Do you have a blog?

If yes, do you comprehend the magnitude of your blogs potential?

This post is about marketing; not only about understanding what you can do to get your blog out there, but what you can do to transform your blog into a powerful marketing tool. This post is not some cheap ass pitch for an affiliate program or product. It is about putting things in perspective; particularly in regards to the relationship between marketing and blogging. I wrote a post not too long ago about Blog Marketing. In that post touched upon the differences between marketing and advertising. Now I want to examine, in a bit more depth, the ways your blog could be an integral part of a serious marketing campaign.

Aside from the fact that I am focusing on grasping my blogs potential and acting on maximizing it… what got me thinking in this ‘marketing’ direction again was a visit to a certain blog, a marketing blog. It is relatively new and the author seems to be enthusiastic enough to get it going and produce results. Before I proceed in the whole ‘Marketing’ thing I want to examine:

Josh’s Unconventional Marketing Blog

As I said, this blog is relatively new, it was started in January. The author, Josh, is focusing his efforts on writing about unconventional marketing techniques displayed online as well as offline. The author of this blog is using social media and networks to attract readers and visitors and is doing pretty well. There are a series of contests that encompass all of the blogs parameters that you are encourage to participate in. One more feature I enjoyed is that readers are always informed and know what to expect because they can always refer to the schedule. Every day of the week there is a post for every category:

Marketing Ideas
Marketing Strategy
Real Marketers of Genius
Unconventional Marketing
Personal Development
Random Rants and Funny Stories

There are also a few good posts about blogging

I like this blog because it clearly demonstrates the benefits of proper marketing.

The author is doing a great job marketing and writing about it. It doesn’t seem as if he is spending money on advertising, he is using Unconventional Marketing techniques. If you want to promote your blog and services and you are on a budget you should definitely visit and subscribe. It looks very promising.

Visiting this blog got me thinking…in the marketing direction. I feel it is important to understand how Unconventional Marketing works and what are the differences between regular marketing and why you should be using it.

Unconventional Marketing

Unconventional Marketing or Guerrilla Marketing is a low cost form of marketing that is used when lacking the necessary budgets to buy advertising or utilize other marketing techniques. Every blogger uses unconventional forms, like word of mouth marketing and viral marketing.

Word of Mouth Marketing

There is not much to say about the word of mouth form. I bet that there has been a time when you found a service or a product that you thought was interesting and though it would be a good idea to share it with your readers. I do it to. When I come across something that I think will benefit you in some way, I will write about it. This form of marketing works really well. Google did it when they came out with Gmail.

Viral Marketing

This form of marketing utilizes pre-existing social networks to get a point across, or to create awareness. If you are part of the StumbleUpon community, or BlogCatalog you might be using it already to get your posts read. I use both these services, I stumble my posts, the ones I think would do well, and I use BlogCatalog to send broadcasts to the over 1,000 ‘friends’ I have. If I was writing about you, about your blog, and used my ‘unconventional marketing techniques’ your blog would be getting exposure to almost 2,000 new readers on one shot. That does not include the daily visits from search engines and other social media. Do you get the idea?

So Josh`s unconventional marketing blog does just that. Uses and writes about unconventional marketing techniques that could bring in nice results. It is one thing to use Unconventional marketing to get visitors and traffic to your site and another to use your site as a marketing vehicle. However, both ways are related and they are very important when wanting to succeed in the blogging world. To understand how unconventional marketing has become very popular lately and how it relates to blogging it is important to understand blog marketing.

Blog Marketing

Why do you think is blog marketing works so well?

Marketing is a Multidimensional Societal Process

Many people think of marketing as advertising. Well yes, advertising is a part of the marketing process. However, marketing has many other aspects. To get a better understanding of marketing and why blogging and marketing online should go hand-in-hand, one must grasp the notion of the 4 P’s of marketing.

Product

Pricing

Promotion

Placement

The 4 P’s are pretty standard in every definition of marketing from the online encyclopaedia to every business text book written after the 1960’s.

So after you decide on a product, you price it, you promote and you need to figure out a way to sell it, somewhere to place it so buyers can buy. Pretty straight forward…For almost 4 decades, things did not change that much. The theorists had to re-examine their theses when the internet started picking up. So they did what they did best. They added more P’s. 3 more and then 4 more.

The first 3 are:

People

Process

Physical Evidence

People are the salespeople; the process is the selling process which is essential for customer satisfaction and then you have physical evidence. Physical evidence is evidence provided to help make a sale for an intangible or intangible good.

