Blog

Maureen Rogers had a great post on OpinionatedMarketers.com (okay, that’s a candidate for a standing head) in which she states that B2B Tech buyers want more content from us.  They love to read, and I think she’s right there.  She cites Knowledge Storm’s “Connecting Through Content” (free download after onerous registration).  From that article:

This study shows that 61% of technology buyers look for different kinds of information at various points in the buying cycle.  They want content that directly addresses the issues they face at each point in the decision process, wheter that’s evaluating the financial consequences of a purchase or tackling the intricacies of implementing a new enterprise techology.

Maureen’s advice:

But whatever the constraints that small companies face – and half of the companies I work with don’t have a marketing department at all, so they face many – size shouldn’t be an excuse for not mapping content to where the buyer is in their buying cycle.

White papers topped the list of what’s on the technology buyers reading list.

I’m in total agreement – being a small business doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply to you.  You can indeed take control of the buying cycle, and the web is the place you can do it.  Set expectations for customers, help them find ways to define their needs, and to prepare for your product or service.  By better educating them, you will accomplish a couple of goals:

• They see you in a more professional light.
• They will be a better customer when they sign up, having had their expectations set for them.
• They will have more respect for your views having already bought into your particular methodology.

I do caution you to think outside of the box.  The corporate version of the old movie saw “Hey kids, let’s put on a show” is “Hey folks, let’s do a whitepaper.” 

As I state in the comments stream of Maureen’s post, whitepapers may be useful, but my experience is they don’t get read as much as we think they do.  To that end, as with any marketing project, I strongly advise you remember that you’ve got to offer both relevant content and you’ve got to offer it in a relevant format.

If you are explaining to someone how they operate a Swingline stapler, you can get away with words.  The problem is that some things just can’t be adequately explained in words.  My best example is the Doublehaul, which is fly fishing technique used to combat wind and get better distance.  Here is a textual explanation. I’ve been fly fishing since I was young, and it sounds like something NASA designed.  Here is a link to a video by some guy that’s maybe 20 seconds long, and you get the idea better than reading the previous article by one of the fly fishing legends.

Yes, content is an excellent entre to customers, but we must offer it in the proper format.  Think about it next time before writing that 40 page opus on “How to Write a Better TPS Report.”

An interesting post on Slashdot.com notes that the USDA is considering changing their rules on what may and may not be considered “chocolate” in the US. 

The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining ‘chocolate’ to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as ‘chocolatey’ and ‘chocolate-flavored.’

For my part, I’ll say that my version of what is and what is not chocolate is fairly straight forward.  Pretty much anything with a bar code on it doesn’t fit my standard.  My bet is that even if this does pass, people are going to know the difference.  Really, try a Lindt some time vs. the stuff from that town in Pennsylvania…

It’s like the difference between Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (or even better a fine homebrew) and Miller Lite…but the real point here is this: if you need to redefine your industry to be competetive, you may have a broken business model.

In a major opus post, David Churbuck has given us an outstanding explanation of coastal beach erosion processes, in light of last weeks storm on Cape Cod.  Most of us forget that Cape Cod is simply a sandbar, subject to change at the whims of the hydrologic processes. 

Sand moves in a predictable path along a beach — this is the “littoral drift” — sand doesn’t come into a beach perpindicularly, washing straight back out, but it moves, drawing from one source to deposit to another. Hence, if you look at a map of Nantucket, there is an impossibly narrow spit of land — Great Point — sticking out like an appendage. And on Cape Cod, a similar, but bigger structure exists in Provincetown. Hanging south of Chatham is Monomoy Island.

If you’re interested in coastal erosion, this is a must read.  If you aren’t interested, you will be when you read it.  Really – this is one of the best blog posts you’ll read this year! 

In one of those amazing “They still don’t get it” moments, Nexpo, the tradeshow for the newspaper industry put up a blog, then forgot to do anything with it.  So their tradeshow is ongoing, but no one has posted to their blog since the first post in March.

Even worse, instead of using one of the free out of the box packages, they’ve obviously designed their own blogging package in Coldfusion (does anyone really see that as a viable platform anymore?).  As a capper, here’s the first line you read when you go to the blog.

This software supports Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Some Macintosh users with Safari may experience problems using this software. Please download and install Mozilla Firefox if you are having problems.

Simply amazing – it’s like 1996 all over again – tell your readers what they need to use to read your site. 

Quite honestly, they did a better tradeshow website 5 years ago when they actually had a couple webcams up.

Okay folks, move along, nothing to see here…;-)

Joe Bonamassa from December of 2005 with 12 year old LD Miller on harmonica.

