Will blog for customers

I have been thinking more and more about the marketing potential of blogs. It's not a terribly new concept - using the random blog browse on Blogger, I've run into a handful of blogs as online stores. But it seems to me that artisans and smaller businesses could run free (excepting time and energy) marketing campaigns by starting a blog and linking it to as many aggregators as possible - or as are useful to the business.

For example, my buddy James, who I mentioned in my last column, is a metal artist - he makes decorative pieces, towel racks, candle holders, water art (think sprinklers but really gorgeous and intended more for beauty than functionality - he has one that's a ballerina with a metal mesh skirt - beautiful!). Though he's been working with metal for decades, he's just starting the business side of it and has no budget for any sort of advertising.

But a blog... he could post pictures of his latest creations and of himself working in his shop, posts about the (lighter) technical details of working with metal, of the contraptions he builds in order to work with metal, his inspiration for different pieces and even his musings as he works - and he is a guy with some seriously interesting musings.

I think a similar strategy would work for smaller businesses, like Rioja!/Wine Warehouse (they're owned by the same people). I was at Rioja! for happy hour yesterday, where I was again impressed by how knowledgeable and friendly the staff is (Jake, who explained to me a little of the growing conditions that lead to the wines I tend to like) and how relaxed and comfortable the atmosphere is. The same goes for the Wine Warehouse where I have never left without a wonderful recommendation and where I have never felt at all uncomfortable demonstrating my lack of knowledge about wines or asking for an inexpensive bottle.

But they don't advertise, and the vast majority of people to whom I mention Rioja! and Wine Warehouse have never heard of either. Again, a blog could act as a free marketing tool if they connected up with We101 and wrote posts on the latest bottles in, upcoming events, light technical info about wines (such as why some wines are so tanniny or how ice wines are produced), wine pairing tips and perhaps even the occasional wine-friendly recipe.

I think the things to keep in mind with a marketing-focused blog would be:

• Give 'em what they want to read. Blog marketing will only work if people have a reason to come back time and again, and if you spend the whole blog being too technical or too braggy or anything like that, people won't bookmark you.
  
• Post regularly. I think that for really specific blogs, like either of the above examples, people could get away with posting as little as once a week, as long as those posts are fairly substantive. But nothing turns me off faster than a blog on a business Web site that hasn't been updated for months.
  
• Choose aggregators wisely. Both of the above examples would do well to connect with We101 because both are focused on a local target market. But when looking at other aggregators, remember that talking to other artisans or wine store owners is nice, but not a way to build business. Find your potential customer market and sculpt the content to appeal to them.
• Take it seriously. Don't post when you roll in from the bar at 2am on Saturday. Treat it like a part of your workday, with the same attention to detail, particularly grammar and spelling, that you would a print ad you were paying thousands for. Use spell check; ask a coworker to give a look before posting if you can. And please, oh please, use polite language. Even if a wine does have some ass to it (my phrase, not culled from anyone at Rioja! or Wine Warehouse) think of a better way to say it.