Newsletters and blogs both go well in your Content Buffet, but if you have to decide between them, here are some advantages and disadvantages to both.

The good news is that almost everything you need for 21st-century content marketing is cost-free (except the content). The bad news is that it's so cost-free that it's tempting. When you spread yourself too thin, your brand begins to leak.

• Blogging platforms - notably WordPress - are indescribably flexible. Although it's usually possible to tell a blog from a classic HTML-based Website (with one exception I know), the distinction is no longer very important, especially for small organizations.
• Blogs are made for search engine optimization (SEO). Your content changes with every post, which attracts the attention of search engines.
• You can build an audience in other channels (Facebook, Twitter, guest posts) and keep bringing it back to your blog.
• Blogs are also made for interactivity like comments, ratings and sharing.

• A halfway decent post takes about 1.5 hours. Bloggers I respect bear this out, even as they pepper me with advice on how to make that shorter.
• It can be hard to measure and track a blog audience. You have few statistics, and most of your readers are anonymous RSS subscribers. Unless they leave comments, you know very little about them, not even their e-mail addresses.
• Getting any real traction in SEO takes frequency and valuable content, which can mean posting several times per week. Good search engine results depend on plenty of other things, of course, but frequency certainly matters.

• A newsletter is a good way to stay in front of prospects and customers so that you're never off their radar. That's important in a long sales cycle.
• Newsletters are based on e-mail, so you know more about your subscribers. You can build a stronger connection than a blog-, Facebook- or Twitter-following (at least for now).
• Newsletter statistics are more precise than blog statistics. You can tell how many people opened the message, who they were, where they were (by IP address) and which links they clicked on.

• All your readers need to opt in or double-opt in.
• You have to play by e-mail rules to get your newsletter into their inbox. This is, in effect, the opposite of SEO, because you want to fly under the spam radar with your subject lines, yet still inspire subscribers to open.
• Audience expectations are higher than for a blog because of the personal delivery. Whereas you can shoot off your mouth on your blog, your newsletter should whisper sweet nothings and make your readers feel special.