I don’t think I need to reiterate the power of - carefully crafted chunks of texts blended with preferably ‘captivating’ images (as an unavoidable marketing tool) - in channeling ‘traffic’ and eventually ‘profits’ to any online businesses.
Yet, here I am again emphasizing on the high ROI that a valuable, ‘audience-focussed’ content can bring about… Yes you guessed it right, I am talking about BLOGS!!
And I do have substantial reasons for stressing on the importance of including blogposts as a crucial element within the Inbound Marketing Strategy - for millions of businesses that have gone digital. Here are a few for you to take a peek at:
- 80 percent of B2B marketers report using blogs as their core Inbound tactic. (CMI)
- B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only 4-5 times per month. (HubSpot)
- Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website. (Business2Community)
- By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human (Kapost). i.e. consumers are more likely to research on their own about your company before connecting with you, and the easiest way to learn about a company is through its blog!
I’m sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to treating blogs as - more of a ‘marketing arm’ dedicated to the growth of your business. A tool that generates ‘online visibility’ and drives traffic to your website, which are then turned into ‘leads’ and finally converted into ‘customers’ to achieve the much needed revenue and ‘success’ for your brand.
Now, to achieve this, it requires a little bit more effort than just slapping some blobs of texts with pretty images. You can start off with understanding your ‘buyer personas’ and crafting meaningful content to address their issues – or better still, come up with an all-encompassing Inbound Marketing Strategy that takes ‘blogging’ as one of the key element in the mix.
To get you started for now, let’s look into some of the powerful ‘hacks’ that you can learn to make your blog more valuable and engaging to your audiences:
1. Focus on your ‘Most crucial copy’ – The ‘HEADLINE’!
Yes, the ‘title’ or the ‘headline’ of your blog is the determining factor to whether the rest of the content is to be read or not.
The first impression you make on any visitor to your blog post, is via your content ‘title’ or ‘headline’! And if you’re not putting the right effort to make it stand out or make it ‘appealing enough’ for the readers - it could well be the ‘only’ impression made.
The advertising legend, David Ogilvy says, On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar”.
In a similar vein, statistics from Copyblogger say, 80% of your visitors will read your headline and only 20% will proceed to finish reading the article.
Here are a few ideas you can use to craft your headlines, so it's considered ‘worthy’ enough for the visitors to read further:
- The instructional – ‘How To’ Effect
These ‘How To’ headlines are clever eye-catchers that immediately offer clear and ‘an easy to follow’ procedural answer to a pertinent issue.
For example:
How to get 100,000 readers for your blog?
How to run an Inbound Marketing Campaign?
- ‘Listicles’ – the number game
These numbered Listicles or List posts are effective in grabbing readers’ attention, as they tell them precisely ‘what’ and ‘how much’ they are going to get from the read.
It gives the reader the exact number or ‘reasons’, ‘tips’, ‘secrets’ ‘ways’ etc., that is in store for them, and makes it easy for them to go for a quick scan.
For example:
5 Critical Steps In Creating A Successful Inbound Marketing Campaign
Top 5 Lead-Generating Ideas for Your Content Marketing
- Throwing in a ‘Sub headline’ for Clarity
This secret is about crafting your headlines in pairs. A main title followed by a subtitle. Here the sub-headline ‘supports’ the main heading, bringing more clarity. CMI says that ‘A colon or hyphen in the title indicating a subtitle, performed 9% better than headlines without’
For example:
The Ultimate Blog Marketing Checklist: 65 Tips, Tools, and Resources
Lead Generation – The ‘Tipping Point’ in Inbound Marketing
2. Offer Something ‘helpful’ & ‘Free’ through CTAs
A blog without a Call To Action (CTA) or any offer in exchange for the visitors’ information – is like going on a date and leaving without knowing the Name, Phone Number or the email id of your ‘date’, i.e. there’s no link, or even the most scattered traces of ‘bread crumbs’ that could bring both of you together in the future.
Hence, CTAs are critical in generating ‘leads’ for your business, as they nudge the users to a landing page, where their other personal info such as names, emails etc. are captured through Lead forms in exchange for an irresistible offer.
This is crucial, because once the users fall for your bait (offer) – engagement can be established in the future through emails, newsletters or say, via communicating through the ‘free weekly blogposts’ – the offer they just took, clicking through one of your CTAs.
The CTAs can be anything from free trial offers of your product, subscription to your blogs or an offer to download a useful eBook, such as: 
Even for those quick ‘skimmers’ and ‘scanners’ who hardly go through the entire content of your blog, a compelling offer made via a CTA can actually engage the user with your brand and could well be a ‘repeat customer’ in the future.
3. Engaging readers, WITHIN & BEYOND your blog!
Once your visitors go through your blogpost, it's but a ‘natural urge’ for them to engage in a conversation. They could be inspired, confused or completely satisfied with your writing - whatever the case, it's essential they get a space to interact with the writer either via a comment box, a social media share or simply through emails.
So, it goes without saying that a ‘comment box’ below your blog for the readers to respond/comment is a must. And if you’re looking for even more interactions amongst your users, you can go for the multiline comments option which allows users to comment within a string of comments - this keeps the buzz going. Neil Patel claims that his 240+ comments on blogs have generated almost 4,000 visitors to his websites.
A good industry practice is to give genuine feedback or a response to every comment that's directed to the author. This gives a message to the readers saying ‘we value your comments and ideas’ and it builds that ‘trust’ with them.
Besides this, you can go beyond the confines of your blogpost and promote your content through social media platforms such as; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc., and they don’t cost you a single penny. Google also indexes many social media networks, including Pinterest and Google+.
If you’d like to challenge yourself a bit more, Influencer Marketing and Guest Blogging can work wonders in directing sizeable inbound links to engage with your blogpost.
Finally…
Blogs have been and still are the ‘centre pieces’ that sustain any Inbound Marketing Campaigns of digital brands today. As we're increasingly witnessing newer ways to engage and share amongst ourselves in the ever-evolving ‘digitalsphere’, ‘blogging’ plays a crucial role in generating a compelling narrative and establishes a powerful connection between the consumers and the brands geared to serve them!
If you'd like more assistance with your content or would like to discuss anything covered today, we'd love to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox on (03) 5249 5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au
Our Website is element7digital.com.au
