If you’ve been following our recent postings about how builders and remodelers can effectively market themselves in today’s economy you might come to the conclusion that blogging about your business will solve all your problems. We’ve talked a lot about blogging lately because blogging should be an important part of your marketing strategy. But it’s just one piece in the puzzle.
Here’s a shocking truth: Blogging won’t get you sales. As a matter of fact, you shouldn’t even try to sell anything through your blog. It’s just not the right tool for that. It’s a tool for passing on information and for building relationships. You need to tie your blog into other tools to generate leads and eventually sales.
You can have links in your blog that allow readers to connect to your Facebook page. You should include links that take them to specific pages on your website that highlight what your blog is talking about. You can even talk about face-to-face events that you’re planning and include a link that takes readers to a special landing page where they can sign up for that event (like an open house or a seminar on new “green” building materials).
You can even tie your blog into offline marketing efforts such as direct mail. For instance, you could do a mailing of an invitation to an event that you highlight in your blog. Just make sure that the tone and topic and look/feel of the invitation is closely linked to what you have on your blog.
The more pieces you tie together (and this does require some planning on your part), the more opportunities you have to touch the people who may be your future customers. So by all means, blog your brains out, but don’t forget the other important pieces of the marketing puzzle.
Do you have any successes (or failures) you’d be willing to share about how you’ve tried to coordinate various parts of your marketing efforts?