Be brave and blog away to reach your business goals...

Oct 2 2007 by Evening Gazette

WELCOME to our comment column, in which leading figures from the region present a thought-provoking view on an issue affecting their company or organisation or the wider community. Today it’s the turn of Philip Knowles, chairman of the Durham Tees Valley branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

THE act of blogging, making a personal comment via a user-generated website, has risen in popularity at a staggering rate with more than 100 million bloggers maintaining a website for their blogs.

Social media has changed people’s perspective towards marketing. They see themselves now as the voice of a brand and, in retrospect, they trust the views of other consumers much more than the actual voice of the brand itself.

Increasingly companies are becoming aware of this trend and are moving beyond traditional marketing techniques to engage and converse with their target audience. Blogging can bring many positive outcomes to an organisation that makes the effort to employ the technique well.

An organisation can engage and build trust and relationships among their target audience, increasing brand awareness and visibility. It’s a fantastic way to gain consumer insight, before, during and after a product launch.

You don’t need to wait until after an expensive product launch and for your sales figures to come back to see what consumers think of your product.

Blogging tells you instantly.

Messages can be sent direct and unmediated, communicating more information, more frequently and at a lower cost, no longer having to wait for something to be deemed newsworthy enough for a press release or advertising campaign.

Marketers can become more in-tune with smaller market segments in a way that was once considered not economically viable to do. Through influencing bloggers, more presence can be gained within the market.

An example is the fact that influential fashion bloggers are now invited to Fashion Week, who then, in turn, will recommend brands in their blogs the following week.

It is predicted that influential bloggers will be increasingly treated like key journalists.

It is important to communicate frequently and consistently with bloggers, ensuring all aspects of your marketing mix are kept up to date with messages on your blog and that they are current.

Bloggers will be able to see straight through poorly-backed-up and untimely messages.

Your voice must be authentic, focused and open to comment from the outside world.

Employing the technique, however, is a challenge and somewhat frightening for marketers who are used to having great control over their external communications.

Unlike pre-determined, measured techniques, blogging is informal, decentralised and somewhat unpredictable.

The return on investment is also hard to judge.

But you cannot simply put your head in the sand and think that customers won’t talk about your product or service.

Be brave; enjoy the benefits and blog your way to achieving your goals.