Using Blogs for Business

Most people think of a blog as an interactive tool where visitors can make comments and you can have a running conversation with one or more people.  Although this is an option, it is an old fashioned option at best, and does not take full advantage of the "power of the blog" for business.

The best ways to use a blog are as both your online brochure as well as an educational moment...actually moments.  Here is probably the biggest obstacle I have found to blogging this way.  Most business owners think that if they "give away the crops" you are "giving away the farm".  How does that translate to what we are discussing here?  Too many people are misguided  in thinking that if they answer questions with somewhat detailed information they are giving away their business for free.  Not so...here's why.

Building a Relationship
There are basically two reasons why people are on the internet...to get information and to buy something.  Often, the two are mutually inclusive.  It is common for people to search for information on the net to decide what to buy, so if your site/blog can supply both...you win.
  
In order to do this you need to establish a relationship with your visitor.  Now I've heard many times that you can't establish relationships on the internet with your clients since you need to face them, in person, to do this.  Wrong!  If that statement were true you probably could never establish a relationship with a client over any long distance...so how is it that many client/business relationships are established by using only the phone?  I think it is easier, and much better using the internet since the only thing you can deliver to the client over the phone is your voice.  Over the internet you can deliver everything else...digitally.

One of the most important things to deliver, in order to establish a relationship, is trust...and if you deliver answers to your clients questions, in some detail, without charge, you will be building the trust that is the basis for all relationships in business and in life in general...just don't give away all of it.

Building Trust and Credibility
One of the reasons your clients will return as paying clients, is the relationship of trust you are building is also building your credibility in their eyes.  This will naturally lead to sales.  Remember, they are there to get information and while gathering that information they are also putting together picture of the person or group that is delivering that information to them.  Build that picture in their eyes of an expert in the field as well as a great person giving them the answers they need to make a decision of where to go and who to go with, and the results will be astounding.  Put yourself in their position.  How would you react?

Building an Up to the Minute Presentation 
Using your blog as a presentation tool, accurate to the second, is one of the best reasons to have one in the first place.  Printed material is expensive and accurate only up to the point of printing.  If changes or additions are made to your product or service after printing, you're printing again or you're handing out material missing important information, or you're writing that new info on the back...real professional isn't it?

With your blog, just change it as it happens.  All your clients have to have is the link that takes you to your blog.  Since the link never changes, just the info at the other end, you are running a much more efficient marketing campaign...and a lot less expensive.  How many pictures can you put in print before you run out of space...or money?  How many pictures can you put on your blog before you...well, space or cost doesn't come into play here.

Building a System
Just participate in discussion groups, as posted earlier, and you will have the ability to bring your clients to you. The use of blogging and discussion groups (Social Media) together allows you to build your marketing into a repeatable system that continually presents itself to thousands at a time...for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time.

...My Offer to You
If you are interested in applying this approach to your business, I can show you how.  Let me do the mechanical work, you supply the material (which you are doing anyway for print marketing), and I can build you your own blogging marketing system for a fraction of the cost of print...and much more effective as well.  I can even do this for you for free...yes you read that correctly, and I'm not nuts or giving you a lite version of it.  Just ask me.