This blog post is part of the ‘How Can Business Blogging Benefit’ series. Click here for a full list of blog posts within the series.
One of the most common misconceptions we hear when it comes to business blogging is that it can only be of benefit to organisations who have products to sell. Physical items that people can purchase. For these product-based organisations, there are some fantastic blogs out there that are used to speak to the company’s target audience, attract potential customers in and then drive these leads through to direct product pages, where a sale then takes place.
But just because this happens with organisations who sell products, it doesn’t mean a blog can’t be an extremely beneficial tool for other organisations.
And looking at the other end of the spectrum, here we provide an insight into how business blogging can benefit a consultancy, a type of organisation that generally sees a lot of success offline rather than through various digital technologies.
You can instil confidence in your audience
The internet has meant organisations of all sizes can reach audiences right around the world, making the decision as to who to spend your money with increasingly difficult.
As a consultancy, a business blog can give you the opportunity to talk regularly to your audience about your services. You can talk about problems in the industry and give your view on them. You can provide an insight into the problems your clients are likely to be facing, giving some basic advice on how to overcome them, before providing calls to action that direct to your services.
To you, it might just seem like words on a page, but to your target audience it’s showing that you know what you’re talking about. It’s proving that you’re very likely to be able to deliver what they need – and when your audience feels confident in your ability, they’re extremely likely to feel confident parting with their money to hire your services.
You can showcase your success stories
One of the most useful tools that a consultancy can use when winning new clients is case studies. They show how successful your services have been to others and whilst they don’t necessarily mean future clients will see the same results, the give a great indication of what to expect.
Through the development of a business blog, you can showcase every single success story you have, publishing them for all to view online.
Written quotes from past clients. Video testimonials. Images or graphs showing what’s happened after the consultancy service was offered – they’re all fantastic aspects to help move readers over to the client side of the fence and a business blog gives you the opportunity to put these success stories in front of a huge audience.
You can attract completely new customers
Particularly for freelance or individual consultants, a lot of new work often comes from word of mouth advertising – you work with one client and on the assumption you deliver a great service, as soon as the client hears about someone wanting the services you offer, you’re likely to be recommended straight away.
And because of this, a lot of consultants often stick to this type of advertising and other more traditional options.
But the problem here is you’re relying on people to effectively do your advertising for you, which can greatly restrict your reach.
With a blog, you instantly open up your target audience. You’re obviously still going to be focusing on the same market in general, but instead of, for example, only having your local town or city knowing about your services, you can essentially have the whole world knowing about them (obviously this is where localisation comes into play, but it shows the scope of your potential reach).
As in the above two points, a blog allows you to talk about the topics you know about in-depth, as well as showcasing your success stories – you’d normally do this when talking one-on-one with a potential client, but a blog gives you the ability to essentially speak to thousands of potential clients at once.
Whilst there are obviously consultancies who focus on digital technologies and plenty of other consultancies who have made the transition to the digital world, the consultancy industry is often still seen as quite an old-fashioned one in its approach to business.
Developing a more digital focus can be daunting for both individual consultants and organisations alike, but with the right planning and preparation, a business blog can prove to be the perfect stepping stone to a more digital business, as well as developing into a resource that becomes to central focus of all of your online activity.
