So, I was told to grow my business I have to start a blog for my small business, is it true?

Of course, it is.

The truth is as long as people keep enjoying good stories, blogging would continue to be an important part of the business strategy.

Traditionally, businesses depend on digitals ads, television commercials, experiential marketing to build customers loyalty.

But today, the marketplace is more crowded than ever and brands are competing aggressively for customers’ attention.

But the advent of social media has made customers more informed and assertive and buying decisions are now trust-based and self-directed and intrusive form of marketing is becoming repulsive to them.

In fact, in 2016 over 615 million people were using Ad blockers and two out of every three young millennia currently have one installed in their devices.

In 2017, new research revealed that only 9% of all digital ads are viewed for more than a second while 65% of those ads are not even seen at all, and in the same year, marketers in the UK were reported to have wasted over £7.2 Billion on unseen ads.

A study by McCarthy Group in 2015 shows that 84% of millennials don’t trust traditional ads and this growing resentment against intrusive marketing makes the inbound methodology the future of digital marketing.

According to a 2017 forecast by PG Media, digital-only content will replace hybrid print and digital content marketing as the largest platform in 2021 to reach $24 billion.

So if your business is still considering blogging, here are 4 reasons you should take it seriously today.

Why you should start a blog for your small business

First, your customers expect you to blog

A recent study by Havas Group shows that 84% of people expect brands to create content while another study shows that 95% of B2B buyers consider it to be trustworthy when evaluating a company.

In fact, an average buyer consumes about 11.4 content before making major purchases and consumers that read a brand’s educational contents are 131% more likely to purchase and 48% will still purchase even after 1 week.

In a study by the Economist Group, 71% of readers admit that they were turned off by content that seems like a sales pitch.

Your competitors are doing it

A study by eMarketer reveals that about two-thirds of marketers produce at least one new content every day.

In North America alone, a study by the Content Marketing Institute shows that 88% of B2B marketers are using blogging as part of their digital strategies.

This shows that the competition for content creation is becoming fiercer.

55% of marketers admit that content creation is their top inbound marketing priority and according to Social Media Examiner, 65% of marketers planned to increase their use of blogging in 2017.

In 2020, the number of bloggers is expected to reach 32 million and about 28% of marketers have reduced their digital advertising budgets in order to produce more content.

It converts better

A study by Aberdeen Group shows that brands that blog have a conversion rate that is six times more than those that don’t and according to Demand Metric, content marketing can generate about 3 times more leads than traditional marketing.

And of course, content is not just good at leads generation and conversions, but it is also capable of initiating the customers’ journey and can also shape customers’ perceptions about a brand.

A study by GroupM reveals that 86% of buyers conduct non-branded search queries before making buying decisions while another study by DemandGen reveals that 95% of B2B buyers consider content to be trustworthy when evaluating a company.

Thankfully, content marketing is not that expensive.

It costs 62% less than traditional marketing and a study by Hubspot reveals that marketers that prioritize blogging are 13X more likely to achieve a positive ROI on their efforts.

Brands are killing it with blogging

And you can too.

Lenovo, one of the largest manufacturers of computer hardware generates about $300 million in sales from content, while Lead Pages was able to generate $16 million from their content efforts.

And today, Coca-Cola spends more money on content creation than it does on TV advertising.

It might interest you to know that blog posts generate about 38% of overall traffic while companies that produced over 16 blog posts per month received almost 250% more traffic than companies that published four.

And those that post daily get 5 times more traffic than companies that don’t and on average, companies with a blog generate 67% more leads per month

In conclusion

Data from a survey by WP Curve shows that 89% of start-ups rely heavily on content marketing while 66% of the respondents reported that it was instrumental in driving growth to their business.

So doing the same would definitely help you to scale your business growth.