40 facts on blogs every business needs to know to grow

More businesses are blogging for marketing purposes. And more people are reading them. Blogs are the lowest cost marketing channel; yet, as the fact below show, they can produce high returns.
Why? Blogs drive traffic to a website; raise page rank on search engines; create high quality leads and generate revenue and ROI.
They reveal a truth about human nature and relationships: People like to do business with people they know. After a product or service, relevant content is a a business’ next best asset.
Anything worth doing is worth doing well. The benefits of blogs don’t accrue without regular publishing, listening to the needs of your audience and engaging.
Is it worth it? Here are 40 facts on blogs every business needs to know to grow.
VISITORS TO A WEBSITE

• 55% of businesses with blogs see more visitors to their websites (HubSpot)
• 3X more minutes is spent on blogs by US internet users than on email or social networks (HubSpot)
• 5X more website traffic comes to businesses that blog 20 times per month (4-5 week) than those that blog fewer than 4X times per month (HubSpot)

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

• 434% increase in “indexed” search pages for businesses with a blog; said another way, businesses with a blog are found on 4X the number of search pages (HubSpot)
• 97% more inbound links are found on website that have a blog. This means the search engine are much more likely to credit a business with a blog as being an “authority” in their industry and raise their search rank  (HubSpot)
• 95% of businesses with a blog report higher search rank (HubSpot)
• 85% of blogs use tags (Technorati)
• 75% of us read a blog a day (Technorati)
• 4X more search pages for businesses with blogs than those without blogs (HubSpot)

LEAD GENERATION

• 77% lift in median monthly leads occurs to businesses with over 51 blog articles (HubSpot)
• 4X more leads occur for businesses that blog 20X per month than those that don’t (HubSpot)
• Average % cost per lead of various marketing strategies: Tradeshows=47%, Direct Mail=27%, Telemarketing=21%, SEO=13%, Blogging=9% (HubSpot)
• Average % lead acquistiion by companies through internet marketing channels are: 57% Blog, 57% Linkedin, 48% Faceboook, 42% Twitter (HubSpot)

PURCHASE INFLUENCE

• 70% of us say blogs influence what we buy (Marketing Sherpa)
• 67% of marketers say their company blog is “critical” or “important” to their business (HubSpot)
  
• 45% of companies with a blog track additional revenue from their blog (HubSpot)
• 15% say they are paid to give speeches on the topics they blog about (Technorati)

RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI): CASE STUDIES:

• GENERAL MOTORS’ FAST LANE BLOG: GM’s blog, written by senior execs, saves the company $200,000+ a year (Forrester)
• IBM: Let company employees set up their own internal blog to crowd-source innovation and new product idea across its global network. Crowd-sourcing identified 10 best incubator businesses, which IBM funded for $100 million. They generated $100 billion in total revenue for a 100-to-1 ROI with a 44.1% gross profit margin (Social Media Examiner)
• ZAGG: an online retailer, knows its blog results in sales, as it earns 172% ROI and 10% of the company’s site traffic (Marketing Sherpa)

BRAND IMAGE

• 71% of all respondents who maintain blogs for a business report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs (Technorati)
• 59% report blogging more frequently this year than they did last year (Technorati)
• 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog (Technorati)
• 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry (Technorati)

REACHING INFLUENCERS

• 64% of bloggers say brand representatives treat them less professionally than they’d like
• 42% of bloggers say they blog about brands they love (or hate)
• Among respondents who say they do blog about brands, 51% they said they rarely review brands, services or products among companies
• Among respondents who say they do blog about brands, 48% say they post reviews weekly

SOCIAL MEDIA

• 87% of all bloggers use Facebook (Social Media Today)
• 81% use Facebook to promote their blog (Social Media Today)
• 64% use Facebook to interact with readers (Social Media Today)
• 45% say Facebook drives more traffic to their blog than it did a year ago (Social Media Today)
• 73% of hobbyists and 88% of professional bloggers still use Twitter (Social Media Today)
• 50%+ of all bloggers link Twitter to their blog (Social Media Today)
• 34% of bloggers say Twitter is a more effective traffic source than it was a year ago (Social Media Today)