One of the goals of Inbound Marketing is to generate a steady stream of qualified prospects using content.
This often starts by developing quality content that is well optimized for your persona and search engines, this in turn will attract more qualified visitors to your website who are interested in reading relevant content. Some may also explore other website pages, and request more information from you by filling out a form in exchange for their email address, and then they become a marketing qualified lead (MQL) which converted at the top of the funnel.
That's the basic purpose and plan of B2B content development when using the Inbound Marketing process.
But which Inbound Marketing tactic is best at doing this - and what is the proof behind it?
The answer is frequent and targeted blogging.
Many businesses claim they're doing blogging, but most of them are doing it the wrong way. Most of their posts are nothing more than press releases, event announcements and sales pitches, and sometimes they are poorly written and of no value to anyone.But when you blog correctly, the value of blogging can increase tremendously, you can increase website traffic, the number of qualified leads and, ultimately, increase your sales.
Target Your Persona's Buying Questions
When people perform an Internet search, they're usually looking for an answer to a question. The trick is to know your buyer persona well enough, so you know what questions they will ask, so you can provide them with that answer as your blog topic. With this simple strategy you will have a very high chance of attracting the right people to your website where you can tempt them with an offer to convert them.
The specific blog content you post should be aimed at your persona - that is - the blog has to answer their questions and address the problems that they are trying to solve.
Blogging Can Move Persona's Along The Funnel
By creating a series of blog posts on a single subject and increasingly developing more depth of content, your blogging efforts can easily and automatically move your prospects along the buying process. Blog content will go from the broad to the specific, all the while answering questions and providing valuable information to your prospect as they move along the buyers journey. Every time they read a post and download some content they are identifying themselves as an interested prospect.
Become A Trusted Voice - A Blog Authority
When you're consistently blogging on topics your persona wants to read, your readers will soon see your company as a trusted leader and a source of valued information in your industry. People are not only more inclined to do business with companies they trust, but they are also more likely to recommend your company to their personal network, by word of mouth, or sharing your posts via social media.
What is the proof that blogging works?
The following are 10 stats from HubSpot's annual survey, demonstrates just how valuable regular blogging can be.
- Companies that blog generate 126% more leads than those that don’t
- Blogging improves ROI. 80% of marketers with a company blog could prove inbound ROI
- 82% of marketers who blog daily acquire customers from their Blog
- The average company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors
- The average company that blogs generates 97% more inbound links
- The average company that blogs generates 434% more indexed pages
- 57% of marketers who blog monthly acquire customers from their Blog
- 61% of U.S. consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post.
- 82% of consumers enjoy reading relevant content from brands
- 81% of consumers trust information and advice from blogs
and one extra fact ... 70% of people prefer getting to know a company via content articles (that's blogs not ads)
Inbound blogging is one of the main focuses of your Inbound Marketing efforts. It's less costly than other forms of advertising, positions your company as true subject matter experts and is highly effective in bringing qualified leads to your sales and marketing department. We recommend you start now.
THE BRIT AGENCY is a B2B Inbound Marketing Agency providing Inbound Marketing, Inbound Website Design and Inbound Sales services to companies around the world. We're focused on growing website traffic, qualified leads and sales, using the Inbound lead generation and marketing automation process.
THE BRIT AGENCY is a certified Gold Tier Hubspot Partner, a HubSpot COS certified Inbound Website Design Agency, a Shopify eCommerce Partner, and a certified "Google Badged Agency Partner". We have offices in Toronto and Barrie, Canada, and Salisbury, UK.
