One of the fastest and easiest ways to instantly increase your brand exposure is through the use of a weblog. There are millions of people around the world who might be interested in what you have to say, or buying what you have to sell. They just don’t know you exist. Technology has enabled us to reach these people from any computer with an internet connection.
We use WordPress to help create weblogs and websites for our clients. It is an award winning, open-sourced Content Management System (CMS), extremely powerful and versatile, easy to use, requires no software installation on your computer, and is free. That means the client won’t have to worry about licensing fees, software editors, and other additional costs and expenses necessary to maintain the website.
WordPress is an open source CMS, often used as a blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plugin architecture and a templating system. Used by over 300 of the 10,000 biggest websites, WordPress is the most popular blog software in use today.
As of September 2009, it was being used by 202 million websites worldwide.
Creating and maintaining a weblog for your brand is a critical channel in the marketing plan for any company, in any industry.
Here are a few of the key benefits:
Weblogs allow for constant and consistent interaction with your market and your customers. Making it easy for your customers to reach you and interact with you will make a difference in terms of brand loyalty, and make them feel as though they are part of the development process through their open feedback channel.
Weblogs allow companies to build customer lists, a vital piece of intellectual property which when utilized properly, are an important part of the marketing plan moving forward. Customer lists are created and nurtured for numerous marketing initiatives, such as direct mail campaigns, e-blasts, surveys, and newsletters.
Weblogs can be used to quickly and easily communicate company news. A blog can be used much like a press release, to communicate updated company news and information.
Weblogs can be used like an ad, to highlight time sensitive specials and promotions. Promotions can be linked to an internal landing page, which can be tracked for effectiveness.
Weblogs can be used as a business development tool, to network with peers and share research, articles, and interesting resources. Cross-promotional opportunities open up when you have traffic to offer from your weblog.