Blog marketing is no mean feat and online marketing is certainly not for the faint-hearted. There are thousands of blogs, websites, podcasts, and social media channels competing for the attention of online prospects and audience. Basically, this means that the average prospect or customer is bombarded with information and noise from every corner. So, how do you rise above the noise to get your blog noticed? In the next section, we shall look at the best blog marketing practices that will help you promote your business effectively.

Promoting Business Through Blog Marketing

Write a Tutorial About Your Product

If you’re selling products or services online then it is indispensable for you to use blog marketing to promote your products or services (through guides or tutorials in your blog). You don’t have to worry about competitors stealing your documentation because you will be doing your online marketing community a great service. Ultimately, this marketing strategy will improve your site traffic and solidify your lead as a niche marketing authority.

Talk About a New Product launch

Similarly, you should use blog marketing to inform your target consumers or loyal audience about any newly launched product or service release.  You can write a product review or just a feature post that highlights the major features of the new product so that consumers will find direct value of the product in your post.  Alternatively, you can create a blog marketing demo video and embed it on your post as part of your online video marketing strategy. This will spur interest among consumers and elicit questions and reactions among followers in your niche blogging community.

Highlight a Great Customer

One way of promoting your business through blog marketing is highlighting one of your key customers in your blog post.  Sadly, many bloggers just write one-way traffic posts without caring to listen to what some of their consumers think or feel. Highlighting a major customer is an online content marketing strategy that will reveal the human side of your business and also help you build a deeper connection with customers and audience in your blogging community.

Share Exclusive Discounts and Promos

Organizing promos or offering exclusive discounts is one surefire blog marketing strategy that will boost your internet marketing efforts greatly. It’s also a great way to promote your business and to give back to your online community. I have no doubt that customers would love to participate in contests where they get cool prizes or get surprise coupon codes for new or existing products.  However, don’t be too salesy in blog marketing as it will erode the value of your blog. Remember, consumers want to enjoy a great blog post for the overall value it serves, not just the promos or discounts it announces.

Write Blog Marketing Guest Posts

Writing and publishing guest posts is another fantastic blog marketing strategy that can promote your business online.  To drive readers into your blog, you have to write solid, attractive, and thought provoking content. Guest posting will not only build your credibility but will also enhance the value of your brand (as it shows that your content is actually worth reading). Besides that, this blog marketing strategy also opens a new avenue to engage and elicit responses from new internet marketing prospects.

Comment on Other Blogs

Blog commenting on other people’s blog and providing backlinks to your website is one of the best blog marketing strategies available to you. Though commenting may not necessarily translate into more revenue, it increases the visibility and traffic to your business website. You can easily get attention from other readers by embedding a post title (link) back to your blog post which answers some of the questions raised in the current blog post.

 Optimize Your Blog Posts

As a rule of thumb, you have to optimize your blog posts for major search engines and for readers. I believe that your blog will only generate much traffic from natural search for targeted set of keywords and titles.  So, make sure that you include all relevant keywords and metas in specific areas of your posts preferably opening paragraph, title, and your post conclusion.

Embed Links to Recent Posts in Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Embedding links to your posts is the best way to merge your social media and content marketing campaigns. You only need to publish your post, grab the URL, and embed it on the post section of your social media accounts. When used consistently, I believe this blog marketing strategy can grow your web traffic and boost search engine rankings for your business website. It also has the potential to increase engagement with your brand.

Make Content Attractive to Readers

Unless you create compelling and stimulating blog marketing content, you cannot expect to engage followers or attract new readers for your blog.  Simple things such as your choice of post titles, organization of content, and use of infographs can influence your promotional efforts.  Many people love image-rich and easy to read content that delivers great value directly.  So, take time to socialize your blog marketing content so as to improve readership and searchability in the search engines.

Talk with Experts in Your field

If you are a business professional then you should not also hesitate to use blog marketing interviews or industry-specific discussions with other professionals or niche authorities to promote your business. You can transcribe video interviews into blog posts or embed links to the interview videos on YouTube or other video sharing platforms. Similarly, you can invite professionals to answer questions to some trending but controversial issues in your field or industry. This blog marketing strategy will generate buzz and increase site traffic.

Add Sharing Buttons Below Posts

To maximize views and readership in your blog, I encourage you to add share buttons and RSS blog marketing feed to your blog posts today. As simple as it seems, sharing has the potential to increase followers and generate buzz about your business. Remember, if people don’t see your posts, then they can’t read or share it.

Final Thoughts

I believe that blog marketing is a powerful tool to promote your business and products online. It is one of the easiest and most effective online marketing channels that guarantee good traffic and better web visibility. As you can see, it’s not difficult to increase traffic or maximize the visibility of your business. Just adhere to the foregoing best blog marketing practices and you will see a remarkable improvement in your business visibility, levels of engagement, and ultimately, ROI.

