For a customer, a blog is a gateway into a meaningful relationship with a business. A business blog is often the entry point or the first point of contact a customer may have with a business nowadays. A customer may be searching for something and will have landed on a business blog through Google search. That customer is leery and alert to any deal breaker. That customer is going to form an immediate impression of a business based on the blog’s appearance and content. The gateway must be appealing and the customer must be able to see that it’s worth stepping through.
And once the customer steps through the gateway, expectations must be exceeded. Many business owners and freelancers are familiar with the idea of a sales funnel. On the web, a sales funnel looks like a black hole to most customers. They need to ease into it at their own pace as you pass test after test in order to establish trust in their minds and build up a relationship. A business blog, if created and managed correctly, will be the gentle slope that eases customers into your sales funnel.
However, you can’t create a blog according to the conventional wisdom and get more business and better customer relationships. You have to take a different approach to it. This approach is what we call Gateway Blogging: using your business blog as a gateway in order to further your business by improving your relationship with your customers.
