Regardless of your product, blogs can be an integral part of a marketing strategy. This doesn’t necessarily mean running out to start one. There are other ways to harness this fast-growing medium’s power:
- Gather market intelligence. Monitor public buzz to determine how your brand and close competitors are faring. Knowing where, why, and how you’re being trashed (or praised) in a public forum allows you to respond appropriately — and quickly. Any angry customer or disgruntled former employee can launch a blog at no cost. They may even get higher search rankings than your brand.
- Engage bloggers by commenting on key business topics. Read blogs related to your product or company to understand the blogger’s perspective and audience. Strategically respond to postings to initiate dialogue. More genuine that a PR pitch, this approach can also help correct misinformation.
- Advertise on blogs to reach influencials, target a niche audience, or extend a media buy’s reach. Though only about 25 percent of Internet users (about 32 million) currently read blogs, they tend to influence other’s thinking. Bloglines readers check an average of 20 blogs daily. Informal BlogAds research shows blog readers are high consumers of expensive, well-researched content, such as The Economist and The New Yorker. “Blog advertising can engage an important niche,” says Morra Aarons, Edelman VP, “enabling you to reach a critical market segment or to broaden the impact of your marketing spend.”Blogs vary in size, approach, and ad opportunities. You can advertise directly on a blog that reaches your target market or through an advertising network such as BlogAds or Pheedo. Banners and text copy must be contextually relevant. As users visit often, it’s important to change ad content frequently to prevent impression fatigue. One option is create a dialogue with a series of related ads.
- Humanize your company with corporate blogs. One or more employees, the CEO included, may blog. Corporate blogs require a level of transparency. As a result, they may not work for all types of companies. Corporate bloggers must have access to, and support from, senior management, PR, and legal.
- Build business or brand by connecting with consumers. Both small businesses and major corporations can use blogs to build closer relationships with their customers. Best Buy created the entertaining Slothmore Institute. The only connection to Best Buy is the sponsored ads.
