WHY ARE BUSINESSES DOING IT AND WHAT ARE THEY BLOGGING ABOUT:
Okay, so you may be thinking what is all this blogging about and why are businesses actually doing it, what are you meant to blog about and how can I do it? Im sure your business is great, you love it, so why wouldn’t everyone else? Who wouldn’t want to read all about your business everyday? Now while your business is your life, and its probably very interesting, its highly unlikely that people will want to constantly come back to read more and more about it. Your customers? No, even if they love your product they may want to buy or use it often but I doubt they want to read about it. Maybe your employees…. again unlikely, when their shift is over it is likely they will want to spend their time off, thinking of anything but your business.
While its good to keep your business blog updated with your companies events you need to be careful that this is not the sole focus of your posts. You also need to be careful not to confuse a blog with a sales channel. Yes your blog may generate leads but you need to look at this as more of a side effect rather than the desired effect. (Chef, 2013)
So you’re probably confused right about now. If you’re not meant to use your business blog to focus on your business or with the sole aim of generating sales why is it called a BUSINESS blog at all? Don’t worry were getting there…
A blog is meant to generate awareness about you and your brand. It’s best used as a tool to establish authority and make people trust you. (Chef, 2013)
So if the purpose of a blog is not to sell then what is it and why do businesses do it?
To Get Exposure – Lets say your business is a local coffee shop, why should someone buy from you when they could buy from costa? To them you are a stranger, why would they go to you when they could go to their long term, reliable friend, costa, who can serve them coffee in 29 countries around the globe (Costa, 2015)? When people read your blog they get to know your company and its values and you expose yourself to people who may not seek your offerings in the present but in the future they might. Your blog may stick in the back of their mind and next time there is a long queue in Costa, they may decide to try your coffee instead; and voila you may have converted a new customer!
Connect with your customers – One of the key components to your blog is your comments section. Nowadays, some companies disable this section but I say this is a big no with a capital N. As previously discussed in another blog there is no such thing as bad word of mouth (WOM) (Liu, 2006) – read my blog on the Rise of eWOM for more information. If an unhappy customer can’t moan about you on your pages thats not going to stop them; they’re only going to do it else where which is much worse! If you get bad comments left on your blog this just hand delivers you the opportunity to showcase your excellent customer service. This makes customers feel valued and less afraid to spend money on your products or services. Connecting with customers in the comments sections in how-to blogs will help you to form a bond and encourages brand loyalty.
Engagement helps – use the wisdom of the masses to help improve your product or services! If you make them feel like their comments are welcome, people may make suggestions for improvements or new markets! If you then make these improvements providing them with an update – they’re all the more likely to tell their friends about how they had an input!
Share’s, likes and SEO! – if people like your company and content they will spread the word for you! They will continue to come back to you more and more and may even link to you – meaning SEO in a natural way!! (Chef, 2013)
Please also see my previous blog on ‘The Power of a Blog‘ for more of an insight on what a blog could do for your company.
Okay, so now you know why people do it, you need to know HOW to do it…
WHERE TO START:
Right, so first of all you need to decide where you want to blog! There are so many options out there which all have different pros and cons, some of the best ones are (click on the links to take you to view their site):
WordPress is a free software and requires no coding knowledge. It has over 60 million users and is recommended for blogging and websites.
Pros: ease of use and elegance of design.
Cons: You first need to acquire and pay for a domain name and web hosting. The good news is that this only costs around a couple of pound a month from places such as FastHosts.
This is a free hosting sight which has around 50% of the features of the .org version. Although this comes with less maintenance it also comes with less control, but it all depends what your looking for because if your just a small company who wants to try out blogging this may be the option for you as it is cost free. You get a .wordpress domain name, but as I just said it’s down to what your looking for and if you’re conducting some trial and error with marketing techniques this may be the one for you.
Pros: fool-proof to use and difficult to mess up – call it blogging for dummies!
Googles free blog-hosting site, you can be posting blogs with only a gmail account – however you can pay a fee per year for a domain without the ‘.blogspot’ extension.
Pros: you can publish anywhere, including images, video, edit HTMLs, have a template designer and you can teach traffic stats in Blogger and get Adsense at no extra charge.
Cons: Google owns your blog – meaning less control upfront and some of the themes are childlike.
