Many marketers were very excited when forum and newsletter discussion focused first on blogs (about two years ago) and then on RSS feeds (mainly within the past year). It was a brand new opportunity for marketers to use, one that promised both search engine success and a way around spam complaints. So they ran out and created a free blogger account or bought some software and began blogging and trying to set up RSS feeds. But many of these marketers didnt understand the very real difference between newsletter readers and blog readers. 1. While newsletters are published from once a month to weekly there is an expectation among blog readers that content will be updated daily, if not multiple times each day. 2. Many people who would subscribe to an email newsletter have no interest in learning about RSS feeds, downloading a reader, or visiting your site every day. 3. Although there are people who will both subscribe to a newsletter and visit websites daily, most web users seem to prefer one or the other. Thus, there are really two ways to use your blog, and you must use one over the other. You either have a blog or a website. My view is that a blog more describes the frequency of writing than it does the form or layout of your site. 1. Use your blog as a content management system. Write your weekly article, upload it to your blog, then send an email to your list that links to the article on your blog. Or, 2. Write for your blog every day (or every two days at an absolute minimum) to reach the group of people who will visit your blog regularly, but only if you are adding new content regularly. Then, for your weekly newsletter, create a weekly digest of your posts containing a synopsis of each article and a link to the article on your blog. My own view is that the second option works better. Even if you have four or five blogs, you can still write 300 words each day for each blog, or write for two one day and the other two the next day. Brainstorm ideas every week and use that list for your articles. Set up a Google Alert for your topic or niche, and link to websites or news pieces you find from that service. Or, pay someone to write articles for you. But keep your blog fresh and original and post to it regularly. |
