MarketUP: Marketing & PR Services

Some of the most interesting, observant and intelligent people I know are Bloggers (if I can use that term rather loosely). What I mean by that is they are individuals with thoughts, opinions and information to share - and they use an online platfom to publish on a fairly regular basis.

I won't go into a history of 'Blog' or blogging - only to add that it's come a long way both technically and stylistically from the early 'web log' format. Whatever publishing platform chosen: Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Tumblr, or even Joomla or Drupal - we can now create sophisticated blogging websites, using design templates, widgets and plug-ins. There is little or nothing to distinguish blogs from corporate websites.

So anyone with time to write and something to say can publish day or night and compete with some of the 'big cheese' bloggers who've grown brands or businesses from their online writing: Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing fame, Jason Kottke, Perez Hilton, Jason Chen aka Gizmodo, Chris Brogan - to name a few.

And perhaps most famously, Arianna Huffington who turned her Huffington Post blog aggregator into a publishing empire, hired hundreds of other bloggers - famous and not so famous - and then sold it to AOL, all the while becoming a global communications guru in just six years!

These are the examples brought up at conferences, by online consultants, in self-published e-books on how to make money blogging. Blogging as a business. Getting paid to express yourself. Even my teenage daughter writes a respectable blog and dreams of a career as a writer. Nothing wrong with that!

But there is another kind of blog: one that is an extension of a business, that is about something other than blogging or social networks or how to get more from Twitter. Blogs published by folks who were already in business - marketing, PR, advertising, business development or entrepreneurs - who write about their expertise in a particular area: venture capitalist turned writer Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur-author-permission marketing guru Seth Godin, Robert the 'Scobleizer' (via Microsoft), advertising and PR expert Danny Brown, lawyer cum business owner-writer-speaker Jonathan Fields, Amber Naslund, Shelly Kramer... the list goes on.

Where do you spend your energy? Are you trying to figure out 'How to Monetize Your Blog' - or do you use your blog to monetize your business?

--Donna

Blogging for business

Photo credit: Business Week

I just read one of the many informational email newsletters I subscribe to (in the vain attempt to keep up with what’s new and useful) - and was struck by the “negative” title: “What customer strategy is not”.

While that statement is certainly poorly worded, what bothered me more was that it really did only give a list of “It’s not just...” That list happened to be a number of discreet tactics, like ‘personalized email’ or ‘new sales training’ or the big buzz phrase ‘(audience) segmentation’. And instead of identifying these list items as TACTICS, the writer asked for submissions of definitions of good customer strategy.

HINT: Good customer strategy would be something that applies to your business, your products/services and the PEOPLE (also referred to as CLIENTS or CUSTOMERS) who need them. It falls on everyone’s shoulders, far beyond marketing or tools like CRM. It might seem impossible, but companies have been able to develop customer strategies and build enormously successful businesses ages before there was any such thing as CRM databases or the social media.

Historical reference: the Dutch developed a strategy in 1602 to gain control of the lucrative spice trade, which involved forming the Dutch East India Company (the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC), an association of merchants meant to reduce competition, share risk and realise economies of scale. This gave them control over a market that was highly desirable, and guaranteed a great relationship with their customers - since they could provide what was wanted and valued. Shocking - I know.

It’s not uncommon for organizations to mix up strategy and tactics. I recall painful sessions of business planning at one company where it was very difficult to get across the idea that what was needed was a better overall customer relationship strategy, which included communications and an efficient means to deliver them. That of course required an updated CRM database, a DB manager, email templates, editorial schedule of content and many other tactics that all had to be planned and executed. But they were only a means to an end: customer loyalty and retention = business (sales).

Seems a little obvious, doesn’t it?

--Donna

(Originally published in 2008 - and still relevant)

Image source: Illustration from the catalougue of P.Cos printed in 1637 in the Netherlands. Available online at library.wur.nl from Wageningen Digital Library. Use permitted with acknowledgement.

This first year of the new decade has started out with a bang. And a rumble. And loud murmurings around the globe. Plenty of press-worthy content going around, much of it tragic, gloomy or kvetching. There's so much going on that it's hard to cut through the noise.

But for businesses the news has been a mixed bag so far. Some positive economic signs, some still frightening.

My last post was around the reasons marketers like/need to use a decent CRM system. I concluded with the statement that we were going to test-drive FreeCRM.com for a new client. Well, this is my follow up report on that experiment: FAIL.

While at first glance FreeCRM appears to have decent functionality, if a very inelegant interface, once it was populated with some data, it began to show its flaws. Rather than write a full description of some time consuming frustrations - I'll keep it to just a couple of important points to know if you are considering using this application.

1. Export of data is a MESS. It does not retain records in an accurate format - and produced a dump with dozens of duplicates and mis-matched fields. Never could figure out how it did this. Importing the data INTO the system worked pretty easily.
2. Setting up reports - too difficult and time-consuming, and not everything necessary.
3. But the real killer for us: WEB-TO-LEAD FORM is not technically available! Yes, they provide a very convoluted guideline in a download for you to configure your own XML-API, but even following their example, the data never populated the CRM.

So - this wasn't working for us, since one of the key points to using a database was to provide a Contact form on the website to capture new contacts, have the information enter the CRM database and semi-automate a number of possible activities, including automatic responses.

The good news is that we've found a new and better replacement (I think). Zoho CRM - part of a 'suite' of productivity apps from Zoho.com, an up and coming world presence (or so several business trades think, including Time, the Economist and Business Week).

So far it is much easier to use, much easier on the EYE (looks a lot like Salesforce.com) - and it's FREE for up to 3 users! Not on a trial basis, but ongoing. Even this free version has not one, but TWO different web forms - one for Leads and one for Contacts - that can be set up in minutes. And they work! And you can customize them!

If only I had discovered this first...would have saved hours of fussing and aggravation. Now I have the pleasure of spending hours 'playing' with it, configuring it and deciding which of the many sister apps will be best to adopt.

--Donna
From now sunny but still soggy Georgia