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Let’s face it, blog advertising is a scary prospect for big companies. Mainstream media varies between praising blogs as the second coming and bashing them as lynch mobs....
But, dollar for dollar, and click for click, there is no more cost-effective or potent medium than blogs for your ads. In fact, you can often reach an influential and devoted niche audience of thousands for as little as $10 a week. So why are advertisers so wary?
(Here are examples from a very successful ad from a current campaign I'm doing for American Greetings. See examples here, (scroll down, right side) and here, and here.)
Why aren't more advertisers and bloggers getting together? Three reasons: fear, ignorance and the knowledge that a lot of pioneers get shot.
 If you or your agency aren't including blog advertising in your 2007 plans, I'm here to tell you that you're making a big mistake.
Let’s look at some myths and some facts about blog advertising:
Myth: There’s no way to measure blog advertising
Fact: You get real-time traffic and click thru rates from blog ad networks like blogads.com
Myth: Bloggers might make fun of your ads.
Fact: True. But you might need better ads.
Myth: Blogs don’t have enough readers to matter in an ad campaign.
Fact: Many blogs can deliver well over a million impressions a week.
Fact: Even a blog with 5,000 readers a week can be influential beyond measure if one or more of its posts spreads through the blogosphere.
Myth: One half of one percent is a great click thru result.
Fact: Blog advertising that is appropriate, interesting and fun can easily hit .236 - .857% click thrus.
Myth: An ad that will pull on a more traditional website will also pull on blog.
Fact: Skip the hype and flash. Nobody is going to read a self-trumpeting blog or one that's awash in PR-ese. In fact, compelling content is the driving force—and any company that doesn't realize that will have a blog ad that's bound for oblivion.
No smart company, organization or association can afford to ignore blogs as an advertising option any longer.
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Comments
BL,
It is my sworn duty to let no posts go uncommented upon, and sometimes it just takes one of us to get the conversation started.
Here's my take on blog advertising: "You get real-time traffic and click thru rates from blog ad networks like blogads.com" and "Even a blog with 5,000 readers a week can be influential beyond measure if one or more of its posts spreads through the blogosphere."
True but we don't know who makes up that traffic. In a group of 5,000 (a relatively tiny amount of reach), no one may represent our target markets. Instead of an ad, doesn't a good video on YouTube or a business blog seem better investments in money and time? Of course, whether ad or using social media tools, the executions needs to be great.
So help me see where I'm exhibiting faulty thinking here.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 12.22.06
Five thousand is one blog. We'll reach many millions this week.
The campaign is running at remarkable clickthru rates, but I am contractually bound not to disclose numbers at this point.
What we DO know is that blog advertising traffic drives conversions and sales like no other medium before it.
I can tell you that a $15K investment in blog advertising, as part of a $350K campaign I did last year for Budget, drove 20 percent of the one million uniques we got on the site in a month.
And yes, it's all about the execution, no matter what the medium.
I don't have experience driving traffic with YouTube, but I have achieved stellar clickthrus and conversions with blog advertising.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 12.22.06
Also: :>) You **can** get incredibly specific when choosing blogs. When you put an ad on a blog about vegetarian cooking, or home schooling, or marketing, or any of a thousand other categories of blogs where ad space is available, you know you are reaching a devoted audience of people who follow that blog on a regular basis.
You can't get that niched audience with any other medium at prices that are still - but won't be for long - obscenely cheap.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 12.22.06
Thanks BL. It's good to still be able to learn something new at my advanced age.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 12.22.06
BL -- Compelling argument. Of course, you are preaching to the choir on this platform, or at least with me. For some reason, advertisers seem shy of any media property labeled "blog," which is a shame in my mind, for both our sakes, for the reasons you cite.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 12.22.06
Good stuff BL. In my experience in this arean, I've found that advertisers just think it's too much work to find the bloggers, and too little reward.
I'm trying to change that of course with BlogKits :)
Happy holidays!
Posted by: Jim Kukral | 12.24.06
What you have said about blog advertising on the internet is right on the money. However I have come across a guy named Jason Ryan Isaksen that has figured out some back door techniques to blog advertising that seem to put the odds in the favor of the marketers. I am testing out some of these techniques of Jason Ryan Isaksen, right now and so far most of my ventures are doing quite well as far as the ROI when it comes to advertising my blog. I am very optimistic about the possabilities of internet blogs and there advertising campaigns at the moment but Jason Ryan Isaksens techniques are helping immensely. Have you ever heard of this guy, Jason Ryan Isaksen or his informational books? Right now this all seems too good to be true, and you know what they say about that. I would like to hear some of your feedback.
sirjesse
Posted by: sirjesse | 01.08.07