Blog: No Cost Marketing

Lisa Casinger, Home Accents Today

You've finally set up a Web site, started communicating with your customers via e-mail and maybe even bought some banner ads on a local newspaper or magazine's Web site and then here come these things called blogs.

Homescapes web pageWhat the heck are blogs? Blogs, or Web logs, are sort of like online interactive journals. They allow the blogger, you, to post a message and the reader, hopefully your customer or potential customer, to immediately post a comment.

A quick search of the Internet brings up thousands of blogs, some personal, some business, on topics ranging from politics and media to style, religion and technology.

This summer, online market research firm ComScore Networks released a report on the scale, composition and activities of blog audiences. The report was sponsored in part by Six Apart and Gawker Media (a blog software company and blog publisher respectively).

Homescapes BlogThe report detailed some interesting facts:

* Nearly 50 million Americans, about 30% of the U.S. Internet population, visited blogs in the first quarter of 2005, up 45% from the same quarter in 2004.
* Of the 400 largest blogs observed, divided into eight categories, political blogs were the most popular, followed by lifestyle blogs, tech blogs and blogs authored by women.
* Compared to the average Web surfer, blog readers are considerably more likely to live in wealthier households and be younger. They also spend about 23 hours a week online, 10 more than the typical Internet user.
* Blog readers visit almost twice as many Web pages as average users and they are much more likely to shop online and typically spend about 6% more than other online shoppers.
* Blog readers are a market segment waiting to be tapped and many savvy retailers have recognized that. Multi-million dollar companies have set up blogs talking about their product or company, making consumers more aware of their brands. Blogs are a form of viral marketing, which means increasing brand awareness by getting people to spread the message to other users; blogs simply give you control over the message.

A few home furnishings retailers started blogs as a way to communicate with their customers and increase their brand awareness. One retailer takes a more personal, unconventional approach to his blog because it ties into the type of advertising and marketing they do, while another retailer offers more business-like information and ideas to entice designers and their clients.

Thompson Lange, co-owner of Homescapes, Carmel, started his blog as a way to personalize his Carmel, Calif., store after bi-monthly newsletters became too expensive. Lange direct-imports a large part of his merchandise and his travels around the world are the focus of his marketing efforts. The retailer started its Web site in the late '90s and realized it could take its newsletter format to the Internet for free.

"The blog was an informational tool from the very beginning," Lange said. "I'd already found that when I wrote my friends e-mails from the road, they forwarded them on to their lists and we saw there was a 'market' for the chatty, border-line rude sense of humor I have toward the store and the idiot-adventures I get myself into while I'm out buying the product that feeds the beast."

Lange walks a tightrope between what's appropriate for a work-related site and what's not, but that feeds into the overall feeling of Homescapes, a store that's by no means conventional. The blog is an important part of the store's Web site and is consistently in the top 20% of pages viewed. A stats page shows the retailer where the hits are coming from, what customers are looking for and on which pages they're spending the most time.

Landfair web siteMike Landfair, co-owner of Landfair Furniture, Portland, Ore., wanted to generate some buzz about his small store that caters to the trade. With a limited ad budget, he decided to use his Web site to give designers and their clients information that would make their Web visits worthwhile.

"Blogs are free and pictures can be posted along with content," Landfair said. "I also believe that people searching for furniture would find our store easier."

Landfair Furniture has Web sites for its blog, the store and its annex, the online store. With traffic counters Landfair sees the traffic building on each site and that's translating into traffic in the brick-and-mortar store as well; the online store, too, is catching on.

"I started the blog in March and at first couldn't find enough to write about and site traffic was stuck at a small number," Landfair said. "Then I started posting regularly and the visits to the blog have steadily grown."

Landfair's blog gets about 50 unique visits a day; that's a potential 50 customers. The retailer also offers an e-mailed newsletter each month that recaps the blog topics and links to those articles. Mike and his wife, Bev, comment on everything from Hurricane Katrina and the furniture markets they attend to new local restaurants and design trends on their blog.
Blogging info and advice

Though Lange and Landfair have different approaches to their blogs, both have realized the viability of this virtually no-cost marketing tool and offer a few words of advice.

"Blogs give you the ability to show the relaxed, human side of retailing," Lange said. "When customers read my blog they can see that I'm just like them, a little quirky sometimes."

Lange advises against "heavy-handed selling" on your blog, since it's whole purpose is to give information, ideas and insight.

Landfair's best advice is to blog consistently.

"Offer opportunity for feedback, be as accurate as possible, be professional, be wary of controversial topics and help your readers come away with something valuable even if they don't buy anything," Landfair said. "But most of all, blog consistently."

There are several web-based applications for creating blogs, most of which walk you through the process step-by-step. Blogger.com and iblogs.com are just two of the many available online.

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