Marketing Roadmaps

PR

Marketing Pot Pourri

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Wrap-up of interesting posts I read this week.

One of the funniest posts I’ve read in a long time from Shelley Powers at Burningbird: Guys Don’t Link Just read it, there’s no way I can do justice to it without quoting huge chunks, and it is so much better as a whole. Make sure to read the comments as well.

Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World posts his chapter from the upcoming book 100 Bloggers. Nice, simple introduction to "citizen publishing."

From Jeremy Wright of Ensight, the Fortune 500 companies with blogs

Blogging for Niches by Thomas Pierce over at How to Blog for Fun and Profit. This is a great practical blog full of advice and techniques for people getting started with blogging.

Some mindless fun from Jim Logan at JSLogan:  Where have you been

A new blog to check out: re:invention blog for woman entrepreneurs

The Four Marketing Practices of Winners from MarketingProfs

From Jennifer Rice at Brand Mantra: Book meme 123.5

Marketing versus Marketing Communications

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One of the (many) things that I find both amusing and frustrating in the ongoing debate about marketing’s role in the business is that so often people on both sides on the debate (ie, marketing rules versus marketing sucks) forget that marketing isn’t synonymous with marketing communications.

Marketing 101.

Marketing is the four Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

Marketing Communications is primarily concerned with one P: Promotion. It is part of marketing, it is not ALL of marketing.

Going forward in my writing, I plan to be very clear about which thing I am praising or criticizing: a marketing strategy or a marketing communications plan/tactic that is part of an overall marketing strategy.

It is an important distinction.

Promoting your blog: Advice for new bloggers from another new blogger

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As a relative newcomer to the blogosphere (since last November), I’ve had to figure out how to promote my blog in what has become a relatively crowded space: marketing-related blogs. Just as in the early days of blogs, when every blog could list every other blog on its blogroll (source: Rebecca Blood’s book), in the not so distant past, a marketing blogger could know all the other marketing bloggers. The numbers were manageable. Not so anymore.

As Jennifer Rice writes in a post about her link policy and building traffic:

"There are a lot of well-written blogs with decent content that I probably won’t add to my blogroll. No offense, but there are too many blogs out there right now and I don’t want a blogroll that’s 10 miles long. At this point, I’m only adding blogs that are really original. They’ve got a viral component. They either have unique content (tough to do) or they’re talking about it in a fresh and different way. They inspire me to look at the world through a new lens."

So, as a newbie, you REALLY have to get it out of your head that getting on some other blog’s blogroll is going to be what gets the word out about your wonderful blog.

For two reasons. First, it is harder than it used to be (and I expect this is true for most subjects, not just marketing). With the proliferation of choices, people just aren’t going to put every site they might read on their blogroll. The other reason the blogroll doesn’t work is that I just don’t think people are as drawn to the blogroll lists as they are to the actual content of the blog. Just being on the list does not give a reader ANY reason to click over to you. Plus, as more and more people read blogs in RSS aggregators, they aren’t even SEEING the blogroll, unless they link over to the site.

So what does work? You’ll read the answer in a lot of places: Read other blogs and Comment, and Write compelling posts and Trackback.

Okay. But what does that really mean? When should you comment?  When should you send a trackback, and when SHOULDN’T you send a trackback?

I’ve formulated my own policy, and to help other newbies, I decided to share it. Caveat emptor: YMMV (your mileage may vary) but I don’t think I’ve pissed anyone off, I’ve gotten some good feedback and my traffic is going up, so here it is.

  1. I read lots of blogs. Not as many as some, but a good cross-section of my areas of interests and a couple of linkblogs.
  2. When I read something interesting on a blog, and feel I have something to add, but do NOT intend to write about it in my own blog, I leave a comment. If someone links out to me, and their post has something I’d like to comment on, I leave the comment in their blog.
  3. If I write about the topic, and reference another blogger’s post(s), I send a trackback, but ONLY when I add my own thoughts to the topic, as I am doing now.
  4. Once in a while, I will leave a comment, and also write a longer post and send the trackback, but I don’t do both too too often. Usually it’s when I’d like to comment and am not sure when I am going to get around to writing about the topic myself.
  5. If I am simply including the other post in a list of interesting links, which I do quite often, I rarely send a trackback. Why? Because I am including the link for the convenience of my readers, and sometimes myself. If it is something interesting that I may want later, it is easier to have it in my blog than in my Favorites list. Sending a trackback to the original author just seems too promotional. Occasionally I’ll send a private e-mail under these circumstances.
  6. I try to send a thank you e-mail for every link out that I get. I check Technorati and other search engines daily to see if my posts are being linked to by others without trackbacks. I may miss one now and again, but I think I get most of them.
  7. I send a thank you e-mail to every reader who leaves a comment or sends me an e-mail.
  8. Last but most definitely not least, I try to write good posts that people will want to read and link to. I re-read my posts many times before they go up. If I think something has turned out crap, even if I spent a long time on it, I don’t post it.

Here are some of my other recent posts in this vein. They have links to some great resources.