This is a good starting place but many seem to outgrow blogger.
If you want to be considered an expert in the field this may be for you! With Google+ you get an instant community and audience.
Pros: Google circles – where you can divide people into groups and jump between the different streams of circles.It also has a hangout feature, authorship, multi-language and can increase your search rankings, chat, Gmail integration and mobile publishing.
Cons: Generally there does not appear to be many complaints about Google+ however one appears to be that you cannot mute a person in your stream so could find it monopolised by an overly chatty person (you can however mute individual posts). (Bash, 2012)
Okay, so now you’ve decided where you want to set your blog up; the most important part – how do you do it…
HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS BLOG:
Doing something new can be scary and daunting, especially if you feel as though you don’t know where to start. Luckily for you it doesn’t have to be scary and daunting with this step by step guide to walk you through it.
Make goals – Why do you want to blog, what do you hope to get out of it, what will your readers get out of it.
What is the purpose – Why should people visit your blog? (remember the information above about the purpose of a business blog – your business should not be the sole focus!)
Know your audience – in order to right a successful blog you need to know who you’re writing one for and what they want/ need – research your audience!
How often – you should decide how often your going to post then try to stick to it – it will be harder to get a loyal following if you don’t update with regular posts. This does not necessarily mean posting everyday – sometimes less is more!
Who – you need to decide who will be the primary and contributory writers of your blog. Is this going to be someone from within the company or are you going to outsource to get this from somewhere else.
Editorial calender – this is kind of an online to-do list which is recommended to keep you on top of what you should be posting.
Write it! – Write interesting and engaging content and your readers are sure to come back for more. BUT REMEMBER – don’t just write about your business, how-to blogs always make for nice insightful content. To read an article on how to write a blog post please click here. But some quick tips are: be helpful and unique, tell stories and respond quickly to trends.
Promote your blog – You may think that after writing the blog the hard work is over. I am sorry to tell you but I’m wrong – thats probably the easy part! Now you have to share it and distribute it across as many people as you can. For more information on how to promote your blog please read this article.
Measure and improve – In order to see if this is something your company should continue you need to measure your blog! You need to know if people out there actually care about your blog. In order to measure your blog you need to decide what you’re blogging for – content, commerce or community? If it content you need to look at total visits and percentage of new visits. Commerce – average length of stay and number of pages viewed. Community – repeat visits, subscribers and comments. For more information on this please see here.
(Redsicker, 2014).
WHO IS BLOGGING BEST:
It’s no surprise that the popular social media platform only allowing the posting of pictures has got their business blog spot on. Instagram engages with its readers through hashtags encouraging them to share on social media, it also blogs about current affairs which leads to a more diverse following.
WAIT…
Blogging is great, it humanises your business and forms a bond but don’t be fooled into thinking that there aren’t any drawbacks! Marina states “that consumers who believe in personality stability (i.e., entity theorists) view anthropomorphized brands that undergo negative publicity less favorably than nonanthropomorphized brands” (Marina, 2013). Suggesting that once you form a bond of trust with a customer, if you break it, there is no going back! Just something to think about – if your going to humanise your business, make sure you can live up to the standards that you set.
JUST BEFORE YOU GO…
So, you now know why businesses are blogging and how to do it… and if you’ve been paying attention you should know the do’s and the don’t’s! Just incase you haven’t:
DO engage with your customers.
DO make it personal, try to humanise your business.
DONT constantly focus on your business, try to post on a variety or subjects.
DON’T disable the comments section – no WOM is bad WOM (Liu, 2006)
Okay, I think your just about ready to go.. thanks for reading and happy blogging! ♥
Wright, J (2006). Blog Marketing: The Revolutionary New Way to Increase Sales, Build Your Brand, and Get Exceptional Results. The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Word of mouth (WOM): “the most disruptive force in marketing” (Bughin, Doogan, and Vetvik, 2010).
THE IMPORTANCE OF WORD OF MOUTH:
Why is WOM so important you ask? WOM drives a high impact and degree of credibility among consumers. Around “58 percent of consumers ascribe high credibility to the information they hear from others during WOM conversations” and 50 percent claim they are likely to buy as a result of these conversations. (Keller and Fay. 2012)
With shopping being a top 10 conversation topic, featuring in more than half of our daily conversations; it’s no wonder that the concept of WOM is climbing (Skole 2014).
