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Team LFI ON 2.18.2010

A Quick Recipe for an Effective Blog Post

Placing a blog on your website is a good way to generate return traffic and engage your consumer audience. Making sure the content you post actually gets the reaction and traffic you want, however, requires a little nuance. It's important to keep a few things in mind as you type up your copy.

Know your audience and understand how to speak to them. You need to have your blog fit the consumers you're targeting. The language you use, the subject matter you discuss, and the voice you write in all need to be in sync with your target audience. It's important that you don't talk down to them or fly over their heads.You also want to avoid boring them or focusing on a topic in which that they don't have some sort of an investment. For example, you wouldn't want to load up on jargon if you are targeting a more general consumer base.

Stay on message. While whatever the blog discusses or puts forth needs to be in sync with your audience, it also has to be in line with your marketing message and goals. The blog should not run counter to what you are trying to accomplish strategically. Don't sing the praises of lemonade if you are trying to sell milk! With that said, infusing a marketing message into your blog needs to be done subtly - a sales pitch wolf in a blog sheep's clothing will turn off your readers. You need to be sure that the blog's message will lend itself to whatever product or service you offer without feeling forced or out of place.

Have a title that can catch the audience's eye and spark some interest. Although the first sentence of a blog can encourage audience's to continue reading, it's the title that initially catches their eye. So even if you write the perfect blog post - one that fits the interests of your target audience while seamlessly integrating your marketing goals - bland title will leave it unread and ineffective. A good title should be both engaging as well as offering some sense of what will be discussed. It needs to generate the intrigue or curiosity needed to get your audience to start reading, while remaining honest and direct.Don't oversell or make false promises about what the blog will offer. Make your title catchy, not crooked. With each of these added to the mix, you'll be able to post blogs that get read, satisfy the needs of your target audience, and make your marketing staff happy.All in under 500 words or less.

[Contributed by Emily Carroll]

Team LFI ON 2.3.2010

The Integrated Message: Keep It Cohesive and Consistent

Running an integrated marketing program mixing offline and online elements does involve more of an investment of resources than focusing solely on one side or the other. The overall results of an integrated campaign, however, will be far better thanks to the building of brand awareness among your target audience as well as the added marketing impact that results when online and offline marketing elements are effectively combined. Vital to any effective integrated program are the cohesiveness between the marketing messages being delivered and the understanding that marketing is fundamentally a conversation between a brand and its prospective customer. It is not one specific marketing campaign or press release. Rather, it is how the blending and execution of such disciplines convey a message in a synergistic manner at every possible customer touch point.

It is important for any brand to ensure that it does everything possible to reach consumers with this message at the precise moment when they are the most interested in the brand's value proposition. This requires the integrated campaign's messaging to always be wherever these consumers are looking. Consistent messaging is a very important part of an integrated campaign. Wherever a potential customer sees your message, it should always be the same. This will involve consistent branding from an ad in a newspaper to the text of an e-mail to the content on your brand's social media site. The message being delivered needs to be consistent because if consumers are constantly encountering it in these different venues, a message that is not the same across all the marketing channels won't effectively connect with consumers.

If the message comes across as a bunch of different looks and fonts and feels and meanings, these consumers are just not going to absorb it. Launching an integrated marketing effort enables any brand to spread its reach farther and make more contact with its target consumer base. Speaking to these consumers in a variety of ways and places won't be effective, however, if the message being delivered is not echoed wherever it is being heard, online or off. Maintaining consistency and cohesiveness reinforces a brands marketing message and helps make sure its intentions aren't lost on the consumer and the integrated campaign goals are achieved.

[Contributed by Emily Carroll]