One affordable online marketing solution that can give a boost to your lead generation, sales, and search engine optimization is blogging. It's one of the easiest and most effective way to generate web traffic, which turns into leads, which turns into sales.
Blogging is a quick, easy way to inform and educate your customers, be easily found by search engines, and to talk about the things you're passionate about. All of this has the net effect of getting more and more information online, which makes it easier for customers to find you and buy from you.
Why Blogging is a Crucial Part of Any Affordable Online Marketing Campaign
Blogging is a great way to build a social media marketing campaign. In fact, if you're a small business, social media is one of the most affordable online marketing tactics you can use. It should be the hub of your entire campaign, and the other social networks serve as the spokes.
There are other avenues you can try, like pay-per-click advertising, banner advertising, and even email marketing. But social media is going to be your most cost-effective option for affordable online marketing, because it's something you can do yourself, for free, if you have the time and patience. If you don't have the time, or you don't feel you can learn enough, hire a professional who can get it done for you quickly and expertly.
How to Integrate Blogging Into Your Affordable Online Marketing Campaign
To integrate blogging into your affordable online marketing campaign, the first thing to do is to find a blogging platform you feel comfortable with. There are several options — Blogspot.com, WordPress.com, WordPress.org, TypePad.com — so find the one that you feel comfortable with, can easily set up and maintain yourself, or hire someone to do for you.
Blogspot and WordPress.com are self-hosted, and the companies make it easy to do everything yourself. WordPress.org requires its own server, and someone to set it up. Those options are free (although you have to pay for the server hosting for WordPress.org), but TypePad is a fee-based service. Still, a lot of people swear by it, so give it a good look.
Take a look at your budget, your resources, your expertise, and your time before you set up your platform, to insure you choose the one that is the best affordable online marketing choice.
Promote Your Blog Through Affordable Online Marketing
Promoting your blog is going to be the biggest part of your affordable online marketing campaign. In fact, the promotion is where most people lose traction, because it takes a lot of work. But if you want your blog to be successful, you need to put this time into it.
Social network is some of the most affordable online marketing you can do. Join two or three social networks — we typically recommend Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook — and grow your network of business associates, friends, and potential customers. Participate in conversations with people, and only make your blog promotion part of what you put up there. By interacting with people on your networks, you can make normal, everyday conversations part of your affordable online marketing.
But avoid spamming your network with product and blog messages only. Instead, talk about things that your network will find interesting. If you sell women's exercise gear, talk about women's health and exercise. Forward articles that will be of interest to women who exercise. Offer nutrition tips. Refer people to other blogs and exercise programs. Becoming a valuable resource to your network is an important part of affordable online marketing. And when you write about the exercise gear you sell, feel free to post it.
But, and this is important, make sure you talk about your own products only 10% of the time In other words, for every one time you promote one of your blog posts, talk about something else nine times. Otherwise your affordable online marketing tactics will be ignored, and you'll lose all the traction you gained.
