Do you Blog?

Recently, David Lustig of Electronic Retailer Magazine interviewed three bloggers Des Walsh - writer of 7 step Business Blog book, Scott Allen of The Virtual Handshake fame and yours truly, owner of Ideologic L.L.C and a blogger at Businessworks Inc. - A Dotcom in Making. The interview was mainly about how Direct Marketers are using blogs to promote their products and covered following questions:

1. What exactly is blogging [or blogs] and how does it apply to direct marketing?
2. Discuss the technology.
3. How are direct marketers utilizing blogs?
4. Provide examples of brand name companies that have effectively used blogs to enhance their marketing efforts?
5. What are some of the misconceptions that marketers have about blogging?
6. How will blogging redefine the industry? Or will it?
7. Why should direct marketers pay attention to blogs?
8. What are some important tips to remember when utilizing this type of marketing?
9. How do you see blogging utilized over the next five years?

Read online version of the interview titled “Do you Blog?” or if you are in Retailing business, you may subscribe to the Electronic Retailer Magazine.

Here are my answers to the questions asked for the interview.

1. What exactly is blogging [or blogs] and how does it apply to direct marketing?
A “Weblog” or “Blog” is defined as an online journal of day-to-day events. The writer of a blog is called a “Blogger” and the daily activity of writing a blog is called “Blogging“. This online journal is available in form of a web page for anyone to view. An individual entry in a blog is called a blog “post“. Each blog post may have comments from readers. Sometimes, these comments become a discussion between the blogger and readers of his/her blog. The blogger may or may not allow readers to post comments.
In early days, teens used blogs to write about their rants and raves, but the blogs have evolved a lot. Today blogs are being used to promote a business, run a political campaign, establish an opinion or even release features of an upcoming product.

To explain how blogging applies to direct marketing, let me first explain the power of search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN are three most used search engines. Over 80% of the people start their search for a product or service on a Search Engine. With such a large number of potential clients, can a small or medium sized company miss out on a great opportunity like this, to be found on the net by the potential customers? The way these search engines work has a lot to do with Blogs working as a successful direct marketing medium. As blogs are written almost daily, “content” or “blog post” is fresh on the sites where blogs are written. The search engines indexes this fresh content more often than a business website which remains static most of time. The result is a higher ranking for this fresh content compared to a business website. In layman terms it means, if you have a product to promote and you write enough about this product on your business blog, but in small installments, chances are your product will be found by millions of people who may be seeking information about the product.

Direct marketing is defined as “Sales and promotion technique in which the promotional materials are delivered individually to potential customers via direct mail, telemarketing, door-to-door selling or other direct means.” However with blogs, the bloggers spread the breadcrumbs in form of keywords for search engines to pickup. Search engines deliver this blog content in form of useful information to prospective customers. Thus company can hope that after reading the blog post, the potential customers will come and visit the “online” or “Brick and Mortar” store.

2. Discuss the technology.
Blogs are very easy to create if you need them for personal use, but if you need blogs for the business, they must have a look-and-feel of your business website and must be embedded within your business website. It is worthwhile to spend few hundred dollars to get a business blog embedded within your business website. Another important piece of equation is RSS or Rich Site Summary. RSS is an effective way of syndicating news, blog posts and advertisements to potential customers. This tool provides your readers with an ability to receive your blog posts in an easy to read format, once they have subscribed to your RSS Feed.

3. How are direct marketers utilizing blogs?
Direct Marketers who have already realized the potential of blogs are using it daily and building an advertising campaign that will have a lasting positive impact on the sales of the product. They are thinking about ROI, but this ROI is not based on conventional direct marketing campaign. It is based on how many potential customers will convert to confirmed customers after searching and finding the information they want about a product or service from the blog contents of the company.

4. Provide examples of brand name companies that have effectively used blogs to enhance their marketing efforts?
One of the best examples of brand name company effectively using blogs to enhance their marketing efforts is Stonyfield Farm Blog (Stonyfield is a maker of fine dairy products). They have not one but four blogs. Each blog is devoted to a product line and a community-like environment greets the visitors when they visit the blog.

Another good example is Ford Motor Company’s Mustang Blog. Basically, Ford Mustang team writes this blog about finer and/or little known features of Mustang car. People who are considering to buy Mustang, they get in-depth information about the product from technical team of Ford. This is a great selling point.

Some enterprising EBay Sellers use blog for direct marketing their products to thousands of potential buyers who are searching for a product on Google or Craigslist.

5. What are some of the misconceptions that marketers have about blogging?
Direct Marketers are used to an “almost instant ROI”, whereas blogs have some waiting period before there is any ROI. The most common misconception is to expect ROI too early in the game. When product information, tips and tricks, little known features of a product are posted daily in a blog over a period of time, one can expect a steady inflow of traffic to the website, thus increasing the chances of a better ROI.

6. How will blogging redefine the industry? Or will it?
Direct Marketing in its current form and in the form of blog will co-exist. Blogs will have a special place in the world of Direct Marketing. E-mails and RSS feeds will continue to dominate the influence on direct marketing. Blogging will be another source of marketing and will be a good fit especially due to longevity of the campaign this type of marketing has with the search engine advantage.

7. Why should direct marketers pay attention to blogs?
Conventional Direct marketing has a ROI per advertising campaign whereas Blog continues to receive steady stream of traffic from search engines long after a blog post is published. This is significant as the impact of blog is everlasting because the “written word” is always there on the blog and is indexed by the search engines to be presented to potential clients who are searching for a product or service. Direct marketers, while continuing to use conventional methods, must explore blogs to reap the benefits and gradually reduce the conventional marketing methods.

8. What are some important tips to remember when utilizing this type of marketing?
While advertising, key is to provide something of value to the readers. Ford Motors in their Mustang blog, provide tips, technical details, and little known features of their product which is valuable to the readers.

The biggest fear that companies have about starting a blog is about adverse comments they might get about their products from irate customers. However if companies are proactive and solve customer issues, it paints a positive features in the minds of potential customers about the level of customer service provided by the company.

Use both conventional direct marketing and Blog marketing for a certain period of time. Once Blog marketing starts giving substantial returns, conventional direct marketing may be phased out.

9. How do you see blogging utilized over the next five years?
Next five years will see blogs being utilized in creative ways.
* The blog will be used to build pre-release publicity for a product.
* Press releases of a company will be released through business blogs.
* Online Contests will be conducted through a blog.
* Companies will put Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on blogs itself.
* Product usage tips will be presented via blogs
Some of these are already in use but others are yet to happen.

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