Archives for May 2005

Marketing Roadmaps Round Up

May 14, 2005 by Susan Getgood

From Joho: comment on a fictional blog from Audi. Since Cluetrain is the “bible” for many of the most vocal opponents of character blogs, and any blog form that isn’t by “real people,” I’m pleased that one of the authors seems to have an open mind on the subject. I do disagree with his terminology (faux blog); faux means false, and false or fake for me requires intent to deceive. I would call this blog a fictional blog, as it tells a fictional story using the blog form. And as Dave points out, good or bad is determined by the target audience; it is all relative.

Quick Link: Dave Taylor at the Intuitive Life Business Blog tells us about Your Daily Art, a unique small business blog.

Where the Roadmap is taking me

May 10, 2005 by Susan Getgood

Just a few places where the Roadmap is taking me.

Next week, I will be at Camp WorldWIT: Women in the Lead from May 19-22, speaking on a marketing panel, "First to Market: Make Your Name Hit and Stick," Friday, May 20 from 2 – 3:15pm.

In late July, I will be at the blogher conference in Santa Clara. I am very excited to be a panelist on the Blogging for Business panel (Saturday July 30 at 2:30pm)

Setting expectations

May 7, 2005 by Susan Getgood

A post by Elisa Camahort over at the Worker Bees Blog: Is your blog your office? Or a quantifiable marketing tool? reminded me of some conversations I had a few weeks ago (and have blogged here more than once) about the role of the blog in the marketing plan. Should you do a blog for brand awareness? Or lead generation? Or crisis communications? Or …..??

Elisa makes some excellent points in her post, not the least of which is:

"And as business people it is incumbent upon us to think about our expectations before we implement something."

That for me is the key. Blogs can serve many purposes in a business, internally and externally. But, as with any tool we choose to use in our business, we must be certain to set the proper expectations AND develop/use the tool properly to meet those expectations.

A weblog created to generate leads should be very different than one designed for brand awareness. Sure, your brand awareness blog will likely generate some leads for your business, but if you have high expectations of lots of inquiries resulting from your blog, you had better be posting content and information that drives your prospect to respond.

Just like with any other marketing tool. If you forget the call to action, whether it is a direct mail piece or a weblog entry, the phone is not likely to ring.

the mongol rally blog

May 6, 2005 by Susan Getgood

As I periodically do, last night I checked Technorati to see if any new blogs had started linking to me. And discovered that the mongol rally blog-2005 has included me in their blogroll.

I’m pretty flattered, as it is a fairly small blogroll, so I guess it means they really like my blog. And I am also pleased to have found them, as they are about to embark on a pretty cool adventure — 8000 miles across Mongolia in a 2CV in a rally that will raise money to feed the poor in Africa.

So thank you Julia and Damian for reading my blog, and good luck in the rally. I look forward to following your progress.

The “What is” Meme

May 5, 2005 by Susan Getgood