No question about it, email remains the most popular prospect-nurturing device in the online arsenal of most B2Bs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; properly done, email can be quite effective.
But there’s a new sheriff in town: blogging. Now, the strange thing is that many of the same firms who pump out a high-quality, multi-article e-newsletter on a regular basis – often with no objective notion of its ROI – either haven’t started a blog, or don’t take it nearly as seriously as their newsletter …even though it can be just as effective at lead nurturing, and has many other benefits that email just can’t match.
All this comes is a bit of a head-scratcher to Craig Thomler, who took the time in a post on Social Media Today to lay out many of the ways that blogs beat email; so we thought we’d review some of them here…
Blogs are easier.
- You only have to do one post at a time, whereas the typical e-newsletter requires marshaling 2-4 articles on various subjects by different authors …which can be a lot like herding cats.
- With a monthly e-newsletter, there’s no communication happening between issues. But with a blog, says Craig, “you can spread out your posts over time, giving the impression of more regular updates and building your audience’s engagement habits, without necessarily writing any more content.”
- Approval processes won’t disrupt your schedule. With a newsletter, an entire issue can be held up because one of its five articles hasn’t yet been approved. With a blog, so what if only 9 of 10 articles are approved so far… you’re good to go for maybe 3 weeks of posting while you wait on approval of that 10th article.
Better communication.
- Email newsletters are almost always one-way communication vehicles. Blogs, however, are multi-way …especially if you encourage comments/discussion.
Benefits email can’t touch.
- Unlike email newsletters, blogs boost your search rankings. In fact, because blogs are updated as often as you post, search engines often rate blogs higher than static websites …an enormous boost to searchers’ ability to find and make use of your information.
- Blogs are online forever. Of course, you can keep an online archive of your email newsletters; but a blog is far easier to search and reference.
- Your blog’s reach can multiply via syndication and social media. Your blog can provide an RSS feed that can be used by blog aggregators, news sites and other feed-reading mechanisms; and it can also leverage social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, to increase your footprint even further. In contrast, email newsletters are basically bound by the limits of their subscriber lists.
And as if more were needed…
- Your blog can double as an email newsletter! With the right blog tool (or a small amount of work), you can bundle up your blog posts for the last week or month and send them out as an email newsletter.
Now, none of the above is meant as a put-down of the sturdy old e-newsletter; if you do one, it’s probably working for you …and that’s terrific. But whether or not you do one, you really should be doing a blog. And if you like your email program, you’re gonna love your blog …for all the great reasons just described.
Blogs are great marketing tools for business and they help with SEO too. They shouldn’t replace an email marketing campaign, but is simply another branding tool. Some people don’t check their email often or don’t read newsletters, even if they subscribed to them. A blog is a good way to attract a larger audience.
Totally agreed, Nick. Our take is that a blog shouldn’t replace a regular email campaign, but if you’ve got the means to create a quality newsletter, you’ve got the means to create a quality blog, too (and should!).
Thanks for the comment (and sorry for the delayed reply – you ended up in our spam for some reason…)