Blogging isn’t just for individuals and that’s a known fact. Some of the most popular blogs are commercial blogs that utilize their reach to promote their products and business. Blogging has emerged as one of the best marketing tool on the web. From the ease of creating to the convenience of interacting with possible customers and clients, blogging has given a new way for the marketers to do what they do - Promote! Today there are some hundred thousand blogs created everyday, most of them die and some succeed. However, today we are going to focus on the business aspect of blog and how we can actually use it to promote our services and business. If you know how to maximize marketing opportunities through your blog, it can be one of the best marketing tool you will be hiding in your tool box.

In this post we will talk about a few things as to why you should use your blog as a marketing tool and how it can be beneficial. Let’s get started,

You Have Your Lead on Hand

Your readers! Your readers are your lead. I say that because you already have a loyal fan base that trust you and are willing to take and apply your suggestions, that is why they subscribed to your blogs. Each time you launch a new business or service, your blog can act as that medium to reach to your leads. And I can almost guarantee that if you have set yourself as a reputable person and have been active with your readers, at least 85% of your lead will turn into customers without a problem. However, it truly depends on what you are offering as well. If you are running a tech blog and are trying to sell cruise tickets, that might be a problem but other than that, you should be able to convert your readers ( lead ) into customers.

Blog Is Your Press

Getting a press release is exciting! However, if you use a good press release service it can cost you hundreds and thousands of dollars. Why not use your blog as your press. How do you think most popular bloggers market their product when they launch a new e book or a plugin? They use their own blog to make it public and they do this because they know their blog has the most qualified leads for their products. Press release still might be a good idea, but having a blog certainly reduces the needs of it. Free advertising to the most qualified leads - now that’s marketing at its best and your blog helps you do that.

Helps You Increase Your Visibility

This is one of the most important reason as to why a blog can serve as the best marketing tool for your business. When you have a blog you are required to create content and update regularly with information. Quality content is usually linked by other bloggers. Think of a designer who launches a new theme and if it’s good it will be linked by most bloggers and will be the talk of town. This helps you gain better placement on search engines and increases your visibility. Also most of the times blogs are linked in a way such that popular ideas and products can go viral without any extra effort.

Gives Your Business a Life

If you go to a store and find two salesman - one is your friend and the other one a stranger. Who would you buy it from? Obviously your friend. The reason is simple - people like to buy products and services from people they know. If you regularly participate and interact with your readers, you will be able to develop a relationship with your readers. This gives your business life. When potential clients and customers deal with businesses they would like to know who is behind the product and or services they are buying from. If you are able to have a healthy relationship with your readers, it gives your business a face. When you promote your business, people know they are dealing with someone they know and might have been in touch personally via email and other forms of communication. This is a huge benefit.

Media Coverage Becomes Easier

Media. No matter how hard we bash them, without media business cannot succeed. In todays world online existence for any business is a must. And the power of blog certainly cannot be ignored. If you look at popular bloggers such as Darren Rowse and John Chow, they are regularly featured on popular media. They have been able to create a successful business for themselves through their blogs but media coverage gives them added bonus and visibility.

Immediate Feedback

The other important feature of blog is that it allows you to receive instant feedback and reviews on your products or your business. This rapid, instant feedback will help you tweak and respond better to the market you are trying to target. Once again, remember your readers are your best lead. Their feedback is extremely important. With a blog you can get feedbacks within minutes after publishing a post on a recent product launch, you can adjust your campaign or make necessary changes as suggested by the crowd you are trying to promote your product to.

Blogs today have become an integral part of any business. if you look at most successful companies, they have created a blog to connect with their target market. It’s also the ease of informing customers that appeals to most businesses and marketers. Take a look around the web…Twitter, Google, etc. they all make use of blogs to update and connect with their users.

Let’s take google for an example. Google uses it’s blog to announce important news and updates through it’s blog. Google blog sits on Blogger which itself helps it promote it’s blogging platform, Blogger. Anyone without a blog who is a regular reader of the official google blog is most likely to use Blogger as a blogging platform because of the familiarity they have had through visiting google’s blog day after day. You get the idea.

Personally, I think if you are going to promote a business or succeed online, a blog is a must. Creating a blog for a business isn’t a want anymore, it has become a need. A need that has proven to be of low operational cost and high yields.

Please feel free to share some of your views and opinion on this subject. If you use your blog as a business or to promote your business or for branding purposes, please leave a link along with your comments. It’s fun and educational to see how each business differs on how they use their blog for business and marketing purposes.