Happy New Year, y’all! Less than a month into 2019, the season of “new year, new me!” is still going strong from a self-improvement perspective, but what if we told you that you should be doing the same for your company? In that case, a blog could actually be your brand’s “new you” goal! Blogs are sometimes misconstrued as a “dying art” that requires too much time or effort, but that belief is a BIG mistake as far as we are concerned (we promise, people still read blogs, and often!).
Not sure what we mean? Luckily, we have a few dear old (in some cases, very old) friends who can help prove our point. Brace yourselves—it’s time to click your heels and go back to the “Golden-Age” of musicals to discover five of the reasons you still need a blog in 2019:
1. Especially if your brand’s content is particularly hard to understand, blogs can bring everything back to the basics.
The Sound of Music—Do Re Mi
Just as Julie Andrews was able to teach effectively by beginning with a jazzed-up version of classical vocal basics, so a blog can bring your company back to its own roots. Consider the following questions:
- Who are you at your core—what is your company’s purpose?
- How does your work make a difference? How do you meet the needs of your target audience?
- What should consumers know about your operations—commitments to sustainability, for example, are great topics to blog about!
- What should people know about your products? For fresh produce companies, blogs that provide recipes and nutrition information never go out of style!
No one can glean the answers to any of the above just by looking at a flashy label or a photo on your website. Blogging gives you the chance to say exactly what you want to customers on a regular basis.
2. A blog is an essential tool for learning about your customers.
The King and I—Getting to Know You
Deborah Kerr (lip)sang it best: companies should want to really get to know their customers, because customers want to get to know you! It is crucial to employ empathy and really get in the mindset of your customers to consider what they want and need to hear. Customers want to put a face, a voice, a person to the products they’re buying. If you download our Second Edition of Stats that Prove, you’ll discover that B2B companies that blogged had over 3x more traffic than companies that do not. Moreover, 50% of buyers stated that reading a blog influences their buying decisions—talk about having a claim to near-regal importance!
3. A blog makes your company unique…
…and unique enough to sing about on a beach, if you’re lucky! Here’s why originality is so important, also discussed in our Stats That Prove offer: 61% of consumers report that they are more likely to buy from companies with custom content. In our minds, this is further evidence that consumers are looking for content that goes way beyond the generic information that tends to be the norm. That’s definitely justification for featuring diverse voices on your blog—in fact, that’s also part of why we segmented our own Core blog to better speak to our own audiences:
4. Blogging improves your brand’s SEO (i.e. makes it easier for people to find you online!)
Search Engine Optimization essentially boils down to making it easier for the right people to find you online based on your website content. For example, a consumer looking for healthier eating options might search for “healthy recipes” or “fresh food tips.” For your business, consider what people are looking for when searching for your product/service. Remember, birds of a feather flock together (especially when there’s a french fry—or fried artichoke, if you’re like us at DMA—involved). Thus, when SEO best practices [link to SEO Core posts] are applied consistently over time, it’s as easy for people to find you as it is finding seven brides for seven brothers! …or even easier, hopefully.
5. Lastly, blogging is *gasp* fun! Remember, people, it’s not against the law to enjoy your work.
Singin’ in the Rain- Singin’ in the Rain
Though writing a blog can be daunting, simply brainstorming and daring to get creative with ideas can be just as fun as, well, Singin’ in the Rain! I will neither confirm nor deny that I’ve tried (and possibly failed) to imitate Gene Kelly in this scene whenever I walk by a particularly tempting rain puddle…but I digress. The real takeaway here is that it’s crucial to communicate to others what your brand is passionate about. For some individuals, it’s dancing in the rain and singing to small children—for us, it’s talking about fresh produce and promoting our belief in the good of food that is grown.
Overall, blogs have the power to strengthen your company’s identity, or even to help reinvent your brand. Take advantage of the new year by starting a new blog, dusting off the old one you’ve been neglecting, or taking a fresh approach to one that is updated regularly but could use a bit of a jump-start. Take this time to make sure you are effectively communicating what your audience really needs to know about your brand—and if all else fails, remember: we’ve heard that a spoonful of sugar ensures that “every task you undertake becomes a piece of cake” (it’s worth a try, right?).
Stay tuned for our next post on the Core! Until then, so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, and goodbye.
Have any favorite golden-age musicals of your own that you relate to marketing? Leave us a comment below or tweet to us at @TheCoreBlog!
To learn more about how you can plan to elevate your social media presence in 2019, check out our latest social media calendars.
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