Don't Understand the Value of Blog Advertising? You Could Soon Be Asking "Would You Like Fries With That?"

By B.L. Ochman Blog advertising expenditures have grown 300 percent in the past year, according to Henry Copeland, president of blogads.com, and blog advertising is still obscenely cheap. In fact, companies can make a really big brand splash for $25 to $75K.

Blogs provide advertisers an excellent opportunity to reach a devoted audience niche. Nonetheless, a new American Advertising Federation study on "Digital Media Trends", http://www.aaf.org/news/press20060611_01.html proves that 58% of "advertising industry leaders" said that they personally are "struggling simply to manage existing online efforts, let alone stay ahead of the curve." And, while blogs' impact is magnified by the fact that they reach influencers, blog numbers, until recently, have been little more than curiosities to big brands.

I predict that the cost of blog advertising will rise exponentially in the next six to 12 months. And, as traditional advertisers try a heavy-handed approach to creative, many companies will skulk away, having convinced themselves that this new fangled social media doesn't work.

Despite the fact that every publication on the planet seems to have run at least one article about blogs, the first question I am asked in every time I talk about social media at conference is still "But do blogs really work for corporations?" Pretty soon, communicators who don't know the answer will be asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

Read the rest of this article at MarketingProfs.com

Here's the deal:

You advertise on my blog. We look at the current annual benchrate prices for an ad of your type on my blog. You agree to pay me in one year.

A year from now, we look at the benchrate annual prices once more. You pay halfway between the two figures.

The blogger gets a locked-in future payment (unless the benchmark rate dips below zero, which is almost impossible) and the advertiser hedges risk by locking in what could be a very low cost.