Together with running a blog as part of your marketing strategy may deliver you extra clients. In keeping with our State of Marketing report, blogs are among the many high three advertising and marketing channels that ship the very best ROI.

However realizing that running a blog can increase your credibility, web optimization, leads, and income will not be sufficient. Uncovering why individuals learn blogs is the way you make your weblog efficient and reap the advantages.
To find out why individuals learn blogs, we surveyed 298 individuals from throughout the US.
Here is what we all know.
Running a blog is alive and effectively.
I’d be extraordinarily rich if I had a greenback for each time I learn, watch, or hear that “running a blog is lifeless.”
This isn’t true.
In a current ballot, we requested 325 individuals to share how typically they learn blogs, and 29% said they read 1 to 4 times per month.
Earlier than you get wrapped up on this constructive information, keep in mind that what labored a number of years in the past received’t work right this moment.
Whereas running a blog remains to be extremely priceless, the way you strategy it issues greater than ever. You will must work more durable to influence individuals to learn your content material than you have got prior to now.
In our survey, which requested contributors to pick why they devour weblog content material, choices included:
- To be taught one thing unrelated to my profession.
- To be entertained or go the time.
- To unravel issues associated to my profession or trade.
- To find out about information and developments in my job trade.
With the variety of leads business blogs generate, you may assume many individuals learn blogs to find out about issues associated to their trade.
However it may shock you that solely 29% % of shoppers learn blogs to find out about one thing associated to their trade.
In keeping with our survey outcomes, extra individuals are pushed to learn blogs that educate them how one can do one thing new.
Whereas 62.2% chosen this reasoning, 51.1% mentioned they learn blogs to be entertained, and 42% learn blogs to find out about information or developments of their job trade.
Additionally, 10% mentioned they learn blogs to satisfy a studying obligation.
These outcomes suggest you’ll want to create informative and entertaining content material to win weblog readers. Content material created solely to promote your provide received’t minimize it.
On this weblog put up, I‘ll stroll you thru the highest three causes shoppers learn blogs. I’ll additionally present you how one can create a blog with content material that fulfills your reader’s wants whereas nonetheless subtly spreading model consciousness.
3 Causes Individuals Learn Blogs
1. Individuals learn blogs to be taught one thing new.
By far, the commonest purpose individuals learn weblog posts is to be taught one thing new. This consequence does not shock me in any respect. Our survey reveals individuals love posts about guides, step-by-step processes, tutorial movies, or quick info.
Such posts may achieve a large amount of search traffic as a result of individuals search Google for directions about how one can do issues every day.
Even when posts aren‘t informing individuals of how one can do one thing on a granular stage, blogs that debate complicated research, developments, or matters individuals are much less acquainted with can pique an individual’s curiosity.
Psychology research shows people crave priceless data, very like they want meals or wealth. Harness this want by creating content material that arouses curiosity about your model, service, or merchandise.
For instance, on our marketing blog, we’d present our readers how one can use a brand new social media community, like Instagram’s Threads.
By doing this, entrepreneurs or social media customers who need to learn the way Threads work may discover our content material in search or on social media and skim it.
On a broader scope, our weblog may create a number of items of content material that debate a development from a number of angles. For instance, when TikTok emerged, we wrote a number of weblog posts to reply widespread marketer questions like:
Moreover serving to our readers, trend-related blogs allow us to spotlight our analysis and information as entrepreneurs. This might additionally present prospects that HubSpot is a reputable firm that sells high quality merchandise throughout the advertising and marketing trade.
2. Individuals learn blogs to be entertained.
Whereas individuals need information, additionally they wish to be entertained. Every day, individuals may learn blogs that inform fascinating tales, make them chuckle, or intrigue them in another method. That is the place multimedia content material shines.
As our survey notes, 32% of respondents say video, imagery, or different multimedia are among the most fascinating parts that make them learn weblog content material.
As a marketer, you may ask, “How can I entertain my readers whereas nonetheless holding my weblog skilled?” There are a variety of how to do that.
One is to create enjoyable infographics about viral developments in your trade. Whereas your readers won’t make investments on this development, the imagery and data may entertain them.
For instance, in one of our posts, we highlighted humorous memes entrepreneurs used of their campaigns.
This instance beneath is entertaining as a result of it reveals the messiness of working a brand new enterprise. It’s additionally on-brand as a result of it reveals an precise image of the enterprise proprietor.
Alternatively, you would additionally create a enjoyable, however informative, video or podcast to go along with your weblog put up.
This content material will permit you to deeply focus on a viral advertising and marketing development, or interview an trade skilled. Whereas this won’t entertain individuals outdoors your trade, it may well make your weblog extra fascinating.
Enjoyable reality: 27.9% of our survey respondents say recommendation or insights from consultants and/or thought leaders of their area is one aspect that may make them learn weblog content material.
