Business Bloggers, You Must Consider Yourselves The Source Of Trade Media!

By Chris Frerecks • July 7th, 2008

The Marketing Opportunity

Why in the world wouldn’t we think of our Business Blog as trade related media? In case you haven’t noticed, the landscape for reaching our marketplace[s] has changed. Here at Kinetic we see it as this giant opportunity to make marketing, advertising & public relations not only simple but cost- effective for our business. Sure, because of the Internet, Search and ’Really Simple Syndication’ [RSS] consumers have the luxury of unlimited information. And sure, the empowerment to have whatever they want, however much they want and exactly at the time they want it can seem intimidating; however and versus what we’ve been accustomed too, why not meet this challenge head on? Why not become the source of ’trade specific information’ that is being searched, subscribed, consumed… and that is needed?

”I’m convinced our commitment to sharing lots of good local information via the blog allows for people to find us and develop a comfort level and more importantly to see if we would mesh with their personality type. The visibility in search engines is only part of the equation. People want flesh and blood.” – Santa Clarita Real Estate Connor MacIVOR Santa Clarita CA Real Estate Blog

Versus Traditional Marketing

Very unlike traditional media, where time and space for an advertising message is limited, content creation & networking can do away with any limits for how much we can share, the space for it and the time it may remain visible. Search & subscribe means there are no longer limits to the distribution of our information. The more content we blog, the more topics we index [with the search engines], visibility we accumulate and the more direct subscription we get. The message is always there, seven days a week and 24 hours a day. To a degree, advertising in the traditional sense is fading as noise where a consumers’ ability to research is only limited by how much we [the marketer] put out there. Sure, we should still hunt for our next client, but making ourselves available to them when they’re searching and ‘when they have intent’ for what we have just makes sense! And don”t just focus on the obvious either because having more specific search phrases indexed [i.e. Santa Barbara CA Oceanfront Home For Sale] demonstrates an interest in serving specific objectives. More specific indexing positions oneself to capture more qualified buyers.

Search doesn’t intrude, so it doesn’t look or feel like advertising. The development of trust isn’t possible with [soundbite] advertisements. As business bloggers we can demonstrate genuine knowledge and enthusiasm for our trade. Consumers don’t want to be told what to do, how to think and [now] they demand respect for their point of view. Demonstrate sincerity and the empowered consumer will find you!

“I’ve found that blogging is an excellent way to develop relationships with potential clients, real estate agents, developers, journalists, and people in the community. It’s a way to demonstrate my knowledge and expertise and to develop trust.” – Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL Real Estate Blog

Modern Day Marketing Success

How do we meet the modern marketing challenge? Is it difficult or expensive? NO and not at all, because Business Blogging in is simple. Rather than an environment limiting us [the advertiser] to interruptions while people consume good media, we can become an available and timely source of it: no longer an interruption, but a valuable source for consumer research. We can do it by sharing all the useful and timely information we have, demonstrating our sincere sense of service. As a subject expert - what you see, hear, know and have to offer… simple! Google readily says it intends to “organize and make the worlds’ information universally accessible and useful.” If they can successfully connect ALL searching consumers with the fresh, relevant and unbiased answers they want and youhave than why wouldn’t they?

“More than 95% of our new business comes from the Internet, and it’s coming from blogs rather than websites. The bottom line of value is not comments or hits – it’s closed business that came because you blogged. Blogging has also raised my visibility and credibility in the community.” – Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL Real Estate Blog

“Since we got started blogging we actually have 15 new clients, 10 relocations from other states. I have a few traditional websites, but we don’t use a lead vendor and we discontinued Yahoo & Google Pay-Per Click a couple months ago. In each case, they volunteered that they had found us on the web and that they read our Blog.” – Connor MacIVOR Santa Clarita CA Real Estate Blog

Blogs have reduced the cost for content creation and distribution to a negligible low. Very much like our consumer we’re empowered, but with the opportunity to be prepared for them… every day. The barriers between our daily knowledge and those who want it have been broken… So as marketers, we should not only see ourselves as but we should be trade media!