Since we’ve started up the Fik Observatory in September 2012, we’ve had time to visit a lot of small and medium sized businesses (SMB’s). They have all shared their experience about the possibilites and sometimes difficulties of starting up a new business.
Most of these stores have a blog and I’ve been curious to understand better why, and what they win by having one. Eight of the stores we’ve interviewed have answer my questions, and a the rest could not take part since they do not have a blog (or were too busy).
Beneficial to have a store blog
First of all, most store owners seem to agree there are many versatile benefits of having an online shop blog, and therefore planned it from start. Those who did open the store later on, seemed to be equally successive in benefitting from the forum.
It was only possible to choose one answer to this question.
Driving traffic to the online store
Most stores’ main purpose of the blog was to drive traffic to their main webpage or online store, and therefore spent a lot of time blogging.
It was possible to choose more than one answer to this question.
One store owner simply had the blog for the reason it’s fun to blog, while 30% gave “other” as a reason for having the blog (not shown in graph).
The traffic is in general… irregular
Most SMB’s we’ve talked to admits to the traffic being irregular. It is hard to say if it’s going up or down, in other words. Although, 25% of the blog keepers see a continuous increase, and these stores all have existed less than two years.
It was only possible to choose one answer to this question.
Keeping your blog visits high
Most stores (75%) said that driving visits to their online store or webpage is the main purpose of the blog. The fact that 50% of the stores have returning visitors should mean that the blog is helping the brand creating a personal relationship with the client.
It was only possible to choose one answer to this question.
And what are the reactions?
Now to the most important part: what reactions did the store owners see by maintaining their blog? A whole 38%(!) doesn’t notice any reactions at all. To be noted though, is that some stores also explained they do not look into their blog statistics a lot.
And all is not in vain, since 25% proved to drive more traffic to the online store or website with their blog.
It was possible to choose more than one answer to this question.
Although the “Have not noticed any reactions” reaches a high percentage, most stores want returning visitors since loyal customers helps you sell more. What I could see comparing some of that data was that the stores that updated their blog at least one or a few times a week had a higher number of returning customers. Also, maybe there could be some more attention focused on blog statistics, since these are the truth tellers on how to get your numbers the way you want them!
What is your strongest reason for maintaining a store blog?