There is no doubt that blogging is advantageous to any marketing plan.

Although blogging has been shown to increase leads, SEO, and reputation for organisations, some busy marketers may still be concerned that blogging’s usefulness is waning.

Research hasn’t allayed worries that “blogging is dead.” When we recently asked more than 300 people how often they read blogs, over 40% responded “never.” This came after HubSpot’s Not Another State of Marketing Report, which showed that between 2018 and 2020, blogging slid from the top to the third-most popular content approach.

Before you become overwhelmed by all the bad news, it’s vital to keep in mind that blogging is still highly beneficial to marketers. However, how you go about blogging now matters more than ever. And while our last poll found that 40% of people never read blogs, it also showed that 60% of consumers routinely consume this information.

In actuality, blogging is still very much a thing. Just a little bit more effort will be required than in the past to get them to read your material.

So, how can you get inside a customer’s head to discover how to inspire them to read your blog? doing a different survey.

I recently released a follow-up Lucid poll that asked, “Why do you most frequently read blog posts?” rather than asking more than 300 individuals, “Do you read blogs?”

To learn how to do something new, to be entertained, to understand more about products or companies, and to keep up with news and trends in my line of work were among the responses given to respondents when asked to indicate the most frequent reasons they read blogs.

You would suppose that a sizable portion of consumers read blogs to learn about companies or items given the quantity of leads that company blogs are known to provide. But in reality, the highest and lowest-ranking factors for blog readership may surprise and frighten you:

In actuality, only 4% of consumers claim to read blogs to research businesses or products.

The survey’s findings indicate that more people are genuinely motivated to read blogs that instruct them in new skills. While 33% of respondents chose this response, 20% said they read blogs for entertainment, and 13% said they do so to keep up with news or industry developments.

In addition, 9 percent of respondents claimed that they read blogs for all the aforementioned motives.

What do the findings above actually mean?

Instead of using your blog solely to advertise your business or product, you’ll need to provide content that offers some sort of educational value or fun if you want to attract blog readers.

I’ll go over the top three reasons why the general public is motivated to read blogs in this blog article. I’ll also demonstrate how to write blog posts that both meet the demands of your readers and quietly promote your company.

Reasons People Read Blogs

1. People read blogs to learn something new.

To learn something new is by far the most frequent motivation for readers to keep reading blog posts. I’m not at all surprised by this outcome.

Why? Posts with guidelines, step-by-step procedures, instructional videos, or quick data frequently receive a lot of search traffic. This is due to the daily trend of people using Google to hunt up how-to information.

A person’s curiosity may be aroused by blogs that address complicated subjects like studies, trends, or subjects they are less familiar with, even when they don’t specifically instruct readers on how to do something.

According to psychological studies, people crave valuable information just as much as they crave food and material wealth. As a blogger, you can use this to your advantage by using it to write about subjects that interest readers while also promoting your company, service, or goods.

For instance, on the Marketing Blog, we might demonstrate to readers how to use Clubhouse, a recent social media platform. By doing this, marketers or users of social media who are interested in learning how to achieve this could find our material in search results or on social media and read it to discover how to develop this content.

In a broader sense, our blog might provide a number of articles that analyse a trend from many perspectives. As an illustration, when the TikTok app first came out, we produced a few blog pieces to address frequently asked concerns by marketers, such as “What is TikTok?” “How do brands sell themselves on TikTok?” and “How do you use influencer marketing on TikTok?”

In addition to assisting our visitors, trend- or guide-related blogs let us demonstrate the depth of our marketing research and expertise. This could also show a potential customer that HubSpot is a reliable business with high-caliber goods for the marketing sector.

2. People read blogs to be entertained.

People desire education, but they also enjoy entertainment. People may read blogs every day that entertain them, make them laugh, or otherwise intrigue them.

This is consistent with 2020 study, which found that more people were using movies and other internet content for entertainment and escape.

However, as a business blogger, you may be wondering, “How can I engage my readers while still maintaining the professionalism of my blog?”

The truth is that there are many methods to entertain your audience while being true to your brand when you think imaginatively.

The visuals and information about the trend might excite your readers even though they might not be eager to spend in it. As an illustration, you might make an entertaining infographic or photo post on a viral trend in your business. We highlighted humorous memes that marketers actually used in their campaigns in one of our posts.

As an alternative, you may produce a humorous but educational podcast or movie to accompany your blog post. With this additional layer of content, you might go deeper into a discussion of a viral marketing trend or conduct an interview with a subject-matter expert who is well-known in your field. This may not be “entertaining” to those outside your sector, but it may be more intriguing to those inside your industry than the typical blogs they read.

3. People read blogs to learn about trends related to their job industry.

While blogs that expressly discuss your brand or product might not pique readers’ interest, blogs that highlight an industry your product is associated with might.

It’s conceivable that people in the workforce will read a blog if it educates them or gives them useful information about their field, even though the survey results mentioned in the opening came from general consumers with a variety of professional backgrounds.

When analysing readership and data for the HubSpot Blog, it becomes evident that our consumers prefer reading articles about current developments in the marketing, sales, service, or website industries. Our readers get even more interested when we provide advice from professionals or information on how to deal with these trends.

In our sector, for instance, Clubhouse, a social media audio app, has recently become the talk of the town. While the app was still primarily used by celebrities, HubSpot had been keeping an eye on this trend. However, after businesses and regular users started receiving invites to join the app, we began to produce content about it.

We contributed to the post by providing statements and views from social media marketers about the social platform’s brand potential in addition to just explaining what Clubhouse was and why the app was so popular.

You can write about breaking news in your industry in addition to addressing trends. Here’s another post where we spoke about how advertisers might be impacted by the phase-out of third-party cookies.

By responding to news and trends on your website, you establish your blog as the go-to resource for the most recent insights into industry trends as well as for general advice and instructive material.