Blog MarketingI was having a discussion with my mentor about my upcoming plans for my workshops and blogs, and frankly, I came to realise again (not that I haven’t realised it before) that this whole world is about marketing and sales. Business is about marketing and sales. Period.

It is unfortunate but true, that a lot of companies are build around creating wonderful products… and indeed the products are as wonderful and as effective and groundbreaking as they can be, but the company lacks a sales strategy. In fact, I would be dare enough to admit that my previous two companies (one on software applications development and another on adventure training) are two classic examples.

But I’ve learned (I hope)… and I’d better.

The primary activity of a business has to be sales and marketing. In fact, if you think about it, sales is the only activity in every business that really brings in the money for the business! If there is no sales, there is no incoming cashflow.

Sales and Marketing

Many starters in business confuse sales and marketing. I, for one, after spending years bumming around, still cannot draw a line between sales and marketing – but I think there is no definite line, anyway.What I see marketing as is the “outreach” program – building awareness and credibility, getting the word known. Marketing to me seems to be focused in coverting a total stranger into a prospect. Sales is the process where we convert a prospects into customers.

Where does blog marketing tie in?

So the ultimate question now is, with what I am doing – Blog Marketing and Corporate Blogging – where does it really fit in?

We all know so well that things do not sell well on blogs. If you are going to pitch your products, chances are you are not going to get many readers coming back. People love blogs because blogs are written the way we bloggers talk, and hey, we don’t talk “sales talk” when we chat with our parents, friends and kids right?

I feel blog marketing excels in the area of awareness creation and credibility. First and foremost, awareness creation and publicity. I think blogs are the ultimate search engine targeting tool! Search engines love text, and blogging regularly is really feeding the search spiders with their favourite food! The more often you place food there, the more often they will come back, to “eat” it. Blogs get listed well on search engines because of that – and that creates awareness. When people search their keywords online, they get directed to a blog.

Secondly, credibility and authority. Blogs need to be personal and conversational in style in order to achieve this. I would guess at least half (or more) of the blogs online are either duplicated content, or articles written by a ghostwriter. These blogs don’t do anything for credibility and authority.

When people surf on to a blog, it might not be obvious, but we all have a personality that we show in our posts. You know that I love my similies and especially my “mrgreen” smiley :mrgreen: .

At least, I know, Liz has a very graceful way of putting her words, Easton has a so enthusiastic and funny prose, Darren updates once in a while but with so very insightful contents, and Tony loves his pictures. I’m so glued to your blogs because of your writing style – its as if I am talking to you everyday. Even though we’ve not met in person or even heard your voice, I can sense that its you behind the computer typing the post, personally.

If one day you’d to leave your blogs to be updated by someone else, that feeling would be lost. I feel I know you – and I know you know your stuff. Now, how’s that for credibility?

I once attended a sales training session, and what they taught was that the most fundamental and first objective of every sales process comes from one thing. Building trust. And trust is built so much more easily when you are already known for your crediblity. Think about it – would you trust Bill Gates to give you a better piece of software, or a man you have met on the street that claims to have “20 years of experience”?

Blogs might not help directly in closing the customer and securing a deal, but it does a whole lot, to build that foundation level of trust. If you are thinking of putting stuff for sale online, consider building a blog without listing the items for sale first. After you have a regular stream of readers, you can recommend (but don’t go overboard with it) your products.