Marketing Roadmaps

Business Management

Blogging has no intrinsic value

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Intrinsic. adj. Of or relating to the fundamental nature of a thing; inherent. (Webster’s)

Blogging, whether you think of it as a form, a medium or a vehicle, has no intrinsic value.

Strong words, especially when you consider that I’ve recently been characterized as a blog fanatic (and by the way, I did not take offense at all). In the sense that I believe Daniel Bernstein meant, that I am a believer in the value of blogging and "social media" for both individuals and business, yes, I am a fanatic. But it isn’t "the blog" per se that I value — it is what it gives us.

For the real value of blogs (and all social media, whether wiki, forum or podcast) isn’t the thing itself. See above. In and of itself, it has no value.

The value is in what it gives us. For individuals, blogs fill all sorts of needs – community, conversation, education, reputation, validation. There as many reasons why as there are bloggers. But the answer to why do we blog is never simply "because." It is always because something.

We shouldn’t expect it to be any different for a business. Yes, there are many reasons why a business might consider blogging. But never "just because."

It has to come back to the business and marketing plan. Blogging has to fit into the business plan and deliver to an existing business objective. It doesn’t have to be an overt sales/marketing objective — it could just as easily be something important for customer service or development.

A big part of the value of blogs — of even considering doing a business blog — is the focus on the customer. That’s why I embraced blogging in the first place. I have long been a proponent of customer-centric marketing, and blogs are most definitely (and sometimes painfully) customer centric.

But if the business doesn’t understand how blogging will deliver to something that is ALREADY important to it, it will NOT do it.

When it does….

Companies of all sizes are embracing blog monitoring. It’s a no-brainer, really. We already monitor the media; blogs are an obvious extension, and a great way to listen to customers and other influencers. And cranks too of course, but the most important thing is to listen and take action when appropriate. You don’t actually have to respond to every comment.

In fact, we should never feed the trolls. It only encourages them.

It’s also why we hear a lot about companies using blogs internally.  Blogs connect employees, as workers and as individuals, in highly beneficial ways. That fits the plan. So, if a company NEVER does a public corporate blog, but encourages internal blogs, and maybe even/eventually employees blogging externally, connecting with customers, we’ve got something good. Makes this blog fanatic happy anyway 🙂

So whether you are talking to the Fortune 500 or a mom and pop shop, stay focused on what’t important to them as a business. If a blog makes sense, recommend it, but make sure you couch the recommendation in a solid business case. Because they aren’t going to (and shouldn’t) do it "just because."

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BlogHer: More about the Room of Your Own Proposal

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Elisa Camahort has posted the candidates for the Room of Your Own slots at BlogHer this July so I thought I’d give a little more detail about the Business Blogging session I’ve proposed.

We’ve all gone to conferences where much of the audience is just as qualified (sadly sometimes more) as the panel of experts. But very little time is actually given for interaction between the panel and the audience. Usually, there is time for one or two questions, and that’s it. Not very satisfying for anyone really, but especially the audience — at least the panelists get the professional recognition for being on the panel.

The other problem (one that is handsomely addressed by BlogHer) is that all the conferences start to blend together — the same speakers seem to hop from one to the next, presenting pretty much the same material. Interesting the first time perhaps, but not so much the 2d, 3d, 4th time you attend a conference with the same players. And the same topics. Not really worth attending the sessions when you could save the airfare and read the same material on their blog or in their book.

Now, sessions aren’t the only reason for attending conferences — networking is a big part of why we go as well. For my part though, I really need to find value in both the conference program and the networking opportunities. It’s too expensive, both in hard cost and time away from billable work, to attend otherwise.

Hence the idea for a business blogging session that makes the audience members part of the panel. The focus is on "what worked, what didn’t" in your blog projects. What would you do again? What will you NEVER do again? We’ll learn from each other’s experiences to collectively build a set of blogging best practices.

A few folks will be identified in advance to kick off our discussion, however, the only difference between them and the rest of the people in the room is that they will have PROMISED to have something to share. Everyone in the room will have an equal chance to participate.

And that is the key word: Participate. We won’t have presentations or speeches. To the extent we can, we’ll post brief descriptions of the blogs that people want to discuss on the BlogHer site in advance so we don’t have to spend a lot of time bringing everyone up to speed on what a blog was all about. That way, we can focus on the discussion, not a ton of exposition.

I think this will be a lot of fun and look forward to reading your comments, either here or at the BlogHer site.

Microsoft LiveMeeting: The Art of Follow-Through

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Just a quick note about a Microsoft LiveMeeting you might want to check out.

