As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to introduce what you have to offer to new customers of the right kind (the kind that have a need for and who will appreciate your services and products).  That’s exactly what having a corporate blog is designed to do.  Through the search engine optimization process, potential customers searching online for your type of product or service get to your blog. Then, when they read the very relevant information you’ve provided there, these buyers go to your website, and decide to do business with your company.  Your blog is one important way of inviting customers in to take a look.
Since marketing plays such an important role in my work as a ghost blogger, I’m always on the lookout for information on that subject.  A couple of weeks ago, I attended a mini-seminar about trade show marketing, given by marketing programs specialist Kathleen Haley. The presentation was called “Making Event Participation Work For Your Business.”  I was amazed how much of what Haley shared about effective use of a trade show booth can be directly applied to using a business blog effectively.  I’m going to talk about just one of those marketing ideas today, but I’ll come back to some other ideas I learned in future “Say It For You” blogs.
Don’t sit behind a table. The table becomes a barrier, Haley pointed out.  Make it easy and inviting for customers to come inside your booth, away from the flow of trade show traffic.  Inside, you can talk to them, find out their needs, and share ideas with them.
You want your blog to function like a great trade show booth.  Customers are looking for some information or perhaps for a provider of a service or product that relates to your business.  That’s why they’re at the “trade show” (meaning online on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN).  So, the customers arrive at your blog “booth”, where they read or see something that draws their interest and appears as if it might fit their needs. (That, of course, is where having lots of appealing, fresh content in your blog is so important). 
Right there is the crucial moment in the process – the customer needs to come inside the booth (meaning click on to your website). Once you have customers inside your website, you get the chance to find out more about them and help them find out more about you.  That just doesn’t happen outside the booth; it happens only when the client gets inside the website.  The key to inviting them in is your blog. In a very real sense, this analogy of the booth sums up my work as a ghost blogger.  I help you say to your customers, “Won’t you please come on in?”