From BBC: Fossett sets solo flight record
Cool.
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.
Here are some of my other recent posts in this vein. They have links to some great resources.
From Marketing VOX today, Republicans on FEC: Blogs May Be Regulated
I fully support the need for campaign finance reform — the whole situation has become just nuts. But it is a slippery slope (of BS) when you say, as GOP Commissioner Smith did to Cnet:
"We’re talking about any decision by an individual to put a link on their home page, set up a blog, send out mass emails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet."
In other words, even if you aren’t actually raising or donating money, the actions you take on your blog might be considered a contribution.
That’s crap, and pretty ridiculous, given this little thing we have called here in the USA called the First Amendment to the Constitution. It will be interesting to see if the GOP really pushes this issue or not…
Guaranteed to be tasty!
From BL Ochman: How to Set a Corporate Blogging Policy Links to great article from down-under about the corporate blogging phenomenon. Her what’s next blog is a great source of information about corporate blogging.
From Dan Gillmor, and also Steve Rubel, news of the Citizen Journalist Starter Pack. Posted in other places as well I am sure. I have nothing new to add to what already has been said, other than it is really funny, and I wanted my most loyal reader (my mom) to see it!
I don’t tend to comment too much on tech issues, although I do follow them. For example, the recent “discussions” about the Google toolbar. Others who focus on the search space have been far more articulate than I could ever hope to be. Here’s the exception: you have to check out the Dougal Evil Toolbar, which I found on Threadwatch.
For non-techies, Dougal is such a crystal clear way of showing just how evil manipulating search results could be….
If you want to follow the search engine wars, you should check out Threadwatch.
Earlier today, I was working on another post (ie not this one). I spent a bit of time on getting my words just right and so on. It was getting kind of long, so I re-read the post to do some editing. And realized that after a number of paragraphs, I hadn’t gotten to the point, and even worse, it was just ****ing boring. I had shed no new light on my subject, and my post bored me. I can only imagine how dreadfully dull all of you would have found it.
So, you are spared my boring post.
Instead I am going to write about leads! Over the past couple of weeks, a few of my favorite sales/marketing bloggers have written some thoughtful posts about leads. Here’s a sampling:
You know you’ve read a good post when it REALLY gets you thinking, and these three posts, well, they led to this post 🙂
Leads are the lifeblood of every business, and the source of more misunderstandings, confusion and strife between sales and marketing teams than just about ANY OTHER issue in the business. And the sad truth is, all it takes to avoid the battles is a well thought out integrated lead program. So why don’t more companies do this? Quite a while ago, I suggested some reasons why this is so, and promised to go into more detail in a follow-up post.
Well, two months later, here we are. As clearly as I can, without a whiteboard and visual aids, I am going to give you a model for lead rating and nurturing that delivers the filtered leads (without the crap) that Brian and Dana referred to in their posts. And will end the sales/marketing war….
First Step: Definitions and Responsibilities. It is marketing’s job to identify, qualify and nurture sales prospects to the point where the prospect becomes a sales lead. Sales then takes over and is responsible for converting the lead into a sale. So you say! Seems simple, how come we have so much confusion?
Diagnosis:
Second Step: Stop doing all that bad stuff in my diagnosis. Instead:
Some people like the MAN model, Money – Authority – Need. I prefer Budget – Timeframe – Decisionmaker (Need is assumed by the fact that the prospect responded to an offer, and the more important dimension to surface is the Timeframe of the purchase.)
But it doesn’t matter which of these you prefer – pick one and develop the lead rating questions for your business that will let you classify your prospects appropriately.
C and D are prospects — they typically are missing some key ingredient in the mix, or have a much longer timeframe. And they shouldn’t go to your sales people. Cs and Ds should be nurtured in marketing.
There is a lot of detail in this process, more than I want to go into here. If you are interested, please feel free to drop me an e-mail at sgetgood@getgood.com. I’d love to talk leads with you.
Step Three: Nurture prospects. This is where companies usually miss. They may do the work of classifying leads, but they don’t assign the responsibilities appropriately. Everything goes to sales, even the folks who aren’t ready to buy. Somehow, the company imagines that all the prospect needs is to talk to our excellent sales reps and they’ll cut the PO. Wrong. In fact, it may do more damage to put a prospect in the sales queue. If all you want is to start the conversation, you really don’t want someone trying to close you.
Depending on your product set, you could have a simple or complex lead nurturing process. The key: make sure your prospect is engaged by, and engaging with, the appropriate folks in your sales/marketing team at the appropriate points in the sales cycle.
Leads to sales, prospects to marketing, clear definitions, and a clear handoff point.
Much better than bitching about lead quality or bad conversion rates, isn’t it?