SOME STATS:
In 2013 68% claimed that they would trust consumer opinions online, up 7 percentage points from 2007 (Nielsen 2013); indicating the growing impact of eWOM.
72% increase their trust in the business after reading positive customer reviews (Anderson 2014).
On social media, 58% of consumers actively share their positive experiences with a company, and ask family and friends for their opinions on brands (SDL 2013).
84% of consumers reported always or sometimes taking action based on personal recommendations. 70% said they did the same of online consumer opinions (Nielsen, 2013)
Word of Mouth has been proven to increase marketing effectiveness up to 54% (Jankowski, 2013).
Pure WOM is free, companies don’t tend to pay happy customers who share their experience with others (Kokemuller, 2015). Therefore it pays off to take care in delivering the best possible service/products and to take pride in having good customer service skills. Sometimes an incentive is offered to an existing customer to recommend someone, but here the cost is only incurred should you acquire a new customer; so in theory its still a win – win situation.
A huge advantage is market efficiency. Often money is wasted when ad campaigns shown on the TV or internet, reach audiences who would never be interested in the product/ service (Kokemuller, 2015). Whereas, say a Facebook user posts about how much they enjoyed your product, it is likely that the majority of the people it will reach will be likeminded people who will also enjoy your product.
Trusov compliments WOM by estimating “that WOM referrals have substantially longer carryover effects than traditional marketing actions and produce substantially higher response elasticities.” (Trusov, 2009)
WOM can be both face to face and online. The main drawback to WOM is that as the business you can not control it. If you have an unhappy customer who is determined to share their experience with everyone they come face to face with, there really isn’t anything you can do about it. HOWEVER, eWOM on the other hand is a different story! Liu (2006) argues that both negative and positive WOM increase performance. Lets say you have an unhappy customer who shares their negative experience on Facebook for everyone to see, you could seize this as an opportunity to showcase your excellent customer service skills; therefore turning the negative into a positive. Arguably, this makes eWOM safer and more beneficial than face to face WOM as it gives the Company a chance to be involved with both the positive and negative comments.
SOUNDS GREAT! HOW DO I ACHIEVE IT?
Like we already know it is hard to control word-of-mouth therefore it is only right that you assume it is just as hard to create it. Nonetheless here are 6 key pointers to put you on the road to achieving a successful WOM campaign…
Start with the consumer – “The consumer is the centre of the economic universe” (Mourdoukoutas & Siomkos, 2009) – words to live and die by. To be a product or service that spreads like an epidemic, it needs to fulfil consumer need and desire. For example, Red Bull have satisfied the need for quick energy drinks. (Taran, 2012). If you want your customers to talk about how much they love you, give them a reason to – provide great customer service and always put them first.
Be innovative – this must be simple for the consumer and provide observable benefits. Innovation enhancements should follow and it should come with low risk of adoption and ease of trial. (Taran, 2012)
Target the right audience – based on their attitudes consumers can be classified as innovators, early adopters, early majority and late majority and laggards. The company must be able to cross the chasm between the early adopters and the crowd following early majority. Although innovators help create a market niche they cannot help the product reach the mass market. (Taran, 2012) Therefore, targeting the right group is essential to your product reaching the mass market.
Get the message right – the message needs to be appealing, transparent, credible and direct. It is better to stick to characters and stories that consumers can easily memorise, allowing them to recall the moment they make their purchase decisions. It may be necessary to shift the message focus as the product gains acceptance by new groups – i.e. for innovators the message should focus on the newness; for early adopters the focus should be on quality; early majority are likely to respond to brand reliability. The late majority need a message tailored to the simplicity and convenience of the product while the focus should be on price discounts when targeting laggards.
The right context is key – the right social context and time to let the innovators and early adopters spread the message. Your message must reflect the changes in context. The message would have to be visible and have a large population density in which people frequently interact; for example Facebook is home to millions of users however due to its generation cycle would be more appropriate to target a middle aged audience than say twitter and Instagram which also has millions of users, however mainly from the younger generation.
