What follows are the benefits of marketing with your blog...



1. Highly interactive: Blogs can be highly interactive. They permit your visitors to participate by posting their own replies below your entries. They also provide a forum for honest and immediate public feedback to your musings or their experience with your product or service. As an example, let's say that you're in business as an image consultant; you offer makeover advice and tips on your blog and also share before and after pictures from successful assignments from time to time. This is a very smart direct marketing strategy to showcase your service and skills with an already interested audience. For their part, your fans can respond after they have implemented some of your makeover tips or share their opinion of what they thought of a particular makeover. Over a period of time, the readers express confidence in your skills, and you come to be seen as an expert. A great system process that can lead to future sales!

2. It offers the 'Personal Touch': Blogs give a personal touch to your direct marketing efforts. Your candid entries are seen as honest and credible communications that are not perceived as 'salesy'.

3. Free!: There is practically no cost to publish and maintain a web log. Plus, you will find hundreds of free publishing tools online to get your blog started. Once your blog is activated, you will only need to devote a little time and effort to update your entries and keep them 'fresh'. replies, on the other hand, will give you priceless and zero-cost market research.

5. Benefit from the 'Viral Aspect': The popularity of a blog spreads from keyboard to keyboard. It's like the 'word of mouth' publicity that direct marketers aspire to.

6. Different!: People have become all but blinded to direct mail, catalogs, email marketing, even DRTV. With these methods, there is no guarantee that your sales pitch is going to find its mark and generate any instant income. But when it comes to blogs, your TA feels empowered. They can participate and voice their opinion in what is perceived to be an open column that enables to drop their defenses and relate on a more human level.

7. Highly Targeted: You don't have to specify the definition of the target audience for your direct marketing efforts in the blogosphere. Surfers will subscribe to your blog only if they find that the content matches their own interests and needs, so you are assured of a highly qualified audience.

Absorbing this basic knowledge, you can now assemble your subtle direct marketing campaign as a part of your comprehensive income plan, and decide the right time to share the right information with the right people.