First impressions are critical in personal relationships and in first business encounters. You’ll forego touring an open house if the curb appeal is lacking. If your first visit to a store is an exercise in frustration, you are likely not to return even if they are offering an attractive sale.

You don’t get very long to make your first impression on the internet. Attention spans are attenuated when searching on the internet for a specific item or service. When a potential customer lands on your home page, you want the sought after information right there or easily navigated to. Especially if they have arrived via a press release or announcement about the service or product that you offer.

So it is unfortunate when a business or association launches a new site and fails to deliver on their promise. If that first 30 second span on your site does not provide the user with a worthwhile experience, the click that closes your page is the sound of a door slamming and a potential customer lost.

Having a Connecticut relative who works in direct marketing, I responded to an article that announced a new web site and blog for a local direct marketing association. Though their new site has a crisp and clean look and is relatively easy to navigate, try as I might, I could not find the advertised blog, which was the primary incentive for my visit. No doubt they will catch the error, but I have already visited and left unsatisfied. I’m sure that is not the first impression that they wanted to make, but it emphasizes a critical aspect in creating a blog marketing plan. You have to have an actual plan!

“Blog” may be a very unprofessional sounding word but it is no longer a casual undertaking. Planning a blog marketing strategy needs to be as well thought out as a business plan with a detailed campaign of execution.

When you extend an invitation on the internet to “come on over”, you are well advised to be fully prepared for the onslaught of visitors and the very short span of time that you have to either impress them or irritate them. Be sure to give them what they are looking for to ensure a return visit.

Tags: Blog Marketing, first_impressions, marketing_plan, marketing_strategy

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 3:44 am and is filed under Blog Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.