July 2006

Sticking with the ” we’re more than you think we are ” line of posts here, I’ve decided to take Chris Garrett’s tremendous post over at Performancing and expand it to show that even these 10 post ideas could be used by businesses that blog.

Hope Chris don’t mind too much, but Bob Bly has me all torqued up and now I’m in show-those-sobs mode and might just go hog-ass wild for a day or two.

1) How To - This is almost too easy. What company couldn’t benefit from showing their customers how to best use their product. Would you like them to use more of it ? Think of these phrases :

Lather-Rinse-Repeat

Brush and floss daily

For best results, use daily

2) Lists - What company wouldn’t like to show that their product is ranked highly by an unbiased listing service ? What company couldn’t benefit from listing the 107 best uses for their product ? How many times have you seen an ad that shows which truck manufacturer had been given ‘ Best In Class ‘ ? How many different uses are there for baking soda ? Why do you think they show you all those uses ? So you try ‘em all and c-o-n-s-u-m-e more of their product.

3) Campaign - Use a blog post to rile up consumers aginst your competitior or to get them behind you as you go to battle for them. How many corporate blogs were used to tell the public about all that individual companies were doing for the victims of Katrina ?

4) Interview - Another easy one. want me to get riled up enough to part with my dollars ? Interview some of your current customers. Interview my favorite singer and let me and 1,037,942 other people submit the questions, then allow us to listen to the interview or download a transcript. Sold !

5) Review - Put up a site for reviews of your product. DO NOT moderate out the bad posts - fix the flaw. We don’t believe anything is perfect, not even my new putter. But it’s damn close !

6) Case Studies - Got room on your blog for a few case studies ? Good, that means more sales. Gimme the down and dirty facts…all of them, and I’ll buy more readily.

7) Research Results - Same thing as case studies. Give me all the facts and don’t gloss over any imperfections. Why not leave out the bad parts, you ask ? You need to read some of the writings of John E. Powers, probably the first professional copywriter. Wrote a sales letter a day and got $100 a day in 1880. That’s big money for 1880. Hell, a lot of people don’t make that today.

What’s New, Trends - Keep up with your industry and let me use your blog as the place to go for news and info. Aggregate everything, make it readable, filter it and then call me to the table to eat. Don’t make me look all over the place, become my go-to guy.

9) Attack ! - Attack your market and become it’s daddy ! Take over the joint. When you walk in, find the biggest guy in the place and slap the hell out of him. If he don’t get up, you’re the man. If he does, keep your hands up and look for the door !

Seriously, this doesn’t really fit for businesess, but 9 ideas wasn’t as good looking as 10.

10) Ask The Audience - Want to know what your market really wants your product to do ? Want to know what part of the market isn’t being served ? Want to know which product to bring to market next ?

ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS !

Don’t know how to do this ? Ask me. I’ve got a great script to use and all we need is a list or enough traffic to run past our page to find out what they will pay for and we’re golden.

Thanks for the inspiration, Chris and thanks to Bob Bly for getting me all torqued up enough to break out this post.

Somebody jump in here and add to the conversation, I’ve gotta go take a cool shower and calm down.

Back on May 13th I wrote a post that quoted Bob Bly and his views on marketing with blogs.

6 weeks after the post was written, Bob commented on it and said,

” Not sure how you guys reach the conclusion that I know nothing about blogging. Launched my marketing blog in 11/04, and as you can see from the archived comments, it is extremely popular. I am not a big subscriber to RSS, though I get Adrants and a few others that way. “

To which I commented back and let Bob know that we had not reached any conclusions, but that he concluded for us when he made remarks such as,

” In my observation, there are two major problems with blogging as a business-building tool.

The first is that most of the blogs I encounter are rambling, streams-of-consciousness musings about a particular topic of interest to the author, largely bereft of the kind of practical, pithy tips that e-zines, Web sites, and white papers offer. “

Now Bob has commented again and NOW he says he’s an uber-blogger and has a big-time publisher who wants him to write a book about blogs and their use for marketing.

