Admit it. You want to connect with your customers—before Christmas. You want to create marketing buzz for your holiday shoppers. You want to blog.
The positive influence and increased use of blogs is undeniable. They’re EVERYWHERE. Perhaps blog marketing and business blogging was once considered a passing online fad, but no longer Рthe era of the blogosphere is here. So we think good prep for the holiday shopping season is eggnog and a blog!
Whether your business is small or large, blogs can serve many purposes.  They are a terrific way to:
- Share your company’s expertise
- Provide and generate free PR and marketing (for you and afflilates)
- Draw more traffic to your site
- Allow customers to interact with your company and each other.
Here at FastPivot, we know blogs mean business…more readers come to our site through our blog than almost any other page. But we’re not the only blog fans . . . a Yahoo study conducted earlier this year indicates that shoppers who are exposed to online advertising tend to research or ‘pre-shop’ their prospective products online.  In fact, the online “pre-search” community generated 41% more brick and mortar sales than those who do not research or “pre-shop” in any way.
For retailers looking to attract the info-hungry “pre-searcher”, the blog is an excellent way to use a free online information channel and draw these looking-to-spend shoppers to your product or service. Consumers who read, or see something they like, can be your best publicity.
So, what does this mean to you? Taking a page from the Yahoo study, it means that consumers purchase items that meet their online information expectations.  It means you, the Yahoo!Store merchant, should create a site that not only facilitates shopping, but also gives easy access to vital information that makes shoppers buy. It means even merchants without big budget advertising can utilize content rich blogs to lure holiday ecommerce and in-store shoppers.
So, before the sleigh bells start to ring  . . . to the top of the page, to the top of the site…blog away, blog away, blog away all.
Check out Fast Pivot customer blogs at: http://racing.biowheels.com/ and http://www.beachsimple.com/ 
Source: http://www.marketingvox.com/
