To Blog or Not To Blog

Narrative building, relationship building, experience demonstrating...if used correctly and consistently, a blog can be a very powerful tool for connecting with your customers. I recently read an article on Digital Brand Marketing’s blog entitled, “Do You Need a Blog? The Personal Branding Perspective,” and they explain perfectly about how powerful a blog can be, “Have you seen Amy Adams and Meryl Streep in the movie Julie & Julia?  The film demonstrates the power of blogging, and how it can impact an individual’s life or business.  I won’t give away the plot, but the main character played by Amy Adams follows her cooking passion and writes about her struggles and successes.  Her creativity, writing ability, emotion and content slowly began to resonate and attract a following, media attention and much more.”

Following are some reasons that you should blog:

1. SEO - the more you post blog articles with relevant keywords, the better search engine results your page will get.
2. Social Media Marketing - by posting blog posts to your website and linking them to social media pages, you will build excitement and more traffic to both your website and blog.
3. Generating Leads and Sales - a blog is an open platform that gives everyone on the web access to learn more about the products and services that your company or organization offers.
4. Lowering Costs - instead of buying expensive advertising space, you can utilize your blog to describe your products and services.
5. Receiving Feedback - blogs are an open dialogue, your followers can leave comments in response to your blog posts.

You should not start a blog if:

1. You will not be consistent about posting to your blog.
2. You do not have someone in your company that will be dedicated and take ownership of the blog.

Consistency and timeliness are the two necessities you must have if you plan to start a blog. So go on, start creating a narrative for your brand. Remember to use the editorial calendar that I included in a previous post to schedule timely, informational, interesting and fun blog posts. If your company has a blog, I’d love to read it, so please email me a link to it: melissa@bigredprinting.net. Check out our blog at: http://bigredprintingspotlight.blogspot.com/

Source: www.impactbnd.com, “Top 10 Reasons Every Small Business Should Be Blogging.”

Is Your Direct Mail Social?

Why integrating your marketing efforts should be one of your top priorities. 

Did you know that research still shows that 60% of consumers prefer receiving physical marketing materials, such as direct mail postcards, versus emails. In fact, some of the most recognizable brands, such as Google, spend millions of dollars from their marketing budgets on the printing and mailing of direct mail pieces. Why? Just as I mentioned before, some audiences are more responsive to physical mail and therefore it is important to integrate your marketing efforts.

Integrating your marketing efforts means that if your company has gone social, it will be important for you to incorporate your social media into your traditional media campaigns. See DIAGRAM 1 for a comparison between types of traditional vs. new media. I’ve said it a million times and I will keep saying it, just because you build it, doesn’t mean that people are going to visit your social profiles. 

DIAGRAM 1

Ways You Can Integrate Social Media into Traditional Media Outlets

Add your social profile names and logos to your traditional media items

• Be SPECIFIC - put the direct URL to the page. (i.e. facebook.com/bigredprinting)
• Add a social component to your traditional media (make your offer social!)
• Offer a discount, offer a discount for sharing the discount on social media, offer a free whitepaper for liking your page
• Post your offline campaigns to your social profiles
• Create events to entice recipients to join you online

It is important to remember that as you plan your direct mail campaigns, you should simultaneously be also planning your email messages, Facebook status updates, blog posts and tweets so that they all complement each other. 

Sources: socialmediab2b.com, yellowbook360.com