by Frances Laing

Created on: March 30, 2009

Internet marketing has it's advantages. It's fair to say if used properly it offers lower costs than traditional marketing strategies. With the use of digital media: the Internet, email and wireless media it is possible to spread your marketing message across the globe very quickly. But Internet marketing also includes the use of electronic customer relationship systems (ECRMS) and the monitoring of customer and marketing performance information. Through the analysis of statistics it is possible to evaluate the success of an Internet marketing strategy.

The use of blogging as a tool plays on the greatest strength of Internet marketing. Interactivity. In a real-world retail outlet for example - customers would visit the shop or mall and buy something. If there is no loyalty scheme in place or other connection to the store it is quite possible that no repeat business will be generated. With a blog, however, (if it is interesting and relevant enough, if it is maintained properly and appropriate widgets are installed) readers and customers should begin to experience a loyalty with the product, company or individual concerned and interact with it on a regular basis.

They may express this loyalty in various ways that enables the blogger (and/or the company who employs or works with the blogger) to keep in contact with the readership and thereby opens up the possiblity of being able to 'tout' for repeat business.

There are various ways of enabling this interactivity with your customers and readership. First the reader or customer visits the blog. The number of visitors to the blog can be tracked with a site counter, and the data this delivers can be analysed to determine where the readership is coming from (and indeed in some cases, who the visitors are). So far, the readers are not doing anything else other than reading the content and taking it in. This aspect of blogging can be a useful marketing tool in itself though, because it can prove to be excellent publicity.

Taking the potential of a blog a step further though - it can be a vehicle to get feedback from a readership or customer base in the form of comments and questions. A comment box should be an integral feature of most blogs.

As far as blogging and internet marketing is concerned though - we still haven't talked about 'conversions'. No, that's not about suddenly changing your religion! A lay person might understand the term 'conversion' as 'when you manage to get your customer or reader to act'. You persuade them to buy an e-book, purchase a product, order a holiday, and so on. The success of your blog as an integral part of your marketing strategy can be partly measured by analysing 'conversion' rate statistics.

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