descendants of the original blog. But as channel marketing matures, is there still a place in the modern digital marketing handbook, or have we evolved past the lowly blog?
The short answer is: no. The blog is not dead. It’s not only alive, but it’s still kicking up quite a ruckus as marketers build and develop new strategies and tactics for emerging markets. Here are some reasons why a blog still belongs in your repertoire of digital channels.
Blogging is Still the Best Way to Achieve Good SEO
Most channel marketers need to target many different keywords, along with a hefty list of long-tail keywords. It’s simply impossible to work all these keywords into your website pages seamlessly without having a blog. With a blog, you can target a theoretically endless string of keywords and long-tail keywords, without bloating your other web pages. A strong blog writer can boost your SEO rankings for every keyword you need to target while remaining authoritative, relative, and interesting.
Blogging Allows You to Distribute Lots of Content
There’s often a limit to how much other content you can get out there with your channel marketing efforts. For example, how many videos can you afford to produce each quarter? How many PPC or banner ads can you afford to place per week? Blogs are inexpensive to produce and can be published quickly. You can publish as many blogs as your marketing team can crank out. It’s cheaper, faster, and much less limited than most other marketing channels.
Blogging is a Great Way to Promote Other Content You Develop
Did you just develop a killer ebook? Maybe you just finished a brilliant white paper or an awesome new promotional video. Whatever it is you’re trying to distribute, a blog can get it in front of more people more quickly than most any other channel. When you simply build a landing page and try to lure people in via keyword search, you’ll only bring a relatively few people in. Blogging makes it possible for you to reach a much larger target audience for your content than you could with any other method. Plus, blogging is far cheaper than most other tactics.
Blogging is Easy to Share Via Social
Struggling to fill your social media feeds with enough interesting and relevant fodder? Your blogs are natural sources of social media posts, and you can even set your blog up to automatically post to your social media feeds when published. It’s a rare easy win for social media marketing, and if you’ve included stellar images with your blog, you’ve automatically upped the ante. Social posts with strong images and eye-catching headlines generate far more clicks, likes, and shares than those with text only (or lame headlines — nobody reads posts with lame headlines).
Blogging Builds Your Brand Reputation
Building a solid, memorable, powerful brand reputation is one of the hardest things for channel marketers to do. Blogging gives you a platform for repeating your message without becoming repetitive. Reinvent your messages over and over again in the form of blog posts. Spin the message around newsworthy events,industry trends, and other current media buzz. Your brand reputation will grow and prosper before your eyes.
Blogging Establishes Your Company as a Thought Leader
In the realm of channel marketing, becoming an industry thought leader is no menial task. There are lots of people out there with excellent ideas, insight, and opinions. A blog provides an ideal platform for putting your executives, developers, and other talent into the spotlight, highlighting what they have to contribute to the discussion. Most large corporations already do this successfully: Microsoft’s developers have their own blogs, as do VMware’s developers, and many others. You can also see this in fashion and interior design, where designers have their own blogs, and in industries like finance, where company executives help people spot trends, capitalize on opportunities, and avoid unnecessary financial risks via their blogs.
Blogging Helps You Nurture Leads & Build Strong Customer Relationships
Blogging is also a powerful tool for pushing customers through the marketing funnel. Through your blog, leads get to know your company and your brand, therefore it is an excellent way to nurture leads. Channel marketers also have to keep up the banter with existing customers, and a blog is the best way to do that. Use your blog to highlight interesting use cases for your products. Use it to highlight how your brand is helping to promote a clean environment. Use the blog to explain how your products meet needs and alleviate pain points.
Blogging is most certainly not dead. It’s just grown up a bit as digital marketing itself matured.
