Internet Marketing 15

I recently had a discussion with a client about the finer points of Clicksharp Marketing’s elements of a comprehensive internet marketing campaign, citing blogs as the most powerful of all the social media. (Sorry, Youtube and Facebook - I suppose in this day and age, words still have more power to change the world than videos and…pokes.)

His reply: “Why would you push blogging? I think of blogs as so 2006.”

Ouch. Not even 2007. So I did some digging on recent statistics, and found that last November, Technorati estimated the number of active blogs at 15.5 million (active meaning that bloggers had posted within the last 90 days). This was published in Business Week with a hard-hitting insight:

“Though social media is going strong, one particular form of it, blogging, simply might not be for everyone.”

Then last week, I came across an article in the Shifting Careers column of The New York Times, which deals with issues relevant to small businesses. Marci Alboher calls blogging “a low-cost, high return marketing tool” and then adds: “But while blogs may be useful to many more small businesses, even blogging experts do not recommend it for the majority.”

Time to set the record straight. If blogging is not for everyone, then who is it for?

* Anyone selling a product whose purchase can be a research intensive process. Do you sell exotic wines, sensitive health care services, or obscure mutual

funds? You’ll probably find that once you harness your passion and write confidently about what you know, customers will start finding you more and more often.

* Anyone who sells an image or “cachet.” Why does an Acura cost more than a Honda? Why are you happy to pay more for a glass of Grey Goose than a glass of Smirnoff? Because with these brands comes a story-about class or pragmatism or value. But while Diageo can spend tens of millions marketing Smirnoff, chances are you need a slightly cheaper vehicle to tell your story.

* Anyone who practices relationship marketing. In your line of work, does selling depend heavily on humanizing yourself, your company and/or your product? Remember that

consumers have more options than ever, and tend to buy from people they trust. Your blog gives you a way to step out of the woodwork as more than an average merchant wielding a sales pitch.

Let’s all take Riva Richmond’s Wall Street Journal article about blogging to heart: “Small businesses may benefit most: Blogs offer little-known small businesses name recognition, and the chance to boost traffic well beyond what they’d get if they were simply offering goods and services for sale.”

The playing field has leveled in 2008, thanks to all the cost-effective marketing tools available to you. In these emerging channels, your bigger competitors can’t always outspend you like they have in the past. For a little extra

marketing juice, try mentioning their products alongside your own, and hire an SEO consultant to help you rank well in search engines.

What happens when they Google their own brand name, and see your site come up first? Who knows. But it won’t be your problem.

Paul Burani is an internet marketing consultant based in New York, NY. After acquiring account experience working with Fortune 500 clients in the advertising and market research industries, he has since turned his attention to startups and growing businesses. His company, Clicksharp Marketing, is a full-service digital marketing consultancy, aimed at helping entrepreneurs market themselves effectively on the internet.