“Blog this”, “Blog that”, “Blogs, Blogs, Blogs”. Blogs are everywhere these days. For small business owners, you’ve probably been told a time or two about blogs and how blogging can help promote your business. If that’s the case, you probably have quite a few questions. What is a blog? How can blogging help grow my business? What do I blog about? How do I get started blogging? How do I attract readers to my blog? All of these questions are legitimate and today’s post will take a shot at answering them for you.

1. What is a blog?
   1. A blog is a website which provides commentary on a specific subject for readers. Blog content is created by an individual or a team of individuals.
2. How can blogging help grow my business?
   1. Blogs are a great SEO tool – the content helps get your blog to the top of search results
   2. Blogs drive traffic to your website
   3. Blog content positions you as a thought-leader in your industry
   4. Blogs help you build relationships with your readers, customers, & prospects
3. What do I blog about?
   1. Pick a topic that you’re passionate about, as blogs require a decent time commitment
   2. Blog about your business, your industry, or something that your customers would be interested in (example: If you own a Salon, blog about celebrity gossip or new beauty products)
4. How do I get started blogging?
   1. There are a number of great FREE sites out there, but for more advanced individuals, you can also host your own
   2. Some great free sites for creating a blog are: WordPress (they also allow you to host your own) and Blogger
   3. Read other blogs to find what you like and don’t like about them – Implement the features you like into your blog
5. How do I attract readers to my blog?
   1. First and foremost, with great content – With that said, you need to cut through all of the clutter that’s out there as well, so that content can be found
   2. Try to post new content at least twice a week – Consistency is key
   3. Add sharing tools like Add this or Share this – These tools allow readers to share your content on social tools and content aggregaters (Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc)
   4. Use blog carnivals to reach a larger audience
   5. Add a RSS feed so readers can subscribe to your blog & get updated when new content is published
   6. Find your own voice. Be authentic.

Blogging can be an extremely powerful tool if used properly. Not only is it great for SEO, but it positions you as a thought-leader in your industry. Customers always go to the thought-leader for advice or to buy goods and services. Use blogging as a tool to reach larger audiences and maintain it by providing those audiences with relevant content. If you do it properly, your organization will definitely prosper.

Best of luck in starting your new blog. If you want to start a blog, but know you don’t have the time, check out the Catalyst Marketers Solutions page to find out how we can make blogging turnkey for your business.

About 10 years ago Seth Godin, marketing guru, coined the term “Permission Marketing”. The idea was so important that he wrote a bestselling book about it – Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing (full disclosure: affiliate link). Seth describes permission marketing as, “the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.” The way to obtain permission to talk to someone is usually through an opt-in of some sort. Now, there are ethical ways to obtain an opt-in, like double opt-in and unethical ways to collect opt-ins, such as, implied opt-ins.

Just the other day, I reached out to a real estate agent about an investment property. I’m always looking for great real estate deals and I had one simple question for the agent. A few hours later I received a four paragraph response to my one question email. The agent’s email came full of additional questions for me, yet my initial question wasn’t answered. You may say, OK, well that’s his job. He needs to sell the house. That’s fine, I understand that. The reason for this post was the next response that came to my inbox. A few minutes later I received another email from the agent, but this time, it was a pre-canned ‘Welcome to my email newsletter’ message. Did I imply that I wanted to be a part of his email newsletter list from my one question email? I don’t think so…

This is probably the third or fourth time in two weeks that something like this has happened to me. I think 50% of the time it was with real estate agents. Perhaps this is because by default agent’s are marketers, yet they have no formal marketing training. Because of this, they do it wrong all the time and the results are frustrated customers and/or prospects. Never once did I ask to be a part of this email list, but these agents & businesses use implied opt-ins to fuel their email marketing list.

Getting back to Seth Godin for a minute, in one of his blog post’s Seth talks about Permission Marketing. He says, “just because you somehow get my email address doesn’t mean you have permission. Just because I don’t complain doesn’t mean you have permission. Just because it’s in the fine print of your privacy policy doesn’t mean it’s permission either.”

So it doesn’t really matter if you’re a real estate agent or a SMB (small or mid-sized business), if you want to keep customers happy, be sure to obtain their permission before including them on your email marketing list. If you don’t, the negative backlash could be more than you’re able to withstand. If you’re not sure about the rules to permission-based email marketing, send me a message. I’ll work with you on it.