Promote your business with a blog

  | March 2009  Posted in Business Blogging, News   |   0 Comments  

There are a lot of ways to promote your business, but how do you do it with out breaking the bank? Most of my clients are realizing the benefits of their blogs in this recession.  As they have had to cut back on their advertising and the normal outbound marketing tactics. Internet marketing isn’t always cheaper, but it is proving to be more effective.

So how do you participate in the most effective marketing available without draining your budgets and bank accounts?

By Blogging! I sometimes wonder if people refuse to blog because it is so easy and people don’t believe it will actually work. Blogging is simple, and what is easy to do is often too easy not to do.

Why do we see more and more businesses moving toward blogging as a solution to their marketing crunch? I can think of two reasons that in my opinion provide the best reasons.

1. Cost (it really is cost effective)
2. Effectiveness (it works!)

There are other reasons, but when you lay it out the big ROI that everyone always wants to see and especially in this economy is will it work,  how much will it cost me and when can I expect to see a profit from this?

You know, blogging is not always the fastest tool, for example if you need to drive traffic to a new product or service and need sales tomorrow then just writing a blog post might not yield the immediate results that you want (unless you have a huge subscriber base built up). But if you want long lasting results and have some time to develop those results then spend your marketing time and money on blogging.

I have addressed the subject of blogging as a cost effective tool which you can read about here;

• Blog Marketing
• How to Market a Biz with no Money

But I never have (or I don’t think I have) addressed the ROI that blogging provides.  And part of the reason for that is because the results are different for everyone. And I have never guaranteed anyone a return on their investment because blogging presents a lot of variables.When I say I don’t guarantee ROI I am not saying that it wont happen, I just mean that what we might expect to happen wont and you will see a completely different (still affective) result come from your blogging efforts.  All due to the variables presented with blogging.

I can reassure you, by promising that we can control the situation and the variables to an extent and have the abilities to make your business blogging efforts worth your while.

Just the other day I was in a consultation with a new client who was continually interested in finding out what kind of results he could expect from my companies efforts. I had done some keyword research based on his services and had determined that his targeted audience was a unique one and that with the proper blogging efforts his blog would be very successful in reaching his target market.  Do I have a percentage, No I really could not provide that, but I can point out certain trends and holes that we can effectively target to make his blogging campaign a success.

Now to define what I mean by proper blogging efforts:

Some people expect, and want to believe  that all they need to do is set up a blog and throw a few pages of content on there and they will start to see some amazing results.  But sadly that is not the case.  A blog needs to be nurtured over time, it takes some effort to make your blog a success.  Things that might be required;

regular review of statistics -  One thing that I do every day is check to see if there are any new search terms that brought someone to my site.  If there is, the I write a new post targeting those keywords.  If I have key terms that continually bring traffic to my site I write more articles on that subject.  I write about my clients and often I see a lot of traffic coming to my blog from people searching their keywords.  If their was not a click through to the clients site or blog (because each article I write about a client is set up to be a landing page, redirecting traffic) then I evaluate and write a new article or fix the one already written about them.

fresh content on a regular bases – What is a regular bases?  Well that is up to each person, but really if you want maximum results then I say daily!  But for good results on a time budget once a week is enough.  Just make sure those articles are written well!!  Lots of keyword love.

comment reply’s - This is very important because you will want to build up your subscriber base, and if you don’t talk to your readers when they leave comments they might not stick around.  Blogs are about communication, and if you communicate to your readership you will have a group of people ready to try anything you put on the market.  Or they will be ready to recommend someone else use you/your product.

Most of my clients think that their ROI is based on the work that we do setting up the blog, and there is a lot there, we develop a blog with SEO built in and we optimize our clients sites to be search engine friendly, but ultimately the ROI comes from their efforts as they continue to use/expand their blogs.

How do you do it?  How do you promote your business with a blog?

I am sure that you have seen a few of these weirdos in your town, usually standing on a street corner somewhere and fortunately only at tax time.  Does this marketing approach work, I often ask myself as I pass them on the street.  And I am sure that it does drive traffic to their offices at tax time, or they probably wouldn’t do it.  But what kind of traffic, is it the last minute oh shoot I forgot I need to do my taxes still, and ding the light goes off in their head and they remember the weirdos they pass every day on their way home from work.  Or does it drive the type of traffic most businesses want, the repeat customers?

I don’t know the answer to that, but it works either way.  I am sure that it works enough to pay someone 8 dollars an hour every day for 3.5 months to stand on the street looking ridicules.

Some times ridicules works, and that goes for blogging too.  But each company is going to need to find their own approach.  It seems like most businesses want to keep the professional feel to their blogs.  Either way as long as the message is delivered in a way that matches your business it will work.  Standing out will always benefit you and what you are trying to do.

A lot of my clients are afraid that a blog will open their company up to vulnerability, because it provides commenting and what if some leaves a bad comment or has something negative to say?  I always say that it is better that the negative comments are on your blog where you can control them and address any issues as apposed to somewhere you may never see them and cant fix the problems.

