Keep Killing Your Blogs

I read a post a little while back from Mathew Ingram about people killing their blogs and starting email newsletters. While I think email newsletters and email marketing are alive and well (and I highly recommend them), I can’t see the value in killing a blog. A blog is a media property. It’s free organic search. It’s a way to communicate one to many, but then get extension (yes, people can forward your email, but how clunky). It’s a bit more object permanence, insofar as it’s out here on the web, even if you get it sent to your inbox, too.

Blogs are media. Cameron Rawson has TechLeash. He’s got a platform in northern UK that sets him out as a guy interested in tech and the future. If it’s just an email list, it’s much harder for him to be discovered. He has to be passed around like a secret.

Blogs are multi-faceted. Steve Garfield can teach you how to Get Seen, or he can send you Off on a Tangent. We can do many things with blogs.

Blogs are sales engines (if you want them to be). I’ve written about my worry reduction buttons before. Though you can market via email (and many people – including me – do), you can market even more with Google’s and Twitter’s and Facebook’s help via a blog that sits there waiting for love.

Not to mention the fact that done right with a tool like MailChimp, a blog can automatically feed your newsletter so you don’t need to make a choice between a blog or newsletter — they can be a tightly integrated part of your internet marketing…