Business Marketeer

Web marketing - it's too early to define best practices

2010-09-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

An infographic from Dream Systems Media Blog gives an overview how marketing developed since the 19th century. It puts marketing in perspective as a relatively young discipline where development is accelerating fast. Marketing surely is more complicated now than it was 10 years ago. It shows that much of what we're using as marketers today is relatively new and untested. We should probably

How much time does blogging take?

2010-09-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

If you’re considering to start a blog, how much time will it take? If you’re already blogging, do you spend too much time, or not enough? The answer to these questions depend on many parameters, but at least, a few benchmarks can help. The monthly time to run a blog is simple math. Multiply the average hours you spend per article by the number of articles you intend to post. Then add an overhead

Checklist for a marketing campaign

2010-08-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

When starting a new marketing campaign, the following checklist helps you asking a few questions to focus your mind. Answering these questions will make it much easier to plan and implement a campaign. Difficulty to answer them may lead you to conduct further research prior to committing to the campaign. This list of questions has been based on Bob Bly's excellent book on copywriting. It can be

Is microblogging suitable for business marketing?

2010-08-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

If you're a business marketer and worried that you're missing the boat on microblogging, don't be too much concerned. The uses for microblogging in business are rather limited. But microblogging has some potential to become a productive part of the future business marketing mix. Microblogging services allow users to post short messages (up to 140 characters) on a message board. Regular

40 online marketing methods

2010-07-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

Inspired by an article from Junta42, hereby the ultimate list of web-based methods to provide relevant content to users. These can be used for business development, non-profit marketing or to build strong reputations and brands online. Establishing thought leadership First a group of techniques to upgrade your users, while establishing you as a thought leader on your subject. #1 Blogs: the

The rise and fall of the marketing Ps

2010-07-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Since Kotler, marketing has been about the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. But for content marketers, the actual 4 Ps are Planning, Production, Publishing, Promotion (see PodWorx ‘the 4 Ps of podcasting‘), bringing the total to 7. A recent question at MarketingProfs asks about the 7 Ps of marketing, adding Policy, Partnership and Politics, bringing us to 10. Wikipedia’s 7 Ps add

Strategic clarity and alignment

2010-07-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

Anecdote provides a test on strategic clarity that most organisations would probably fail. The difficulty with strategic planning is that experts scramble to focus planning efforts around their pet subjects. Department heads want to include as much freedom as possible, making strategic planning an exercise in dilution. Finally, forces tend to mobilise against the poor executive who wants to set

Writing white papers

2010-06-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

A book, a white paper, a blog, a community White papers can be powerful marketing instruments. But since they require thought leadership, they're not easy to write and their use comes with many pitfalls. Michael Stelzer's book on the subject provides a practical and accessible guide. In particular, I appreciated: its definition of white papers, and their appropriate use the template

10 ideas to liven up your blog

2010-03-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

So you’ve set up your web application and have been consistently posting for a couple of weeks/months. Visits have grown, but you seem to be stuck at a few dozen visitors per day, or 100 visits on a good day. Here are a few ideas how you could bring your blog to the next level: (Minor impact) Use social bookmarking - self-promotion is frowned upon in social bookmarking; adding social bookmarking

Don't make me think

2008-07-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

Recipes for web usability Steve Krug’s book on web usability reads in half a day, but changes your perspective on websites forever. With lots of practical advice, you can use it when preparing or developing a new web project, as well as for auditing and improving a running site. Offering guidance on language, buttons, banners, navigation and home page design, this book is useful if you’re

Seven specific calls to action

2008-06-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

Specific rather than generic calls to action are a means to stand out in business marketing. A recent exchange on Marketing Profs [1] discussed calls to action for B2B trade magazines, resulted in generic answers such as ‘free gift’, ‘free sample’, ’subscribe to our newsletter’ etc. But everybody else uses these same calls. As with bacteria and antibiotics, users become rapidly immune

The Corporate Blogging Book

2008-03-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

If you’re a business marketeer, considering blogging for your organisation, or a blogging evangelist preparing to introduce blogging in your organisation, Debbie Weil’s book is for you. Not only does it contain a 360 degree description on the blogosphere. The book also includes a selling kit for the skeptics, and prepares you for the cultural barriers you might face. A few of the arguments:

What’s next for (business) blogging?