Ready for take off.. Launch eWOM campaign – identify consumers who are effective in influencing others, those who are likely to invite their friends to share your message. Potentially offer something in return for sharing their experience with you and your message on Facebook, tagging you in it. However remember that WOM can be hard to monitor and even harder to reverse and it is important to be aware that often WOM campaigns fail to connect. Monitor consumer relations and interactions and try to spread your message across the chasms, do this by building communities on social media, sending out hints about business or product updates (Miller, 2015).
WHO HAS DONE IT RIGHT?
Now I’m sure you probably heard of ‘The Ice Bucket Challenge’… this is a WOM campaign in its finest form and ALS Association had this going viral within a matter of days!
A QUICK RECAP…
eWOM is increasingly becoming more and more important to companies and good eWOM is possibly the best marketing campaign that a company can have, particularly if it is a small local business. Statistics for the impact that WOM has on consumers is on the up and rising. There are many benefits to it and as previously stated it is the opinion of some that there is no such thing as bad WOM (Liu 2006). Word-of-mouth is hard to control and just as hard to create; but remember if your going to have any chance of that you need your customers to love you.
Bughin, J., J. Doogan, and O. J. Vetvik. “A New Way to Measure Word-of-Mouth Marketing.” McKinsey Quarterly, April (2010). Retrieved September 27, 2012, from http://w w w .mckinseyquarterly.com/ A_new _w ay_to_measure_w ord-of- mouth_marketing_2567.
Taran, Z. (2012). The Seven Principles of WOM and Buzz Marketing: Crossing the Tipping Point. Journal of Consumer Marketing. Vol. 29 (2), 163 – 164.
Trusov, Bucklin, Pauwels. (2009). Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: findings from an Internet social networking site. Journal of marketing,. 73 (5), 90-102.
“Permission-based e-mails sent to customers are a form of marketing that is on the increase. E-mail marketing campaigns produce approximately twice the return on investment of the other main forms of online marketing such as web banners and online directory adverts.” (Ellis-Chadwick, & Doherty. 2012)
With email marketing on the rise, more and more companies are beginning to utilise the benefits that it offers, its time to ask yourself; are you going to ‘opt in’?
Given that email provides marketers with communication that permits relationship building and real-time interaction with customers (Jackson and DeCormier, 1999), and with such low costs is this something your company can really afford to say no to?… Didn’t think so!
TYPES OF EMAIL MARKETING
Depending on the type of message you are hoping to convey you will likely be using one of the following:
EMAIL NEWSLETTER – These typically inform customers or the latest offers, promotions and sales. When done correctly these are more than just a sales tool – they can have a long term impact on the receiver. The aim should be to provide the customer with value – it should inform, entertain and benefit the reader. (Richason, 2015)
PRESS RELEASE EMAIL – Normally associated with newspapers and trade magazines but is also used by small businesses to inform customers of a new item or promotion. Where these differ from a newsletter is in that they usually focus on one message with the aim to inform and to tempt customers to visit the business either online or in person. (Richason, 2015)
CATALOG EMAIL – This is similar to a newsletter, but is usually compromised of images with short descriptions and prices as opposed to dialogue pieces. These are comparable to a catalog you may receive through the post but without the costly printing and shipping charges.
VIDEO EMAIL – More or less what it says on the tin… crossbreed of newsletter and catalog email, this snazzy marketing tool is compromised of dialog with images, video footage and graphics. As you can probably guess this is a lot more technical than your standard newsletter email.
SURVEY EMAIL – These request that customers provide feedback and require customer interaction, usually with the incentive of something in return such as a discount or voucher.
INVITATION EMAIL – Invites the reader to take part in a sales promotion or event, these usually prompt the customer to visit the business online or in person at a particular time/ date.
THANK-YOU EMAIL – Kindness doesn’t cost a thing! – Well barely a thing when its email marketing! Good customer service is at the heart of most successful companies – particularly small businesses. It can make a customer feel valued and ensure their future loyalty and custom when a business responds to their experience. The best thank-you emails are personalised to the consumer and offer a token of appreciation- such as a coupon or discount, they also use this as an opportunity to advertise current or future offers and products. (Richason, 2015)
WHY TO…
Peppers and Rodgers (2000, p 4), allege that ‘clear benefits, including high response rates and low costs are rapidly turning email marketing into an invaluable tool’. Here are some of the reasons you should opt-in to email marketing:
Less time and less effort – Consider the alternative offline marketing tools – Telesales Campaigns and Print Postals – both take up more of your time and more of your budget! Postal: you have to craft the mailing, print it, envelope it, post it, wait for it to arrive – many of these stages can replaced with the click of a button. Telesales: you have to craft a script, employ telesales staff to dial number and regurgitate said script – this phone call may also inconvienience the consumer, who if received an email instead could choose to read it at a time convenient for them. With email marketing it is estimated that you can turn a marketing communications piece out in less than two hours (Gao, 2013).
