Make Waves With Your Blog To Make A Splash For Your Business

New York Times reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom refers to "these desperate days in American retailing" when she describes the new wave-making machines being installed in some shopping malls as a way to attract customer traffic. Extreme-sports company Adrenalina distributes the Flow-riders, ten-foot tall wave machines that send 35,000 gallons of water gushing over a slope at more than 30 miles per hour. According to  Adrenalina CEO Jeffrey Geller, some mall owners are paying upwards of two million dollars to install the machine, just to get the extra traffic.  "They know that we’ll pull people from a further distance than their regular tenants," he explains.

Malls aren’t the only ones abandoning more traditional forms of advertising and marketing in favor of reaching out to the online world through "pull marketing". In fact, pull marketing is precisely what blogging for business is all about. As print and direct mail see their numbers decline, according to ResourceNation.com, more and more businesses are choosing "the cost effective, highly targeted marketing options found online."

"Because of the substantial value blogging adds to an online presence, stand-alone, static websites are becoming a thing of the past," says website and blog copywriter Matt Rouge.  Not only is blogging an integral and indispensable part of any company’s Search  Engine Optimization strategy, putting out new and pertinent content  about your business and industry on a continual basis demonstrates that you are "in the game", Rouge points out.

Websites and blogs, however well written, may lack the marketing impact of surfers in 35,000 gallons of "wet" in the middle of a mall. Surprisingly, though, blog marketing statistics are more than holding their own in blogsphere circles, accounting for 80-90% of all online search. In contrast to the $2 million installation fee for a wave machine in a mall, blogging is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies any business can employ.

Customers may be lured to a mall just to see the new water attraction, Once there, they need to be lured into the retail establishments to buy. What blogging does best in the online "mall" is giving companies customers who arrived looking to be sold!