Blog marketing is what you call using a blog to market something. Blog marketing has become the axis around which revolve other online marketing efforts. Back in the day, online marketing meant banner advertising. Marketing online was an afterthought to traditional core marketing activities such as print, radio, and television advertising. Back then, there was no central place to send prospects. Everything strove to get a prospect to call a phone number or respond via direct advertising. There was no place to freely and easily go for more information, and it was terribly expensive.
Blog Marketing Solar System
With blogs and blog marketing, that’s all changed. Your blog is the “go to” place for prospects. It’s the storefront, the mouthpiece, the watercooler, the advertising, the brochure, the op-ed… you get the idea. Blog marketing is where it’s at. This means we need to attract as much qualified traffic to our blogs as we possibly can, so that this traffic may be converted into sales (or other actions, but I’m primarily talking business, here).
Spinning around that central axis are other entry points for prospects: Social media, content-sharing sites, Pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, and even traditional off-line marketing. The goal of these other channels is to drive traffic to the blog. Maybe a better analogy is that your blog is the sun of your marketing solar system, and these other methods are the planets orbiting around it.
This is especially true of social media and content-sharing sites (which overlap each other a lot). A content-sharing site, by the way, is a site that lets you share content you’ve created with others. YouTube, SlideShare, and Scribd are all examples. Each new social media service or content-sharing site is like adding a newin door to your business and a new out door at the same time. New points of exposure as well as new points of entry are created.
How Blog Marketing and Social Media Drive Business
This works because each of these other “planet” sites is a showcase for whatever value you have to bring to an audience, and each site gives you a link back to your blog. So, if your content is good, people will click on the link and visit your blog. Then, if your blog is good, they will subscribe. After they’ve subscribed, at some point they may become customers.
This may seem like a long and arduous process, but the customers you get are highly qualified, they’re there on their own terms, and their loyalty is strong. If they are also users of blogs and social media, they can become some of your best marketing agents, spreading the word of you to their friends and families.
Many Outposts, One Destination
Each little “outpost” you create on a far-flung planet leads people back to your blog. Each one of these outposts acts as a sign giving directions with a big arrow pointing back to your blog. These signs are found in search results and by friends of your customers who also use social media. The more outposts you have, and the more people they attract, the more traffic you can funnel back to your blog. Although we like to reduce transactional friction as much as we can online, people do place value on making an effort to learn about a topic.
The Big Lessons Here
- In blog marketing, your social media accounts are often meant to attract traffic to your blog.
- What you do with the social media is what accomplishes this: provide value and engage with people.
- Once prospects reach the blog, the goal is usually to get them to subscribe via RSS or email, rather than commit to an immediate sale.
- After a “test drive” period, a prospect may become convinced to purchase your products or services.
- Happy customers use the same social media outposts to help you market to your audience via word-of-mouth.
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Awesome analogy. However, isn’t it dangerous to get too close to the sun?
People’s social media accounts are very important. You are so right on this one! I do believe that social media is just like commenting on other blogs. You get to make a good first impression on people. People will always judge you on how you act and what you write. So you need to make sure you act the right way and write things that benefit other people. And that’s the same thing with commenting on other blogs.
Michael,
I think it’s interesting that with all the marketing tools you mentioned, none of them was a traditional company website. Do you think the blog, with it’s ever-changing content, has replaced this static medium?
@Mark – Every analogy’s gotta break down somehwere!
@Franklin – my thoughts exactly!
@Susan – Yes and no. For some it has, for others, it hasn’t. Some companies add a blog onto their main website. Some main websites are ecommerce sites, and both that site and the blog attract search engine traffic.
Hi Michael,
I see that after a small break you post 3 articles in day
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I like the analogy you created in this article. You are right placing the blog in the center of all our web marketing actions. You can look at your blog as the main command center. All your efforts are meant to bring some people to your blog. After I write an article spreading the word about it is the first thing I do (but it’s the part I dislike the most
but I have to do it). All the other actions on Social Media websites are different because it forces you to think creative.
haha wow i like how you can describe them in solar system. Good One
This is great, should be a very important component for any business.