In the increasingly crowded blogosphere, finding out what your viewers want and need is key to your blogging success. In my field of photography blogging, I feel there are way too many sites with images only. While many enjoy these types of sites, from the perspective of a blog owner, image only sites leave little room for brand differentiation.Yes, marketing is important whether your are trying to sell cars, or entice viewers to frequent your site.

If you review the top rated photo blogs, you will find that in addition to great photography, there is also interesting written content as well. Photographers love to read about other photographers…type of equipment they use, the conditions under which the image was made, special tricks used during the shoot or in post production, etc.

This first question to consider is, “how do you find out what people want or need?” That’s easy, you ask them. The “asking” part of the marketing equation is often overlooked, since it is perceived to be a difficult task. However, producing a product without quality research is risky at best.

So get started today and try your hand at some simple marketing strategies. People love to give their input. Do you have comments on your blog? That’s input. However, if you want specific answers to your specific questions, there are several tools I use which can help you.

• Zoomerang- Easiest way to ask, fastest way to know. Zoomerang offers an online survey service used by thousands of companies and bloggers alike. In addition, they also have a free 30 day trial. I have used this service for scholastic research as well as for blogging. Simple to set and a snap to use.  Learn more about Zoomerang
• Skribit – A plugin application, whereby visitors can recommend topics that want to read about. You can use this application in a variety of ways. It’s fast, free and simple to use! Learn more about Skribit
• SurveyGizmo – The SurveyGizmo plugin for WordPress gives you the best of both worlds. Use SurveyGizmo to build powerful, sophisticated and custom-styled surveys, but stay in WordPress to monitor responses. Learn more about SurveyGizmo