Blog articles and blog marketing is a central tenet to the branding and awareness strategy of many companies, including ours, employ to engage their communities and prospective customers. For Streamline Brands, the following articles were the top blogs for August 2018 across each brand. Blog success can be measured by a number of criteria. We like to look at blog views, call-to-action clicks, and conversions as the central, measurable criteria to verify a blog article's effectiveness at engaging our members and potential customers. However, these numbers cannot tell the entire story. The true power of blog marketing shows itself in ways that can be hard to tally. When people read and return to read a company's articles it does a few things, specifically, it builds brand affinity, brand authority, and word-of-mouth marketing.

When we write on subjects that pique a potential customer's interest, be that directly swim-related or not, we establish ourselves in that person's life as a resource that discusses this interest and those related to it. A person will then begin to affiliate that subject with our brand and begin to think of our brand when they think of that interest. As we continue to elaborate on these subjects we establish ourselves as authorities, or reliable sources of information, related to the subject. This customer, that now sees us as a subject authority and has an affinity for this resource, will now discuss the ideas and subject matter discussed in the article with their friends, family, and associates. Inevitably, our name and brand are shared with other individuals who may have never known or associated with our brand before. This then extrapolates across families, neighborhoods, and communities. This is the true power of blog marketing - reaching individuals we may have never been able to and establishing rapport with those that we do reach. This month, we want to share an article with you that elaborates on writing even just outside our main subject matter. Don't be afraid to write on subjects that may be on the periphery of swimming-related subjects as well. Your customers are individuals with a wide range of interests. Writing on topics that may include these interests gives additional reasons for customers to keep your blog on their radar. In this article, Assistant Vice President of Marketing at Brafton Marketing writes a synopsis of takeaways from this year's Content Marketing World 2018 Conference - Take a look!