Blogging as a Marketing Strategy

While blogs have inspired millions of individuals to tap into their

inner writer, blogs off er far more than simply a personal creative

outlet. For businesses, blogs off er an opportunity to reach new and

larger audiences in a unique way.

Businesses are drawn to blogs because of their accessibility. Blogs

are inexpensive, and they are easy to get started. Programs and

sites that enable the creation and publication of blogs are available

from a variety of popular sources for free. Practically no programming

skill is required to start a blog. Would-be bloggers simply

sign-up with the selected blog provider, such as WordPress or

Blogger, choose and customize the page design, and launch their

blog. Once started, maintaining the blog is also simple, as adding content typically requires little more than writing the copy and pushing a “submit” button.

These are important features, especially for smaller companies that often don’t have the resources or technical knowledge required for Web marketing. For them, blogging provides an inexpensive way to get their name and message out to prospective audiences.

The Benefits of Blogging

For all companies, blogging provides opportunities that other on- and

offl ine marketing tools do not. The following sections discuss some of

the benefi ts of blogging for marketers.

Easy Provision of Information

Updating a blog does not require a highly coordinated effort. In fact,

the only real time commitment is the time it takes to create the content.

Compared to other forms of marketing communication such as

print ads or brochures, which need to go through signifi cant quality

control checks, blogging is a relatively uncomplicated form of widescale

communications.

Establishing a More Human Voice

Most companies speak to their audience through a variety of marketing

materials, ranging from brochures, sale sheets, and corporate

Web sites to radio and television ads. These vehicles are each unique,

but they are all designed to deliver a specifi c message in marketing

language that is carefully crafted but hardly conversational. Corporate

blogs, however, give companies an opportunity to break away from

traditional marketing language and speak to consumers directly, using

a more informal tone. This helps to humanize the brand, making it

easier to forge an emotional connection with the audience. Corporate

blogs still need to maintain some semblance of their brand voice, but

blogging provides signifi cantly more room for relaxed communication

than almost any other method of marketining

Increased Credibility

Because corporate blogs give marketers the opportunity to support

their products while allowing reader feedback, blogs can increase a

brand’s credibility with its audience. If misused, however, blogs can

just as easily damage the brand, and reduce its credibility. This credibility

doesn’t just come from blog posts that hail the benefits of the

company’s products or services—in fact, just the opposite. Product

and service claims made in ads are traditionally met with a degree of

skepticism by the market, because they are viewed to have a single

purpose: to sell. A blog, however, gives the marketer the opportunity

to communicate with the market with a different purpose in mind:

rather than to sell, their goal is to inform.