Blog Marketing
Blog marketing has exploded these past few years to become brand new marketing strategy for companies and individuals. Why? Unlike traditional push marketing, direct ads, flyers and media, blog marketing is a pull strategy that attracts consumers.
Blog marketing is a strategy, like this blog, that allows the site owner to discuss their area of expertise with the goal of having consumers interested in specific topic to search and find the most influential website or company on that topic. It boils down to choice, a person or company interested in can plug those keywords in Google and find the most relevant website that either discusses the topic or sells services.
Blog marketing is also very one sided, in a sense. Why? Because the site owner has the freedom to publish information that they feel is the best. But how does blog marketing translate to small business marketing as a viable solution? Simple, it allows people or companies to get their name and services exposed to the WWW through publishing content that is highly relevant to their industry.
Take ActiveRain.com as an example. It is a platform that allows real estate professional the opportunity to create a free profile, blog about real estate happenings and it is very search engine friendly. Many real estate professionals are having great success by posting information on highly targeted topics that are able to be search and viewed by consumers, potential clients.
Many leads and new business can happen by investing time into the blog marketing approach. I have discussed this topic with many professionals and how it is changing the way the internet traditionally works, if it can be defined as traditional yet.Â
Blog marketing feeds on Web 2.0, interactivity between consumers and companies (allows for direct feedback and questions), where the consumer is empowered to connect and relate to the people or companies publishing that information.
Blog marketing is a real form of advertising these days and can’t be dismissed as people having fun on the internet. How do you use blog marketing as a way to generate new business?
Consistency Part 2
In the Small Business Marketing 101 post consistency was the theme as it portray to a establishing a thought process for marketing. Consistency is such a big part because it usually takes people seeing a name/brand a minimum of three times before that message is remembered. If potential customers can remember a company’s message they are more likely to choose that company when needed either a product or service. But consistency is more that just repetition, it also has to do with message and image.How can small business owners make consistent messages and channel it consistently to their target market? By first creating items that will be used over and over while choosing a marketing medium to focus all efforts.
- Create a Company Message (logo, slogan, vision)
- Choose Marketing Channel
These basic marketing pieces are the whole foundation to building a long-term sustainable marketing campaign that will generate long-term business. People ask me the same old question, “if I do this will it get me business?”, and my answer is always, yes.
To complete blog we will use a plumbing company, Big Crack Plumbing founded by JD, as the example.
Big Crack Plumbing was started by a 15 year veteran because he felt he could provide a better service for customers than his previous employer. So armed with experience JD sets off on his adventure as a small business owner. After months and months and making serious headway and bills piling up he decides to focus on other parts of business not really thought of before, marketing.
Big Crack Plumbing starts out by defining the industry in which they operate, plumbing. Topics written down: what tools are used, what type of jobs are there, what is the image of a plumber. Ok now JD knows what industry and has further defined where Big Crack Plumbing fits in it so he can sit down and design a logo.
Logos can be designed by using programs like Publisher, Photoshop, Visio and various online sources. Cooltext.com has many templates to choose from where a user can change color, font, layout and size to custom make a logo. With many different combinations available it would be easy to make something but take a large time investment to get it right. What many business owners choose to do is higher a company to do a logo for them that is personalized and unique. This is the preferred method since a logo is the most important of any marketing campaign. Big Crack Plumbing now a unique logo that visually demonstrates exactly what type of company it is. With that section done JD moves onto create the other parts of his marketing campaign.
Slogan: Catchy, funny and memorable work great here. JD goes through many trials and errors but finally settles on “Big Crack Plumbing…No crack is to BIG”. It is catchy (it is simple and goes well with the name of the company), funny (plumbers crack comes to mind) and memorable (the company name and slogan go well together).
Vision: JD sat down and wrote what his goal was for all his clients and remember why he left his previous employer, JD could do it better. The vision is what a company think Writing out his vision for Big Crack Plumbing JD gets ready to include it on the rest of his marketing which is still a tad grey but getting clearer.
Now comes to the more difficult part, selecting a marketing medium. JD gets going on what he thinks will be an effective strategy and he starts researching printing companies online to see what 1,000 colored flyers would cost. To his surprise it is $390 bucks which is major dent is an already depleted funds. Print was out of the question because if every time a 1,000 flyers were needed it would cost him a lot of cash. So he checks into a website and see that it is a one time cost of $300 and an annual renewal fee of $25.
This seems like the right marketing medium, it is affordable, it can reach more people and it he can learn how to do it himself when not doing plumbing work.
With all Big Crack Plumbing’s marketing pieces ready to go he launches his website, www.BigCrackPlumbing.com, and starts to add his information. He uploads his logo, vision, slogan and adds his contact information. JD spends all his free time building content on his site about the various problems and issues that may be faced by a homeowner or other small business. Big Crack Plumbing wants to be the expert and pull business in from the internet since it is going to be the main marketing medium.
Big Crack Plumbing is now off and running a effective small business that is armed with a marketing strategy that can evolve as the business does. The consistency of Big Crack Plumbing’s message can be seen on every page of the website and it is all organized and looking good so every time someone visits his website they will remember the consistency in message and design because of the simple foundation that was built with a logo, slogan, vision and specific marketing channel.
Let us know what you do to improve the consistency of your marketing message.
Technorati
To get the ball rolling on this site, TW Resource Group needs to market this blog site by first claiming it and setting up a Technorati Profile. To keep tabs on us add us to your favorites and get the latest updates…happy blogging.
Chris’ First Post
This is our first attempt at our own website. With the knowledge base obtained through building sites for clients, I am sure our attempt on our own site will be even better. So here we go.Feel free to visit anytime and thank you for visiting for your first time.
Small Business Marketing 101
From my experience in small businesses and startups the biggest challenge is having a marketing/advertising budget to start getting the word out. When most start their own business they did it because they are experts in their field and they see an opportunity to provide a higher quality product or service to the community. This mentality is what gives the small business sector a leg up on the competition and small business owners need to capitalize early in their development but the only thing that lacks is the funds to produce a competitive marketing strategy. So what can small business owners do to maximize their exposure on a minimal budget? And for the first part of this complex answer that will be discussed is consistency.
What is consistency? It is the repeated use of one technique over and over again until saturation is achieved. Oh, TW Resource Group, that is easy and anyone can do that. That is a very common misconception; it is easy and anyone can do it. If that where the case then all new & small businesses would go from startup to success story overnight. But what most small businesses and startups lack is consistency in their chosen marketing strategy, print, media or web based.
Consistency means repetition and part of the marketing equation having results coming in the future and not right away. Using the power of repetition a company can get results; it just may take awhile. To explain this example lets use a Marysville real estate company. Barnett Associates Real Estate, LLC has been around since 2003 and in their early years there was so no definitive strategy is applied. But after time they choose to take an online approach to obtain a market presence and generate business through every advertising dollar spent. Many people told this company that they couldn’t generate business using the web as their primary marketing medium and to many peoples surprised they have. Why? Because they used consistency to generate their message.
Over a four year span Barnett Associates Real Estate, LLC has invested time and money into created a website that achieved top results on Google, view results. Consistency in using a web based strategy has given the company the desired results and now there marketing strategy is paying long-term dividends.By picking a strategy and sticking with it is the key because company’s message is being focus to a specific marketing and in this case it is the online real estate researcher.
Any small business or startup can replicate this process but time has to be factored in and results have to be waited for but if a strategy is believed in and stuck to then it will work, it just takes time. Don’t get discouraged by non believers, just keep moving forward. There is saying that I like to live by:
Keep on Keeping on…
It works if you work it.