Somebody with less on the ball than Bob is gonna pay him to write a book about the very thing he dismissed as :

… an utter waste of time

… rambling, incoherent, and more suited for private thoughts than public consumption

He also proved that he knew nothing of RSS and the delivery mechanism that blogs use when he said,

” The second problem with blogs is one of distribution.

With an e-zine, once the reader subscribes, he gets the e-zine delivered to him electronically every week or every month — or however often you send it.

But with a blog, the reader has to go out and proactively look for it. And since your contributions to your blog may be irregular and unscheduled, he has no way of knowing when something new of interest has been added. “

And Bob was kind enough to really trash blogs by saying,

” If you have something of value to share, there are many better formats for doing it online than by blogging, including white papers, e-zines, and Web sites. “

Bob also stated that he stood behind these comments ( kinda proud of them, I think ), when today he added,

” On the contrary: I stand by everything I said, and in fact, have a book on the subject coming out next year from a major publisher. It cuts through the hyper about blogs, promoted by blogging consultants and evangelists, and focuses on the real but limited value of blogs in the marketing mix. “

So now, Bob must mean that he’s seen that there’s money to be made writing about blogs and their uses, which he clearly states as none. He also says they have limited uses in marketing.

Really ? So does TV, so does radio, so does direct mail, so do newspapers, etc.

That’s why a smart company uses ALL of the available forms of media to get their message out to their market Bob.

And that’s why anybody with 1/4 of a brain wouldn’t pay YOU to write about blogs and their uses in the marketing mix.

A really smart company would pay ME to take care of their marketing and a publisher that was really in tune with the market would pay ME to write about blogs and their uses in the marketing mix. Since I own a blog network and am paid to be the voice of two companies as their pro blogger, I’d think that I know a helluva lot more than you do about blogging Bob.

But you don’t need me to prove that do you ? You’ve already done a great job of proving that yourself.

Now do yourself a favor Bob, read the blogs of the 5.8% of the Fortune 500’s bloggers and read the blogs out there that are trying to teach people how to best use blogs as a marketing vehicle and learn, but don’t speak, as you only lose more favor and embarass yourself more every time you open your mouth.

This would be a good time for the blogosphere to jump in, write more posts, maybe a few Trackbacks and links and let’s set the record straight - that we aren’t just ” hypey, … promoted by blogging consultants and evangelists, and of limited value. ”

I just read about a business owner that was so remarkable and so successful that his competitors all folded…one by one. That left him in a position that we all dream of…but we need to be careful what we wish for. We’re all envious of those with no competition, because they can stink and still make money. But would you really want to stink ? Would you really want to be able to tell your customers to kiss off ?

I wouldn’t. Competition is what’s caused me to sharpen my skills, broaden my horizons and work like a borrowed mule to make myself and my company better.

Think of your local electric company. Are they mindful of your needs ? Of course not. They have you over a barrel and treat you poorly, if they’re like any of the one’s I’ve had in my life.

Does your local phone company bend over backwards to make you happy ? Hell no ! They tell you when to jump and how high !

Does your local cable provider rush out to hook up your new service ? Not a freakin’ chance ! 2 weeks minimum for hookups. No service ? We’ll have a guy there within 48 hours…maybe.

Nope, competition is a good thing and it’s the reason we have so many features on all the products we use. Were it not for competition, you wouldn’t have Pay-Per-View movies on demand.

You wouldn’t have 125 channels on your cable or satellite reception.

You wouldn’t have 5 for $5 nights at your local burger joint.

The man I read about actually started another company to compete with his original company so his sales force would have to stay sharp and his customer service people would have to be kind, helpful and courteous.

Can you even imagine ? Me neither.

Without competition, a sales force would deteriorate rapidly. Why ? Because a man/woman grows proportionately with the obstacles he/she has to overcome.

It’s only the weak and the poorly prepared that fear competition.

The same goes for blog/websites. Don’t fear your competition. Give thanks that they’re there to make you think harder, work smarter and try new angles. Quit trashing them and spend that time sharpening your tools. You’ll be better off in the long run and might just have a few more friends.