The Sales Quarterback

In the last several years the internet has increasingly been used as a tool for basic brand research. It has time and again proven to be an effective channel for lead and sales generation, and has certainly introduced plenty of innovative ways to track market interests – which in turn allows marketers more and more reach into the homes of consumers.

One of the many tools offered by this venue is the corporate web log. And not only do you get to sit down and write out your thoughts, but when your brain children are actually published on your flashy corporate website they become another connection between yourself and the fastest growing purchasing demographics in the world. Aside from the possibility of having your blog as a source of income through online advertising, it can work for you by having more traffic moving through your site, which is in turn exposed to your wares, and perhaps your sales team will get a call from a hot lead who didn’t require hundreds of man-hours to acquire. Internet Retailer would have you believe that this is increasingly becoming a possibility; in the last year, online retail sales have increased 19% with the rest of the market increasing only 4%. If these figures are indicative of consumer presence, which from all of my findings they are, then your blog could be involved in generating more income than even your print advertising within the next decade.

So, among all of the other forms of internet advertising, why a blog? First of all, I’m certainly not putting down landing pages, websites, email campaigns or other forms of online marketing. I do, however, find that the blog takes advantage of the feeling of over-saturation in the market. Marketing is so potentially invasive these days that it’s nice to be able to sit down and read and honest, plain-dealing blog post which is informative and beneficial to your specific demographic. And no one tries to trick you into thinking that you’ve won a plasma T.V. (Click Here!).

Blogs are also great ways to advertise brand new marketing materials such as a new landing pages, case studies, white papers, or even a new industry research document which you’ve posted. Ideally, you’ve just clicked those links and became a potential lead, but, if not, this blog has the ability to make you aware that I and the Emotecomm team are experts in our field. Discernible expertise, as you well know, is the best way to generate trust between yourself and a potential client.

And finally, a blog allows you to request feedback both from potential clients and any interested party – including your competition – in the form of comments (at the bottom of this page!) which help to generate a dialogue as well as to give you fresh ideas for new posts and articles when you’re not sure what to write about.