Traditional marketing methods tended to be hugely expensive and time-consuming affairs. Public relations agencies had to be hired to create press releases, whole production crews has to be hired to produce TV ads and staff had to be hired especially to send newsletters and reply to e-mails of an ever-increasing data-base of existing and potential customers.

Enter the age of the internet and all traditional marketing methods have been rendered obsolete. Traditional marketing strategies involved pushing the product onto prospective customers via a one-way monologue. In a radical about-turn, internet marketing focuses on pulling in your potential clients towards your product by engaging them in a two-way conversation. Blogging, a kind of online journal that provides interesting information and relevant news to customers who visit the blog, attempts to do just that.

Versatility of Blogging
A little bit like a press conference, a little bit like a newsletter and a little bit like an online convention; blogging provides businesses with a cheap yet effective way of communicating with existing clients and drumming up new business. When used as a marketing strategy, they offer businesses a versatility that is unprecedented.

Fresh content and latest news and views can be accompanied by interesting photographs, audio clips and entertaining videos. Advertising campaigns can be revamped easily and are essentially a one-man-show, which translates into huge savings that would otherwise have been spent on hiring an entire advertising company.

Moreover, business owners who are constantly on the move can conveniently update their blogs from anywhere and at anytime. No more making appointments, scheduling your work day around office timings or getting delayed because the person you need to meet is held up elsewhere.

The biggest and most exciting benefit that blogging offers is of course the opportunity to reach out to potential customers right across the globe without having to launch a multi-million-dollar global advertising campaign.

Do’s and Don’ts of Blogging
Here are some ‘Do’s and Don’ts for you to keep in mind if you intend blogging for business:
• Choose a catchy name for your site so that it catches the eye of the reader and is likely to stay with him for along time after he’s navigated away from your site. Keep in mind that your site name should be relevant to the blog.
 
• Visit other related blogs and make note of the features you particularly liked as well as those you did not. This will help you improve your blog and avoid the mistakes that your competitor is making.
 
• Keep your blog simple, clean and easy to navigate. An abundance of pop-ups and ads only distracts and annoys readers. Restrict yourself to keeping only what it is your customers visit your blog to read.
 
• Post fresh and interesting content regularly. Content is the lifeblood of any blog. Loyal readers who visit your blog often do so because they look forward to seeing and reading something new. Failure to do so will lose you precious clients after a while.

• Don’t try to do everything yourself. Do what you do best and delegate the other tasks to appropriate others. If posting fresh content regularly is a daunting thought, don’t do it yourself. Hire a company that offers automated blog posting services to do it for you. BlogOverdrive.com is one such company that adds fresh content to your blog regularly leaving you with plenty of time to do what you best- run your business. 

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