You already know that blogging is a key component of content marketing that just cannot be ignored by businesses anymore. Any company website without a blog is clearly missing out on a lot of traffic and potential sales leads.
But do you know what’s worse than not having a blog? A dead blog!
If the last, and only, post on your blog was 8 months ago, then you’re the perfect example of a dead blog. It gives away so many wrong signals about your company that it’s hard to imagine something more damaging and credibility shattering – especially for an online business.
Based on my years of blogging and content consultancy experience, here’s what most prospective customer would think about your company when they come across your dead forgotten blog.
1. You don’t know enough about your industry
There’s no shortage of competition in any industry these days. It’s hard for customers to choose the right company for their needs and blogs play a major role in triggering customer purchase decisions. Any intelligent and knowledgeable company would take note of this fact and try to build a knowledge based blog for their customers. The more industry knowledge you share through your blog content, the more credible you become in the eyes of your potential customers.
By abandoning your blog, you’re giving all the wrong signals. You’re effectively telling your website visitors that you don’t have enough knowledge and expertise in your industry. You don’t know how to address the burning issues of the industry. You have no idea how to resolve customer issues.
With such credibility damaging signals coming from your blog, it’s hard to generate any sales from it.
2. You’re not a professional company
The internet has made it much easier for individuals to start their own companies. That’s obviously great for the economy. But it has also made it difficult for the customers to differentiate between professional corporate set ups and one man companies running from somebody’s bedroom. An abandoned blog puts you firmly in the latter group.
Giant corporations and industry leaders are increasingly investing money in building up their professional content teams with experienced bloggers and thought leaders. This gives them a clear edge over the one-man outsourced companies that have grown like mushrooms all over the internet.
3. You don’t care about your customers
Blogs, along with social networking websites, have effectively become the most engaging and timely customer service platforms. Companies encourage their blog readers to comment on their posts, share their feedback, discuss new product ideas and register complaints.
You on the other hand, have a dead blog. Which means customer satisfaction is the last thing on your mind – at least this is what I’d think if I was your customer. Your blog has a few old and isolated posts with a handful of (unanswered) comments, and you’ve never thought about building an email list, because that requires blogging as well. In short, there’s no connection between you and your customers.
4. You have no success stories to share
Companies use their blogs to build their credibility by sharing client testimonials and success stories with their readers. They create case studies on how they managed to win back hopelessly frustrated and irate clients and turned them into loyal customers. They show their prospective clients how keenly they look after their customers and make every effort to resolve their problems.
But with a dead blog, you’re doing none of that. You give out the impression of a company that has nothing special to show for its services. A company that has never gone the extra mile to help its customers.
As a prospective customer, looking to choose the most credible service for my needs, I would always prefer a company that shares success stories and testimonials. It would give me the extra sense of comfort, that I won’t be let down or left alone when I need help.
5. You’re going out of business
This is perhaps the most glaring impression that a dead blog would give away about your company. And this is why having a dead blog is worse than having no blog at all.
When a client explores your blog and sees the last post, dated 6 months back, he immediately looks for other sources to check if you’re even operating anymore. He loses confidence in your services and becomes suspicious of your commitment to your customers.
How would you feel if you see an SEO agency or a digital marketing company with a blog last updated 9 months ago?
A digital marketing agency is supposed to get you traffic and help you with content marketing (which obviously involves blogging as well). How credible would they be with their own blog dead and completely ignored?
I don’t know about you, but I would immediately consider them out of business and no more operational.
6. You’re out of touch with the current trends
You know that content marketing is critical for driving high value traffic that converts much more frequently. You also know that the leading companies in every industry invest a lot of money into their blogging and content marketing resources.
But if YOU know it, why isn’t, a supposedly, professional company aware of such a simple fact. They must obviously be out of touch with the current industry trends. If all of their competitors are blogging, why are they ignoring it?
7. You have an ignorant marketing team
When I see a company investing heavily in SEO, SEM and other paid advertisement campaigns, but completely ignoring blogging, I know they have a bad marketing team.
Why?
Because they’re investing money into something that is much more short term and has a lower conversion rate than inbound marketing and blogging. Leads generated through paid advertisements can never be as mature and convertible as those acquired through regular blogging campaigns.
You might initially save a few hundred or thousand dollars by preferring paid advertisements over content marketing, but over a longer period of time these leads would cost you much more since most of them would not give you repeat business or referral sales. PPC is an investment that goes away with the user’s click.
Blogging, on the other hand, is your brand’s permanent asset and would continue to bring you leads even months and years after publishing it.
But your smart marketing team won’t tell you that.
Wrapping it up
Blogging is an essential online branding and marketing platform. By taking it lightly and not investing in it seriously, you’re not only wasting a golden opportunity to acquire long term clients but also sending damaging signals to your prospective customers about your brand. So purely from a business point of view, it would be wise to either develop a comprehensive in-house blogging strategy or engage professional freelance bloggers to help you with regular content generation. The opportunity cost is just too much for you to bear.
Author Bio: “Jawad Khan is a Content Marketing Specialist at Quality Trade, a leading B2B marketing and trading portal for verified and highly credible businesses. Follow Jawad on Google+ and Twitter.”
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