Does it feel like the floor is moving beneath your feet these days as you try to get a handle on sales and marketing for your company? It’s not just you. Major changes in our culture, available technology, and how we do business are radically changing marketing and overall business models.

One of the hottest trends of 2005 is the Blog. A weBLOG is a web based interactive journal that an individual or organization posts messages to daily. The messages are short. They are written in an informal style fitting to the web. They are about real people talking about real topics.

Where did the revolution begin?  It began back in 1997 when the word “Blog” was first termed and it launched forward in 2003 with the Iraq war and then 2004 with the Presidential election.  From there it has exploded onto the scene with mainstream companies like General Motors, Delta Airlines, and Microsoft putting in their two cents.

Think the Blog is some passing fad?  Don’t. You’ll miss out on a truly breakthrough way to interact and build long-term relationships with your customers.

The Real Secret to Blogs

At the end of the day, blogs represent a fundamentally new publishing format. Far beyond their role as personal diaries and scoop-laced news journals, blogs provide easier ways to create and manage Web sites and site content, in a highly addictive manner.

Although study after study demonstrates that websites that change their content almost daily are:
• preferred by users,
• get more sales,
• get higher rankings in search engines,
• provide an inexpensive customer service function,
the majority of sites on the web fail to update their content!  That’s the equivalent of walking by thousands of dollars sitting on a table and not picking it up.

Why do companies consciously let this happen?
1. Too much time to figure out how to get the changes done
2. High agency fees for even small content changes
3. An ISP that scares people into thinking changes could destabilize civilization as we know it.
4. Having to talk to a technology person without a translator.

Blogs Cut Bureaucracy

Unlike traditional HTML static websites, Blogs use “push button” dynamic technology that makes it easy for anybody to use. 

• Always wished your website could have a place to upload pictures at the touch of a button? 
• How about publishing daily business reports/condition reports/weather reports? 
  Blogs make it easy and simple.  If you can open a Word document you can Blog.

Blogs are Made to Move

Blogs were designed to move information quickly and efficiently.  There’s no spam or virus issues, the information is usually short and sweet and to the point, and best of all, most Blogs have built-in news disbursement systems (email or RSS).  Whether you have an event, special news, or just want to show the human side to your company, a Blog is a very powerful thing.

Blogs to Replace Traditional Websites?

Probably not.  But until you have the ability to develop a website with full content management ability, a Blog can be the next best thing.

Recently I recommended a Blog to a Client.  The goal was to introduce new functionality already contained in the Blog software to market through, rather than trying to fix the current website.  In this situation it made sense.  This client needed the ability to instantly make announcements on new products, picture uploads, and announce upcoming events.  The Blog was a great way to start a permission based marketing campaign of attracting people to the Blog site for late breaking info, product & service tips, and the other unique concepts the Blog site offers.

You are probably asking yourself why start a whole separate Blog site when there is a regular site sitting untouched?  Let’s take a look:
• Pre-arranged contracts meant that making changes to current site included paying another agency to do it.  Not to mention the time lag of actually getting the work done.
• Redeveloping a new website is more cost effective than trying to fix the old, but neither was budgeted at the moment.
• Big Reason 1: A Blog can be up and fully functional in a matter of days for hundreds of dollars instead of thousands.
• Big Reason 2: A Blog satisfies the basic needs of instant change by the Client when ever they want and interactivity with customers.

So, could a Blog replace a website?  Not if you still would like ecommerce, good navigational flow, content about who you are, and any number of other important website functionality.  But Blog’s are a great stop-gap measure until the website can be brought up to par or the perfect addition to a site in the need of permission based marketing.

Interested in more Blog info than you ever wanted to know?  Check out this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs
Interested in seeing my Blog in action, click here http://www.nxtconcepts.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=6

Want to test out your own Blog?  Click here.