One size fits one – Who needs one size fits all when you can personalise your marketing communications to draw the consumer in and make them feel engaged and important. This is not limited to their name, email address or login but you can use previous search or sales history. You can segment your customer lists into smaller list and target people due to their location or a certain type of product. Email allows you to speak in a personalised way with your consumers that isn’t available via other marketing channels. A great example of this is an email I recently received from Amazon; reminding me that I had added a product to my basket, but didn’t complete the checkout. This not-so-subtle reminder hit the nail right on the head, its personalised, short, sweet and simple with a link that took me to the landing page of my amazon basket, where I was able to complete my purchase in under one minute!
Increased frequency of communications – As email marketing is a big time saver it enables you to communicate with your customers more often than say a monthly postal catalogue. Although you should however bare in mind that the best email marketing practices do not send your consumers more than one email a week – however you could communicate daily if you desire (Gao, 2013).
You mustbe aware of the legal issues – Don’t panic! – it is unlikely you have been breaking the law if you have simply been sending emails are your life. However, when using email marketing I suggest you familiarise yourself with what you can and cannot do. There are limitations on various things such as; you’re only permitted to send marketing emails to individual customers with their permission and they must expressly state:
who you are,
the fact that you are selling something, and
what the promotions and conditions are. (GOV.UK, 2014)
To further enlighten yourself on the legal issues surrounding email marketing please visit the GOV.UK website…
Less is more! – Literally, a 2011 study has shown that 22% of consumer claim that they withdrew their custom from a company altogether because they were receiving too many emails or ones which were irrelevant to them (Wickford, 2015)
Deliverability – not all emails that you send reach the consumers inbox for various reasons such as blocked IP addresses to deactivated email accounts. “Your bounce rate should never be more than 20%, and that would be considered to be the high end of the scale. You would really prefer, on a house list, to see a bounce rate of less than 10%” (Gao, 2015). If it is more than that you need to reevaluate your email list as bounced emails will never lead to a sale. Please see here for tips on how to prevent high bounce rates, for example checking email validity at the time of sign-up.
GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN:
In order to get the most to of your campaign it is essential to measure the performance metrics of your email marketing campaign. The three most important metrics to measure are:
Open rate – this is the number of emails opened divided by the number of emails delivered.
Click-through rate – this is the number of people who clicked on a link within the email divided by the number of emails opened.
Conversions – The Conversion rate is the number of people who performed the desired action, such as filling out a lead form or purchasing a product. Calculate your conversion rate by dividing the number of leads or sales by the number of people who responded to your email (Wickford, 2015)
Email marketing is definitely on the up and if your not already taking advantage of the benefits that it has to offer; it may be time to jump on the bandwagon. BUT REMEMBER be aware of the legal issues, less is more and in order to reap the full benefits you need to measure the performance metrics of your campaign. For example the click-through rate can provide an insight into how many people are engaging with your content and are keen to learn more about your brand and offers.
REFERENCES
Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.
Jackson, A. and DeCormier, R. (1999), “E-mail Survey Response Rates: Targeting Increases Response”, Journal of Marketing Intelligence and Planning , v.17, n.3, p. 135-139.
Peppers, D. and Rogers, M. (2000),Email Marketing Maximized, Peppers,Stamford, C.A.
Looking to market your business at a low budget? It looks like Facebook could be the answer you have been searching for. At a low cost you could market and advertise your business to millions of Facebook users.
“Facebook can help you to reach all of the people who matter most to your business” (Facebook 2015)
Academics have commented that “most commercial companies need to do marketing in social networks in order to introduce their goods and/or services.” (Forouzandeh, Soltanpanah, Sheikhahmadi, 2014). So ask yourself, do you fall within this category? Are you missing out?
Business marketing through Facebook is utilised by many companies; so much so that Facebook itself provides step by step guidance on how to successfully accomplish it. Facebook kindly highlights a 5-step guide which you can see in full here. In a nutshell they advise that you:
Set up your page – make yourself discoverable.