3. Individuals learn blogs to find out about developments associated to their job trade.
Succeeding in an trade with out realizing the way it works is troublesome. That’s why social media entrepreneurs want the most recent social media marketing trends. Identical goes for content marketers, salespeople, customer service experts, and extra.
These developments may intrigue your weblog readers, and you may gain advantage by together with a suggestion. As an illustration, our sales trends put up has a hyperlink to our detailed 2023 gross sales development report.
After studying this report, a salesman who needs to go deeper may determine to obtain our report. That’s a win as a result of we will now construct a relationship with this subscriber by sending extra priceless content material.
Developments additionally embody new merchandise or platforms. For instance, our trade lately began buzzing in regards to the social media platform Threads. As we watched Threads develop, we knew we needed to create content material that’d assist customers navigate this new app.
See the first post we created about Threads:
Moreover explaining what Thread is and why the app was going viral, we additionally created more posts about this new platform.
By responding to developments and news-like Threads, we place our weblog because the go-to place for the most recent trade insights about advertising and marketing, gross sales, customer support, and basic ideas.
Doing the identical will show you how to win weblog readers and generate gross sales down the road.
Now that you realize why individuals learn blogs, it’s truthful to be taught why a weblog put up won’t curiosity a reader.
3 Causes Customers Cease Studying a Weblog Put up
Tackling these causes will show you how to perceive how one can appeal to readers to your weblog. Throughout our survey, we requested respondents to share the highest three causes they’d cease studying a weblog put up.
Right here’s what they mentioned.
1. The weblog put up is poorly written or laborious to observe editorially.
33.2% of our respondents chosen this feature. That’s one in three readers. To keep away from this example, you’ll want to be cautious of the elements of a poorly written post.
This consists of:
- Obscure introductions. In case your blog post introduction doesn’t sound like an excellent pickup line, ditch it. Such intros are seemingly imprecise, and so they’d trigger your reader to maneuver alongside.
- No readability. These posts typically include jargon that the meant viewers can’t perceive. Additionally they lack clear language and infrequently embody grammatical errors and typos.
- Weak content material concepts. If the thought for an article is surface-level, the article won’t go deep in substance. So earlier than placing pen to paper, weigh the standard of your content material thought.
- Off-topic rambling. Going off-topic is a no-no. By no means deviate. Introducing irrelevant data will solely confuse readers and make your content material troublesome to observe.
2. The weblog put up takes too lengthy to satisfy the promise given in its title or description.
33.2% of our respondents say blogs fail at this process. The straightforward answer: get to the purpose quick.
At HubSpot, we normally require our staff to stay with two- to three-paragraph introductions, particularly when the subject is clear to the reader.
This ensures we don’t waste our readers’ time and helps us get to the meat of our weblog posts rapidly.
3. The weblog put up is just too lengthy or text-heavy.
31.5% of our respondents give up studying weblog posts for that reason. To repair this, you’ll be able to embody bullet factors, infographics, movies, memes, and pictures in your long-form posts. This breaks the wall of textual content and improves content material readability.
As a basic rule, you’ll be able to embody these content material parts for each 300 phrases of textual content you write.
Creating Content material That Fulfills Reader Wants in 2023
Your viewers has a number of motivations for studying your weblog put up. Some need leisure, others need to be taught, and others need trade or career-specific data.
To win all of them, you’ll want to create a mixture of all these content material. Creating this content material additionally makes it straightforward to plug in your product if it is associated to what you’re discussing.
For instance, once we’re discussing a method that HubSpot can assist with, we’d subtly hyperlink readers to a device or useful resource we provide that may assist them.
Here’s an example of a HubSpot mention in a put up about form-building instruments:
We additionally like to incorporate free gives associated to our content material on the finish of every weblog put up. Once we do that, a reader can be taught extra in regards to the subject they’ve learn.
And, after they fill out a easy kind requesting the free useful resource, they will select whether or not they’d wish to be contacted about one in every of our merchandise.
This enables the reader to really feel like they’re receiving priceless data with out being compelled to find out about our merchandise.
Readers even have an urge for food for interactive content material. This makes your posts enjoyable to learn and simpler to know. For instance, you would contemplate embedding a trivia or persona quiz associated to your trade, as we did in this blog post:
After answering every query, readers get the solutions in real-time, and this may additional assist the educational course of.
Constructing an Efficient 2023 Weblog Technique
Whereas it is nice to run with one profitable content material sort, the blogs with probably the most credibility typically have a mix of content that entertains or informs readers, makes them conscious of manufacturers or merchandise, or teaches them one thing new.
And with shoppers in our ballot saying they learn blogs for a number of causes, there is a good likelihood {that a} combine will intrigue and fulfill the studying wants of your viewers segments.
Editor’s Be aware: This weblog put up was initially revealed in Could 2020 however was lately up to date for comprehensiveness and freshness.