Blogs and Physical Evidence

Before I spent $2,500 to buy my new laptop a couple of months ago, I read reviews, testimonials and consumer opinions on many different products. I spent a good 10-12 hours reading, comparing taking notes and asking questions before I made up my mind. Most of that time was spent on technology blogs; I read reviews, compared products and was actually pretty happy to find out that this information was readily available online. It helped my make the purchase.

Even if the company I bought the laptop from provided me with the reviews I might had been weary and perhaps not taking it seriously. The bloggers that reviewed the products, even if they where paid to do it, gave me a completely different perspective; a perspective that actually helped that company make a sale without using any of its own resources to do so! I was impressed, and still am; particularly of the effectiveness and direct nature of this media, blogging.

So, back to marketing…

As the internet has been picking up the past few years, to say the least, the Marketing theorists continued P’ing. Adding P’s to their theories. The latest 4 P’s are:

Personalization

Participation

Peer-to-Peer

Predictive modeling

Personalization is the customization of products and services through the use of the Internet. Have you ever bought something from Dell? If you have then you know how useful personalization can be for both the seller and the buyer.

In terms of participation, the internet has allowed customers and future customers to participate more in product development even in the selection of marketing campaigns sometimes. Corporations, allow customers to have a say in what the brand should stand for; or what future products should be like. The 3rd new P is Peer to Peer. This P refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens. It is like the earlier Physical Evidence aspect but enhanced. Lastly, predictive modeling refers to the mathematic algorithms that are applied to the marketing data collected, mostly online.

What does your blog have to do with all this?

Personalization/Participation and Blogging

Well, the problem marketers have had and still do, in some media, is that marketing can be perceived as interruptive and negative in nature. When I watch my favourite show on TV, or a Film and I see a brand name product being used, I do feel as if an idea is being imposed on me. And I don’t like it at all. Sometimes I take it as an insult to any intelligence I might have. Well, in the end it is up to you stop watching and you could even tell the advertiser to go fuck himself but no one will hear you. In blogging you can do the same; you can let them know what you think. The difference is that your opinion counts. Aside from the whole opinion thing that I can write a whole book about how important it is, blogging can be very useful to getting your point across. You can write about something you like or don’t like and encourage other to participate. This information is valuable to the advertiser and you as a blogger can profit from it.

Ethical Considerations

Peer to Peer and Blogging

For the longest time businesses of every kind tried to determine what their customers wanted. Businesses used focus groups, surveys questions focus groups for feedback but all this stuff started dissipating as competition increased. At the same time the internet grew larger and stronger, and as more users logged on the playing field changed. Web 2.0 is the new force that allows those who can to capitalize on the vast amounts of information out there including on blogs. As blogs become more influential, as bloggers rush blogging’s transformation into a powerful force in the marketing process; the information presented on blogs can become increasingly valuable. Ok, yes, you can profit from it. But at what cost? P2P networks have become increasingly profitable and successful because they capitalize on this information.

Look up the term social computing, read about Web 2.0 to get a better understanding. All I want to ask you is which end of the stick would you like to be? Ok, the picture of the all Seeing Eye might be a bit of an exaggeration but still. All the information online is gathered, compiled and sold for a lot of money. I am not buying or selling information directly or you or any blogger, don’t get me wrong, I am just saying that some people do. They are making a killing off of it. Nevertheless, if you have a blog, like I do, you have made the compromise already. By having a blog, writing your thoughts online, you have made your concessions.

It is like buying a CD, an MP3 of a song that talks about freedom of speech rebellion or even worse not selling out…I find those songs hilarious, especially when I listen to them from a store bought CD or MP3…. Ok there is a difference here; the internet does allow you to express your self freely to some extent. You can write whatever you want…The only thing is that if you want other people to read it, you will have to start providing your information to the companies that will help you attract these readers. People who claim that blogging is a form of free speech should reconsider…

What I am saying is that, if someone is going to profit from the information on your blog, you should take a cut; don’t let them walk all over you. Do what you can to set up a blog, write, attract visitors by paying `the price` but do not hesitate to make some money for your self, start acting now and make money blogging.

I like Josh’s Unconventional Marketing Blog, because he is doing just that…Josh is one more smart blogger that makes money blogging with different ways including capitalizing on he social network craze.

For Tips on ways you could do the same you can read an older post of mine titled: Make Money with Entrecard.

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