2008-02-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

Some changes in the marketing blogosphere may be a signal of things to come. This view is necessarily colored by the sub-segment of the blogosphere I observe, i.e. blogs about business marketing, technology, knowledge management, content management and social entrepreneurship. It represent a particular view, focussing on content-rich, technology-oriented business blogs. Amazing tools for

What no one ever tells you about blogging and podcasting

2008-02-10T06:15:00.000-08:00

Ted Demopoulos bundled 101 case studies on blogging and podcasting in 8 themes (basics, business uses, planning, making money, promoting, podcasts, other and the future). The idea is simple, but inspiring through its excellent selection of the case studies. With 101 bloggers covered, the book gives a broad description of the blogosphere in its various segments: blogs, book blogs, podcasts,

How much time does blogging really take?

2008-01-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

Another year’s gone, and the time-sheets are processed. Hereby a few benchmarks for our blogs at Leonardo ENERGY. The length of our posts varies between 100 and 500 words, and takes us between 0.5 and 6 hours, depending on the amount of fact checking needed (as well as insight checking) and how straightforward it is to structure the story. Taking a median of 2 hours per post and 2 weekly

The ultimate lists of business marketing blogs

2008-01-21T07:06:00.000-08:00

Two must-have resources for any business marketer Thanks to Jon and Joe, we now have 2 ‘ultimate lists’ of business marketing blogs, which complement each other very nicely. Many of you will already know Jon Miller (Marketo)’s big list of b2b marketing blogs. With its recent addition of 50, it lists 138 b2b blogs. But best of all, Jon also offers an up-to-date OPML file allowing you to

Voting on content

2007-11-15T06:08:00.000-08:00

Voting on resources is about the leanest feedback you can set-up for users. It provides a first step to involve users in a community. It can be done in several ways: a vote (e.g. Digg) voting up or down (e.g. Reddit, Squidoo) a 5-star rating (e.g. Google Groups) What’s the value of votes? Users may rate quality, but they might as well be voting on interest, relevance, novelty, visual

The Tipping Point

2007-10-10T06:01:00.000-07:00

In this brilliant and original book, Malcolm Gladwell explains and analyses the tipping point, that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviors cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire. Taking a look behind the surface of many familiar occurrences in our everyday world, Gladwell explains the fascinating social dynamics that cause rapid change.?The promise of ‘The Tipping

In communications, two, three and five are the magical numbers

2007-09-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

Long lists (top 10 or longer) are popular with blogs. As checklists, they’re fine, but as communication tools, they violate one of the mantra’s of professional communication. A reference article [1] from psychology alerts us to the limits of short-term memory, where we can store typically seven-plus-or-minus-two items. In [2], J-L Doumont argues that ’seven’ is an asymptotical limit, and

Navigating the TMI trap

2007-07-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Dave Jung of B2Blog made a highly perceptive post about the information exchange between customer and supplier during the sales process. It means walking a thin line. Too much information, and you may be giving your customer just reasons not to buy. But not enough information can have the same result. It works both ways - a buyer can also disclose too much information. This will rarely stop

RSS in 3.5 minutes

2007-07-26T05:50:00.000-07:00

A great 3.5 minute video to introduce the power of RSS. If you’re new to rss, watching this video could be your best 3.5 minute investment for this year.

Steps in a website project

2007-07-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

Setting up a website that makes a difference may involve more than you bargained for: Define your web application - its target audience, content, navigation, interaction with users, … Will it still work for 1,000 pages? How will it work when you reach 10,000 pages? Consider insourcing versus outsourcing: you do not want to become a programmer, but many web technologies are nowadays readily

Made to Stick

2007-06-15T05:46:00.000-07:00

This book is a practical how-to guide to better communicate ideas and persuade people to act. I must confess that I grew a bit complacent reading through the first chapter with its ’stick to the core’ message. We certainly heard that one before, and while useful to reinforce a good principle, I was almost ready to put the book down. Now I’m glad I didn’t - reading through the remaining

A Primer for Building Online Community

2007-06-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

A Primer for Building Online Community | Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog I’ve enjoyed Toby Bloomberg’s post on building online communities, clarifying the 3 distinctive elements, a place to join, a member directory and mechanisms to connect with other members. If you’re starting up a community, you need to be willing to spend substantial time animating the community during startup. In this

Social bookmarking

2007-05-20T05:28:00.000-07:00

Blogs produce a unique link for each article, which allows bloggers to treat each article as a separate campaign. And the best part: if you create an alias for this page link, using a clever combination of your domain name with keywords from the article means that you’ve almost optimised your site for search engines.  Many blogs offer social bookmarking buttons to promote posts.