Identify your audience – think about who your ideal customers are, their age group and location. As well as think about what your business could do for them.
Create compelling content – Facebook suggests the three ‘be’s that will put you on a road to success: Be authentic. Be responsive. Be consistent.
Advertise – create an advert and use fine-tuned targeting to reach the people who matter most to your business.
Measure and adjust – discover whats working well in order to maximise the impact of all posts and advertisements. (Facebook 2015)
Want some more tips or clarification without reading the whole guide on the link above? Watch this short video on ‘7 Amazing Ways To Promote Your Business On Facebook’
Sounds pretty straight forward right? Not only is it simple to set up, but it has a bucket load of benefits attached to it. Some of these benefits can be similar to those that you would get from having a website, however some are unique to Facebook such as:
Talking to existing or potential customers – it is just as beneficial to listen as much as you talk as this can give you profitable insight into what the market thinks about your business and products.
Facebook can steer traffic towards your website.
Promote positive word of mouth by using the ‘Like’ button.
Targeted advertising – Facebook analyses the information provided by millions of users on their profiles, and as a business page you have the option to pay to utilise this information to distribute targeted advertising to a specific group.
Ability to offer deals through ‘Facebook Places’ – business pages automatically earn the right to be included in the Facebook Places directory. (Queensland Government 2014)
Success stories – AKA Facebook marketing miracles! They really aren’t miracles as there are so many of them, but doesn’t that sound better than ‘success stories’! To see a full range of these not-so-miracles see the Facebook for Business site. One example is Graze, who deliver healthy snacks in the post as a tasty substitute for sugary sweets:
Graze discovers healthy results:
Health food innovators Graze used a conversation lift test to discover that its last-click attribution model was detecting only 72% of the online subscriptions driven by Facebook
9.8% lift in online sales through 2 weeks after the end of the campaign
(Facebook 2015)
THINK YOU’VE HEARD EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO HEAR?
Don’t rush off before you have the whole story! Now while this all seems like sunshine and rainbows, the answer to all your prayers in the form of Facebook; things may not be what they seem. Yes, Facebook can be a low cost way to market your business. Yes, it is simple to set up; AND yes it can come with a list of benefits as long as your arm. However, like most things it can also have its drawbacks.
THE CONS OF FACEBOOK MARKETING:
Many companies use Facebook to market and advertise their businesses. However academics have commented that in some cases, “advertising and marketing methods in social networks are not correct and the resulted advertisements are boring and tiring to users and they might ignore them without noticing. Such advertisements will be considered as spam and will be annoying to network users.” (Forouzandeh, Soltanpanah, Sheikhahmadi, 2014).
A study in 2014 showed that when marketers were asked whether they agree with the statement ‘My Facebook marketing is effective’ only 43% agreed (34% agree, 9% strongly agree). Meaning the other 57% were unsure or disagreed (Stelzner, M. 2014):
Feel your hopes come crashing down around you? RELAX! Am I saying that Facebook marketing won’t work and is a waste of time? No. If you take a close look at the pie chart above you will see that only 21% disagreed with the other statement. The other 37% were just uncertain on how to tell if it was having an effect, and the number of people who agreed with the statement increased in 2014 from 37% (in 2013) to 43%. With time companies are becoming more familiar with social media and are learning what to do and what not to do; leading to more and more success stories.
Now, back to that uncertain 37%… Facebook for business kindly offers information on Facebook Measurement Basics giving you insight on seeing how people respond to your Page and adverts, allowing you to make informed decisions about reaching your customers. Click on the link above for more information. As for the ‘boring’, ‘spam’ adverts we can assume this is down to poor advertising skills, please see here for tips on how to create successful Facebook newsfeed ads, for example ensuring you create multiple lists of audiences that you want to target (Baldassarre, 2014).
READY, SET, GO…
Okay, so now you have all the information. Cheap, simple to set up; BUT proceed with caution! Ensure you aren’t publishing boring advertisements and make sure you are clued up on how to measure your Facebook marketing campaign. It is easy to be put off when reading the drawbacks of something and fall into the mindset of “it won’t work for me”. However, with the right tips and information there is no reason that you can’t have a Facebook Marketing Miracle of your own!
