Blogs are a cost effective advertising medium

During these challenging times in our down economy, every “brick and mortar” business is hunkering down and cutting costs and reinventing themselves to stay competitive just to survive. Normally, the knee jerk reaction is to stop spending money while trying to find ways of promoting their businesses for less money.

This is just the wrong thinking to have. If you are going to stay in business, you need to spend time marketing your business and finding other creative ways to sell your product or service. Now is NOT the time to stop spending.

Typically, costs for one advertisement placement in a newspaper runs from $700 for a quarter page to upwards of $5,000 for a full page ad. If you run several 30 second radio ads, you can certainly run up you ad buys to over $1,200. Lastly, TV ads start at $2,500 and that does not include the costs for production.

On the other hand, you can start a blog (self hosted) from $250. This would include domain name registration, hosting account for one year and utilizing a blog software. All you need after that is your dedication to add relavent content on a daily basis and you are off and running with a very efficient promotion campagin for your business.

Now there are ongoing costs to keep a smooth running blog up, but in contrast to what alternate options you have to promote your business, there is no better way to go!