Here are some keys to using your blog as a marketing machine for your business…

• Promote your products or services with regular articles
• Talk about your clients and customers
• Provide valuable information and potential solutions
• Promote conversation, encourage participation, get your readers involved
• Talk about new business strategies and goals

If you have not noticed the 5 things above, are relationship driven.  Improving the relationship between you and your customer is a huge part of blogging.  Improve your relationships and you will see an increase in repeat customers.  And where there are loyal happy customers more are soon to follow.

It is also important to learn a few search engine optimization tricks that you can use in your articles.

• Learn how to research keywords
• Then learn how to implement those keywords effectively into your post
• Create catchy yet informative titles

As a business owner you have probably done some sort of marketing and advertising in the past.  Direct mail, yellow book, magazines, telemarketing, email marketing, press releases, tv ads, billboards, and so on…

Blogging is the middle ground that brings outbound and inbound marketing together.  Where outbound marketing is  the traditional form of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience.  Inbound marketing is the practice of connecting directly to an audience of potential customers who are already looking for your products and/or services.

When writing a blog article, typically you are reaching out, to subscribers, regular readers and also to people looking for an answer to a question or the solution to a problem.  You want everyone to look to you as the solutions, as the answer.  No, you are not going to cover everything, but you should be covering the things that are related to your business, and your target audiences needs.

But how many people are really going to read my blog?

How interesting is it?  Will people want to read it?  Your overall subscription is really going to be up to your ability to attract readers and keep people interested and informed.  But from a statistical stand point, here are some very interesting stats regarding blog readers…(unfortunately they are from 2005 but if you think about how quickly things change you can imagine how much they have improved);

Fifty million Americans, or 30 percent of all American Internet users,
visited a blog in the first quarter of 2005, according to a new report
from Comscore, and sponsored in part by SixApart and Gawker Media.

?The average blog reader viewed 77 percent more pages than the average
Internet user who doesn’t read blogs (16,000 versus 9,000 for the
quarter), the report found. Blog readers average 23 hours online per
week, compared with the overall Web user’s average of 13 hours.?

?Blog readers are 11 percent more likely than the average Internet
user to have incomes of or greater than $75,000. Similarly, blog
readers are 11 percent more likely to visit the Web over broadband
either at home or the office.?

Clickz: August 2005
http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/demographics/article.php/3526591

30 Percent of Americans Read Blogs

?Three In Ten Online Americans Claim That They Have Read A Blog

Thirty percent of the online population said they had read a blog at
least once. Among those who read blogs, 38% do so at least once per
week. More than two in five of those aged 18 to 34 (41%) and those
with a college-education (41%) have visited blogs at least once.
Geographically speaking, blogs are most popular in the western United
States where 37% of residents reported visiting a blog.?
Urban Semiotic
http://urbansemiotic.com/2005/05/29/30-percent-of-americans-read-blogs/

Ten percent of consumers read blogs once a week or more, said
Forrester Research at the opening of its annual Consumer Forum. That’s
double the 5 percent who browsed blogs in 2004.
http://jklgroup.blogs.com/agenda/2005/09/1in10_consumers.html

According to Forrester Research six percent of online consumers read blogs.

?Today, only six percent of online consumers read blogs and two
percent use RSS, while 70 percent of online consumers use the Internet
to research products for purchase. Marketers should focus on
identifying the early adopting tech optimists who read blogs to tap
effective viral marketing opportunities.?
Planet Analog: august 2005
http://www.planetanalog.com/press_releases/bizwire/showPressRelease.jhtml?HeadlineId=351885&CompanyId=2

According to a Pew Research Center Survey, only 27 percent of Internet
users actually read blogs.
http://www.adobe.com/education/designschools/trends/massmedia.html

19 percent of online teens keep a blog, and 38 percent of online teens read blogs
Pew Trusts
http://www.pewtrusts.com/news/news_subpage.cfm?content_item_id=3119&content_type_id=7&page=nr1

?The international adoption curve for blogs is as uneven as anything
else. while in America over 60 percent of the Internet citizenry has
not heard of blogs, 20 percent of Japanese users read blogs at least
once a month.?
http://rss.weblogsinc.com/2005/05/21/japanese-blog-adoption/

The Bottom Line for every Business interested in survival;

The Internet has profoundly transformed the way people learn about and shop for products. Today, buyers start their purchasing experience by looking on the Internet, in search engines, the blogosphere and social media sites.  In order to remain competitive, businesses’ websites need to be found online by the people already searching for the products and services that you sell.

Think, marketing, publicity, exposure, free listings, word of mouth advertising, direct mailers, and a whole lot more, but the best part it can all be done with one tool…YOUR BUSINESS BLOG!

I would like to wish everyone who has read all the way to the end of this post, the best of luck!  You read this entire article looking for answers and direction and I hope I was able to provide some.  I realize that not everyone is committed enough to take action and do things that need to be done to reach the success they want.  And to those that are, I am always willing to help!

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