When looking at the eRoi website in preparation for the guest speaker last week, I came across a quote under the section describing their blog services. The section was titled, “Not Just for Kids Anymore,” and the line went: “This [the blog] isn’t the place for hardselling. It’s a place for trust and community.” I thought that was such a clear way to describe the purpose of blogging, especially in light of the required blog post from last week, when many in the class switched into “marketing voice.”
It seems like blogging is becoming more and more prevalent as a marketing tool. This medium provides a business the opportunity to create a community with their customers and to enter into a dialog with them. They can reveal information about their mission and their culture as a company in addition to describing the product or service they have to sell. A blog is also an ideal place to offer customers in-depth information about the items they have for sale and why those items are superior.
This forum is ideal for both business and customer. The challenge of using a blog as part of a marketing strategy, however, lies in not trying to actually sell the readers of your blog anything, while still ultimately trying to sell them something.
Internet audiences are often quite skeptical, and if they feel “marketed to” through a blog, a forum that is supposed to build trust and open dialog, they will not only walk away, they will share their negative impressions with their friends. A company must keep the blog as a space for communication and feedback, not a space for hardselling, as it’s called by eRoi.
This can be difficult, as we all realized last week. When you have a product you believe in, you want people to buy that product, and it’s natural to try to sell it to them, in the traditional sense of the phrase. Marketing messages, using the “marketing voice,” have been the primary type of dialog between businesses and customers for ages, and changing that is not easy—for either group. It is essential, however, if a business wants to keep the respect and trust of their internet customers.
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I think your post reflects what we all feel inside. We just want to feel like we "belong" and that we're a part of something important. Whenever I feel like I'm being given a hard sell, my instinct is to walk away. If I'm feeling "marketed to" I want nothing to do with it. I agree with you that if a company wants to keep me as a customer, they must do it in a way that doesn't put me on the defensive. Nice post.
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