Online businesses, mostly with a home based business model, are known to bring a revolutionary change in each of the following areas:

• Business Operations
• Product Catalogues
• Customer Relations
• Reach & Accessibility

On the whole, every online home based business has a website which serves the following business purposes:

• It marks the beginning stage of the home based business
• The corporate website is the primary and unique identity for a business
• It is the outcome of all personal and corporate branding strategies
• It forms the structure of the company’s purpose of existence

As opposed to the face-to-face customer interaction in their brick-and-mortar counterparts, online businesses use other diverse methods for interacting with, acquiring, and retaining customers. On the whole, the significance of building and expanding a customer base is no different for e-businesses. In order to contact actual and potential customers, direct marketing methods are commonly use by a variety of business types and industries. One of these methods, most specific and useful for an online home based business, is that of Email Marketing.

As one would expect, Email Marketing involves reaching customers with a marketing message or campaign via email. Incidentally Internet Marketing is a combination of different efforts used to attract and acquire customers for the purpose of creating brand awareness and increasing sales. Thus, Email Marketing is an integral part of a company’s overall Internet Marketing campaign. Different Internet Marketing ideas must remain consistently relevant to the overall branding of an online business. This way, the message promoted through online advertising and marketing methods will have a higher potential of achieving desired results. Internet Marketing can be done by different using different media:

Social Media Marketing through famous networks with enormous user base, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Instagram, etc.

Web Marketing by promoting the company and its products through Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Company Blogs, etc.

Email Marketing by sending promotional offers and advertising messages to masses.

Many people are of the opinion that the importance of Email Marketing is being affected with the increasing popularity of social media networks. However, several online business owners continue to share their success stories which involve increased sales through effective Email Marketing campaigns. So on one hand, Email Marketing is highly preferred by numerous entrepreneurs while several other online businesses failed to realize its benefits. This fact clearly highlights that an Email Marketing campaign must be developed to hit the spot.

Just how the concept of mass marketing has evolved into segmentation and targeting, mass Email Marketing also lacks the ability to appeal undifferentiated audience. The bottom line is that sending promotional offers via email can become fruitful only when it targets a specified audience or customer base. An ideal approach, to incorporate the concept of segmentation in a company’s Email Marketing campaign, is through building an Opt-in List.

Building and Expanding Your Opt-in List

What is an Opt-In List?

Firstly, online business owners are required to include a section on their website requesting customers or visitors to grant permission for saving their email addresses for future reference. This allows online business owners to build their Opt-in List, which is a database of email addresses of customers interested in receiving company emails. Unlike spam mail, an Opt-in List results in sending solicited emails to actual and prospective customers.

Opt-In List Emails

The emails sent to customers, who have opted to subscribe for this service, mostly comprise the following types of content:

• Advertising Messages
• Product Details
• Promotional Offers
• Upcoming Contests
• Official Newsletters

Ideas to Get Subscriptions

Subscription forms are the most common way to confirm with customers if they wish to sign up to the company’s email list. Apart from specific subscription forms to build an Opt-in List, online businesses add a “Yes or No” question at the end of other forms such as those for product orders, customer feedback, etc. Since customers are no longer confined to computer systems for their internet access, modern online businesses are also targeting smart-phone users by using QR Codes to link them directly to company’s email list subscription.

What an Opt-In List Can Do for Your Business?

Online businesses understand the value of gaining access to communicate with customers who are directly interested in their products of services. Subsequently, these entrepreneurs are constantly seeking innovative alternatives to keep in touch with their customers to update them with new offers, achievements, etc. Hence, building an Opt-in List should be a continuous process simultaneous with the phases of establishing and building the online business. The multifaceted benefits of doing so are listed below:

1. Relevant Customer Base

Despite them being beyond the company’s reach, countless potential customers remain to be an important part of an entrepreneur’s focus. However, the center of attention is always the customers who can be the driving force behind company sales. It may seem like a far-fetched dream for many but an Opt-in List gives direct access to such high potential customers. Such a contact list must be developed at an early stage. By the time an online business begins to grow, it would have had converted these initial email recipients into loyal customers.

2. Convenient & Budget-Friendly Requirements

For home run businesses, costs and budgets are extremely important. This concern is effectively addressed through opt-in email lists as they are built with extremely easy and inexpensive methods. With minimal investment requirements, an opt-in email list provides the remarkable benefit of increased traffic generation and sales in the future.

3. High Rate of Conversion

Most customers subscribe for company email lists after they have already tried the company products or services. However, there are many customers who are not entirely certain about their purchase decision but express their interest in the company. As a result, email promotions lead to higher conversion rate of these prospective customers into actual sales.

4. Long-Lasting Impact

The opt-in email programs do not only satisfy short-term goals of customer acquisition. They also provide the benefit of repeat customers and long-term customer relations. Therefore, opt-in lists are an effective tool for customer relationship management in online ventures.

5. Winning the Trust

The advantages of customer loyalty remain the same across any type of a business model. However, gaining customer trust is definitely easier said than done. Since opt-in emails are an authentic form of communication, they allow online businesses to develop a trusting relationship with interested customers.

If an Opt-in List is built along with the commencement of a business, online business owners can leverage this trust across different platforms of Internet Marketing in the long run.