Yesterday I wrote about this article published in 2005. I’m republishing it here for you to consider whether these reasons are still valid today in 2008. Hit the comment link and let me know what you think.
Top Ten Reasons to Publish an Ezine AND a Blog
By Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad (c) 2005
Blogs are the hottest thing going these days when it comes to marketing on the Internet. A blog is a way of delivering your messages and articles to clients. They are a like personal web sites, easy to create and far less expensive than traditional web sites.
Just when you thought you were mastering the tasks of ezines and newsletters, along comes blogging, and you have to ask yourself:
• Do I really need a blog?
• Isn’t an email ezine or newsletter doing the same thing?
• Should I do both?
• Are these two marketing tools going to eat up all my time, energy and money?
• What’s the best way to spend my resources here so that I can get clients and results out of my marketing efforts?
Here are ten reasons why you should pay attention to this new blogging revolution and do both an ezine and a blog.
1. Because a blog is web based, it is published instantaneously every
time you post. This allows you to be spontaneous and current with
issues that affect your readers/clients. Blog posts are short, ezines
can be longer. One can complement the other.
2. Because blog posts are spontaneous, they tend to be more informal,
friendly, and conversational. Blog posts show your personality. Ezines
show your knowledge. Your readers/clients need to know who you are
before they will invest in your services. Providing both an ezine and a
blog allows your readers to get to know you.
3. You can set up a subscription form on your blog and your subscribers
will get a short notice in their inboxes each time you post something
new. This is a great way around the spam filter problem which blocks so
many ezines and legitimate messages from professionals.
4. Blogs link to other blogs and web sites, which helps you create a
viral marketing system, increasing your exposure to search engines.
Search engines love blogs because they are text based and key word
rich. Your rankings go up when you publish a blog and use linking and
posting on a frequent basis. You can also link to your own web site(s).
5. You have instant access to all your published articles on your blog.
A blog automatically creates archives of previous posts. You see them
in a side-bar for easy access. You put them into categories for easy
finding. One clever person we know spent a day posting all her ezine
articles to her blog, so that it would appear she has been blogging for
a much longer time. Also, readers of her blog may not have had the
opportunity to read all of her other ezine articles.
6. You can use your blog to become a trusted expert in your field by
filtering content on the web for your subscribers. Readers don’t have
time to surf and to collect information, but you can do it for them,
thereby establishing yourself as a good resource.
7. You can set up links for ads, products, and for your affiliate
programs in the blog side columns so you don’t have to include them in
the body of your article. In an ezine, you have to be careful about
promotional stuff in the article because it annoys people and causes
them to unsubscribe. A blog is a non-intrusive way to do this, and an
ezine can link to the blog where more information can be found.
8. Readers can comment on your blog postings, which creates rapport and
with readers. You can ask them questions, stimulate responses by being
controversial, and survey them. It is a great way to keep your finger
on the pulse of what readers want.
9. You don’t have to mess with a web site, or pay a web designer to
update your web site every time you have a new article or teleclass, or
program or product. Blogs are user-friendly, and with a few
instructions or tutorials, you can learn to use it yourself. It is less
expensive than setting up your ezine in HTML.
10. Bottom line is this: using a blog and an ezine will help attract
more visitors who become subscribers and who will eventually become
clients.
Think of the World Wide Web as a big fishing pond.
The more fishing lines in the pond, the more fish you are going to catch!
You have a web site, yet it is static like an online brochure.
You have an ezine, which you try to grow through subscription links everywhere.
And now, you should have a blog, where you can attract more readers to
get to know you, where they can interact with you, and maybe take your
bait!
Happy fishing!
The Blog Squad(tm)
Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., & Denise Wakeman
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