Stelzner, M (2014) Social Media Marketing Industry Report. How Marketers Are Using Social Media To Grow Their Business. Social Media Examiner. Viewed 13th April 2015
A blog is a frequently updated online journal or diary and the abbreviation originates from its original name ‘weblog’ (Byrd, 2011).
Businesses that don’t have blogs rely on third parties like Google or Facebook to make their offerings visible on the Web. (Chef, 2013)
Why rely on others when you can take matters into your own hands? Don’t be the one to fall within the category above which relies on Google or Facebook to make your offerings visible on the web. Be proactive and start blogging!
WHAT MAKES A BLOG SO SPECIAL?
There are many things that make blogs such a treasured marketing tool, but in order to answer this question we must compare a blog with something your company is likely to already have. Lets say your company newsletter, which highlights who won the friendly 5-a-side game you played last week, employee of the month and maybe some upcoming charity events that you are partaking in. This newsletter probably goes out to all of your employees maybe shareholders but thats probably as far as it gets. Therefore your companies newsletter has a limited life cycle and circulation due to the costs, whereas these limitations do not apply to a blog! Anyone inside or outside of the company can view it and information can constantly be updated giving it an endless life cycle. It has lower costs to produce and can be easily found due to electronic search! (Falls, 2012).
THE IMPORTANCE OF A BLOG:
Blogging is quickly working its way into the list of most important online marketing strategies. If crafted successfully your blog has the ability to:
accumulate product sales
drive herds of traffic to your companies main website,
create an additional customer service tool
and provide additional advertising income.
(Gehl, 2006)
THEY PACK A POWERFUL PUNCH…
Not quite convinced yet? Let me tell you some more about what a blog could do for you…
Give your target market just what they’re looking for – due to automatic archiving features (by date and category) it is easy for your readers to find the information they’re looking for. If you regularly update your blog you are well on your way to building a loyal following who are likely to be your best potential customers.
Establish your credibility –with frequent blog postings you can establish yourselves as a trustworthy source on your area meaning your readers will feel at ease buying from you.
Give your brand a personality –due to the informality of a blog your posts will be in your own voice providing the company with a personality. This seems to reassure the consumer, as people tend to feel more comfortable when dealing with a real person as they feel a sense of security and that their needs will be taken care of.
Improve customer service–you can answer consumer questions and provide updates and how-to posts in order to encourage customers with your excellent customer service.
Accumulate extra income –there are advertising programs available which allow you to monetise your blog and generate additional revenue.
For further information on why blogs pack a powerful punch please read this article.
IMPLICATIONS OF BLOGGING…
Although brand personality is great, it creates trust between you and the consumer it can also have a negative effect as it is thought that anthropomorphised brands that undergo negative publicity are favoured less than when a non anthropomorphised brand does (Marina, 2013).
Also there is the view that the lack of rules of the blogosphere has created the analogy to the ‘‘wild west’’ (Cox, 2008) and there is limited control to how people respond. However no word-of-mouth (WOM) is bad as it provides the opportunity for you to showcase your customer service skills.
WHO IS DOING IT BEST…
Target – despite being a large corporation with employees nationwide, target allows the reader to get up close and personal to the company with its “Get to know us” section, which introduces employees and events; therefore humanising the company. It also has a clear layout and structure for ease of navigation. (Flies, 2014)
Google! It is no surprise that web royalty google has an excellent blog, keeping customers up to date on products, technology and culture. It is very informational and updated regularly, including quizzes to directly engage the reader; which has generated a loyal following.
QUICK RECAP…
So we know that a blog is like an online journal, we know that they’re becoming more and more popular. We know that a blog can bring substantial benefits to you company and we know that when crafted correctly they can pack quite a punch. What we don’t know is why you haven’t already made one!
Google. (2015). Which animal are you? Take the Google Doodle Earth Day Quiz. Available: http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk. Last accessed 26th April 2015.
Liu, Yong (2006), “Word of Mouth for Movies: Its Dynamics and Impact on Box Office Revenue,” Journal of Marketing, 70 (July), 74–89.
Marina, Hyokjin, Joseph. (2013). When humanizing brands goes wrong: the detrimental effect of brand anthropomorphization amid product wrongdoings. Journal of Marketing. 77 (3), 81-100.