WHAT: The Art of Follow-Through: How to make sure that every team executes successfully

WHO: Laurence Haughton, author of It’s Not What You Say…  It’s What You Do – How Following Through at Every Level Can Make or Break Your Company and co-author of It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small…  It’s the FAST that Eat the Slow

WHEN: February 28, 9am PST

The best laid plans usually fall apart in the execution.

Haughton’s latest book and this seminar are about avoiding the pitfalls of poor execution. With his pragmatic advice and specific suggestions, you can actually achieve the results, even if you aren’t Clark Kent.

Check it out — cause, hey, M$ is paying 🙂

More information and registration info

Marketing Plan: Trade Shows

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Hope everyone is having a spectacular holiday season, whichever holidays you celebrate. We will now resume the regular programming that was interrupted by puppies and Christmas.

Puppies and Christmas… wasn’t that the call to arms issued by a favorite television character a few years ago…. mmm. I know at least one of my readers will get this pop culture reference 🙂

But I digress. Today’s promised marketing plan topic is trade shows — how and when DO they fit into a marketing plan?  When I began my career 20+ years ago (ouch), big annual trade shows were a large part of the plan. One big event per quarter (sometimes two), where you pulled out all the stops, booth, giveways, contests etc., was not unusual. This is still true in some industries, particularly business to consumer products on a regional basis, but for many B2B marketers, the trade show is far less a fixture in the plan than it used to be.

Why? Unless your product REALLY needs to be seen and is too cumbersome to ship out for trial — for example capital equipment like printing presses — trade shows often are not as cost effective as other tools at our disposal. With the Internet to provide pre-purchase information and all the options for fast shipping if a product does need to be sent out for physical trial, signing up for a big expensive trade show is far less attractive. If the product can be delivered through the Internet itself in a form acceptable to the buyer, trade shows are a very hard sell. In my opinion, that is one of the reasons for the demise of big computer shows like Comdex, and why I don’t think Internet World ever caught on. Too much money, too much investment of human capital and far too little return.

Now there are some exceptions to this phenomenon, even for computer products. Trade shows can still be an attractive venue if they are associated with an association meeting/convention. And I mean a real association meeting, with an active membership and a real education program that provides tangible value to the attendees. Big trade shows that stand apart from a real convention, even if they have the trappings of one, will not attract attendees the way the real thing does. Comdex. It started as a dealer show, morphed into an end user show, and eventually died (and IMO it was code blue for a few years before it was called.)

So trade show rule number one: unless a trade show is still the only option you have to show your product to potential buyers and dealers, make absolutely sure a BIG show is associated with an association meeting that will truly attract the attendees. [BTW, for these big capital products, the most popular trade shows do usually meet this criteria. Budget is ALWAYS an issue. In order to attract the big equipment manufacturers for whom drayage is a BIG BIG BIG expense, shows really need to pull the attendees, or the companies would find another way.]

Word of caution: affinity is not enough (example: Macworld) to develop a sustainable "big show." In my opinion, you must have an actual association connected to the show to guarantee the attendance, year in, year out.

In addition to the "really big show," there have always been a number of smaller shows, meetings and conferences to consider. Often held on a regional basis. These have proliferated in the past few years, even as the big big shows have somewhat declined. These may or may not be affiliated with an association meeting, and given that the investment is much less, it is much less critical as well.  I prefer events that are affiliated but I have seen some good independent ones as well.

Here affinity and solid programming are often enough to get the audience necessary for a decent ROI. Your display, if any, is a tabletop that can be staffed by a couple of people. Sometimes, it is just a sponsorship — coffee break, tote bag etc. — with a corresponding lower total cost.

The audience may be small, but is usually highly selected. So the challenge here is to pick carefully, and sign up for the conferences that will actually deliver YOUR prospects. Don’t do a conference aimed at C-level executives if your principal buyer is an IT director. Yes, you want to talk to the C-level guy, but guaranteed, the conference isn’t the most cost effective place for you to do it. The president of the prospect company may be interested in meeting your CEO, but she doesn’t want the sales pitch.

So my trade show rule number two is look for these smaller, more targeted events. If you can find the right audience for your value proposition and you have adequate staff to work the show, they are an excellent addition to the marketing plan. However, no matter how cheap the event is, if you can’t give it sufficient resources, both promotional and staff, I still say, don’t bother.  It is not worth doing if you aren’t going to do it right.

And that is our final rule: whatever you decide to do about integrating trade shows into your marketing plan, make sure you allocate sufficient resources to do it right. It is better to stay home and figure out another way to reach your targets than to go to a show and look like shit.

Marketing Roadsigns newsletter

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Yes, I too have decided to launch a monthly newsletter. Since it will be a companion piece to the Roadmap, it will be called Marketing Roadsigns. You can sign up here on the Roadmap and on my website www.getgood.com

First issue will be sometime this week, and it will be archived on the website.

Update: July 2005 issue posted.