Blogs offer professionals high return marketing tool : New York Times

Blogs offer consulting professionals like law firms ‘…[A] low-cost, high-return tool that can handle marketing and public relations, raise the company profile and build the brand.’ That per an article by Marci Alboher in Wednesday’s New York Times.

Blogs may not be for everyone but some businesses such as consultants are obvious candidates, says Aliza Sherman Risdahl, author of The Everything Blogging Book.

They are experts in their fields and are in the business of telling people what to do.

As a consultant, blogging clearly helps you get hired. If you are selling a product, you have to be much more creative because people don’t want to read a commercial.

David Harlow, a lawyer and health care consultant in Boston, was quoted for his success with his HealthBlawg. He used it when he started his own practice after leaving a large firm.

He gets about 200 to 300 visits a day, he said. He has also become a source for publications looking for commentary on regulatory issues in the health care field and has even gained a few clients because of the blog. In addition, he has formed relationships with other legal bloggers (who call themselves blawgers) and consultants around the country.

The word of mouth component marketing component of blogs was covered as well. Tony Stubblebine, the chief executive of a Silicon Valley software company told Albahor he gets new customers largely by word of mouth, and he uses his blog as a way to share news with friends and people who wield influence in his industry.

I’m trying to create a community of help for small Internet businesses like mine. My blogging philosophy is like the open source model in software. It’s sort of a hippie concept. If I can help other people, it’s personally rewarding. And those people will likely pay it back in some ways.

Plus for companies in the technology sector, Stubblebine believes having a blog is pretty much expected.

When I started blogging in 2003, I was hoping to find one news story on blogs a week. Can’t go a day anymore.

Heck, when I got home tonight my wife, Jill, asked if I saw the articles on blogs in today’s Seattle Times. More consumer oriented than business, one covering Starbucks Gossip, and the other on niche bloggers earning money through advertising. Nonetheless, blogs are all around us and definitely here to stay.