Keeping your blog’s feet on the ground
A successful blog about your business can be profitable — but first needs strong roots tied to your corporate strategy.
After observing various businesses whose search engine presence has effectively maxed out–in accordance with a stagnation in content flow–I am compelled to revisit an old, familiar theme:
How will blogging help me sell my product?
Last time around, it was also about generating content for search engines. This time around, we are going to pay more attention to strategy. Like any good marketing initiative, the ultimate value of a company or product blog will correlate closely with the soundness and integrity of the strategy on which it was founded.
Consider a post from Seth Godin’s blog from earlier this week, comparing blogging to growing orchids: “Some people probably get rich growing orchids. Not many though. And my guess is that the people who do make money gardening probably didn’t set out to do so. Blogging is much the same way. The best bloggers make money, but mostly as a side effect, not as a direct result of setting out to use a blog to make a profit.”
And now consider the following list:
- A physician who puts a patient on a strict exercise program
- A critically-acclaimed author who just sold 100,000 books
- An NBA All-Star whose ball handling is poetry in motion
The physician will help his patient lose weight, but also reduce their risk of heart disease. The author will become famous for writing books, but her speaking engagements will always draw an audience. The basketball player may be featured in a highlight film, but if he’s good, he’s probably contending for a championship. (As supporters of the New Orleans Hornets, at Clicksharp we expect Chris Paul to accomplish both.)
In each of these cases, a professional has a singular focus, and in pursuing it, reaps residual benefits. So will you with your blog. Whether you use it as a vehicle for customer engagement, a corporate mouthpiece, or a market research tool — adherence to the overarching strategy will solidify your authority. Figure out what it is about your company you write best about, and in some way, shape or form, the money will come.
As Seth said: “The benefits kick in best when you don’t set out to achieve them.”
~~~~~
Paul Burani
Clicksharp Marketing
New York, NY
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 @ 11:31 am on the category Blogging, Copy writing, Marketing Theory.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Subscribe via RSS