From Joe’s Bio:

Born in upstate New York, Joe Bonamassa started playing guitar, on a short-scale Chiquita, at the age of four. By seven he had graduated to a full-scale model and a year later, he was playing the blues like a veteran. Says Bonamassa, “My father was a guitar dealer and player, so guitars were always around the house and part of my life. They were like chairs or tables, in that they were just as everyday.”At ten, Joe began performing at local venues and at twelve, he was asked to open for B. B. King. The blues legend, after hearing Joe play for the first time, declared, “This kid’s potential is unbelievable. He hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface. He’s one of a kind.” King’s high regard for Joe would be echoed by other guitar greats the young performer would go on to work with, including Buddy Guy, Danny Gatton, Robert Cray and Stephen Stills. 

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I recently did something I rarely do; I didn’t pull the trigger on a project.  It was a corporate blog, and even though it was up and the software was running fine, I decided against going live. 

My reasons were fairly simple.  I felt that the level of commitment to the project wasn’t there, that I was the only one really interested, and I don’t really speak for the company.  If you need to hear what I have to say, you already have a place to go.  So the blog sits, unlaunched, and I haven’t heard anything about the project for a while.  So it’s on the shelf.

Here is a random list of warning signs that you might not be served by blogging corporately:

• When the words “approval chain,” “ghost writers” and “outsourced blog contractor” are heard without generating laughter.
• When words like “transparency,” “open” and “commitment” aren’t heard at all.
• When you know in the pit of your stomach that posting to the blog twice a week is a pipe dream.
• When the question of how the blogs impact on revenue will be measured takes precidence over all other concerns.
• When the prime decision maker asks to have the pages printed out and handed to him/her because their preferred web browser is a sheet of paper.

Okay, a bit tongue and cheek on that, but indeed, all are relevant concerns, and frankly, I’ve seen them all in the wild.

The truth is that Blogging isn’t for everyone.  As marketing types, we tend to be writers, and we tend to think anyone can do it, but writing compelling copy isn’t a skill that everyone has.  Then there’s the problem of blog burnout.  How many times have we seen people start out blogging 5 times a day, then 5 times a week, then 5 times a month, then they drop off the face of the earth and are never heard from again.  As a company, when you commit to blogging, you need to blog! 

Ask your self this question: who is this blog supposed to serve, and can we serve them with something they really need to hear?

Another good point to keep in mind is that you’ve got to be careful you don’t shoot your company in the foot while blogging.  My experience is that they generally fire back…

In by far the best post I’ve read about the Google acquisition of DoubleClick, David Churbuck explains both where banner ads had failed, and how Google may revitalize them.  This is a must read for any publisher, print or online, and for all who advertise online. 

The only bit I think is missing is the potential link between Google’s Pay Per Action and the banner ad, which will represent a quantum shift in thinking for the online advertising.

After our accident last week, I asked Vario customer Dr. Lou Stylos of Chelmsford, MA to give us a quick 411 on what to do if our kids (or anyone) have a similar emergency.  You see, one of the shocking things to me was the number of people who heard my story and said “I wouldn’t know what to do…”  Well, now you do.  I suggest printing this and taping it inside a kitchen cabinet next to your other medical emergency information (you have that right?).

KNOCKED OUT PERMANENT TOOTH

Hold the tooth by the top (crown), not the root portion. You may rinse the tooth, but DO NOT clean or handle the tooth unnecessarily. Try to reinsert it in its socket. Have the child hold the tooth in place by biting on a clean gauze or cloth. If you can not reinsert the tooth, transport the tooth in a cup containing milk or water. See a dentist IMMEDIATELY! Time is a critical factor in saving the tooth.
 
Louis Stylos, D.M.D.
“You’re never fully dressed without a smile.”

http://www.smilesbystylos.com

Thanks Dr. Lou!

In their largest acquisition to date, Google bought Doubleclick, the purveyor of big media online ads.  Rumors had pegged Doubleclick being the target of Microsoft, so at the very least this was a take away play.

If anyone thought that Google wasn’t serious about controlling online advertising, they’re sure to be convinced now. 

For publishers, this will be an interesting play, as Google will most probably at some point start to make use of their Pay Per Action model in the Doubleclick space.  This again means an even speedier demise for pageviews, if they weren’t completely dead already.  It also means that large publishers will be introduced to the PPA model sooner than anyone expected, which may have interesting affects in the area of online revenue.

For smaller publishers, the effect probably won’t be immediately apparent, as Doubleclick doesn’t really play in that space.  However, we can expect them to have a large effect on the future direction of online advertising, so we should all be keeping an eye on them.

Another interesting non-development is that I have yet to hear anyone mention the Monopoly word.   If Doubleclick had gone to Microsoft, we certainly would have heard the usual moans about their plans for global domination.  In fact, Google represents a bigger monopolistic threat when one looks solely at the online advertising space. 

David Churbuck posted about these guys earlier in the week.  Nice…

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