Considering a corporate blog? Of course, what forward-thinking, progressive company looking to thrive in “Recession Obsession” isn’t. (That’s a statement, not a question.)

A corporate blog can be a phenomenal piece of marketing for your company. It allows you to give your company a voice “outside” of your marketing - one that is more casual and real. It allows you to gain insight from feedback posted by fans and naysayers alike - and respond to that feedback by  answering the charges head on and using the information to evolve your company.

I hear you saying there’s a downside: it’s more work on your plate. And then the blog wil likely not get the priority it deserves, and will not get regular posts.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

You will find that most successful corporate blogs are written by more than one author in an organization. Take the Dell Blog - Direct2Dell - for example. Not one author but several from different departments in Dell. Each one an expert on their own topics. Or WalMart’s Check Out Blog. Same scenario. Even the Single Throw Blog has everyone involved.

The days of when all comments must come from the President of the company are over. Allowing a “Corporate Blog Team” the opportunity to come together with the same goals, presenting highly relevant content from the “experts” in your company will provide an environment where everyone contributes to the growth ofthe company and fosters your marketing message. 

BUT - there’s always a BUT - you need to create this “team” and encourage their participation. And you must create guidelines. Here’s a few tips on how to get started.

1. Build the Team Who can write, who likes to write, who has a lot of knowledge and can be ecouraged to write…these are the people you want on your Blog Team!

2. Who’s in Charge Here?  Someone (or maybe even 2 people) should assume the acting ”editor-in-chief” to ensure that content meets marketing guidelines, and just generally oversea the project. All it takes is someone who will read the posts and note and issues or concerns to the author.

3. Set Some Ground Rules Have a meeting, talk about topics, what should not be in the blog…that sort of thing. Keep it simple. With the right people as authors, this should not be a huge issue.

4. Have Some Fun With It The posts need not be long. The can - and typically should - be written in a lighter more business-casual style (unless your audience is for some reason not business-casual). Pick topics that are interesting and even a tad controversial to get readers engaged and commenting.

You’ll find that sharing the content workload will make it a lot easier and provide you with a blog that is relevant, consistent and interesting. You don’t need to be the size of Dell to get more than one person involved. Gather your potential team together with some pizza for a lunch meeting and talk about it. I think you’ll find they are far more interested in corporate blogging than you think!

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty tired of all the doom and gloom in the news. Recession. Inflation. Stagflation. Is it time to crawl under a rock and hide…just let your business wither away?

Of course not! It’s time to step up your game.

We are all guilty of riding the big bubble and now have to find a way to sail through a “correction” as the industry pundits call it. So how do we not only survive this wave, but grow and prosper? Here’s 4 things you can do to jump start the ride…

1. Dust off your “UVP” – Your Unique Value Proposition, sometimes called Unique Selling Position, is where all your marketing and messaging starts from. It’s how you differentiate yourself or company from your competition. If you can’t tell the difference, your customer won’t be able to either.
2. Market Where Your Customers Are – Seems simple enough. But where are your customers? I can pretty much guarantee in this day and age they are ONLINE! If your website is still the one your extremely smart and talented nephew that had a computer and Frontpage built for you, it’s time to make a change. Your website IS MARKETING and likely viewed by more customers and prospects than your Yellow Page ad or that ad you ran in a business journal once or twice last year. It’s time to put together a comprehensive marketing solution that includes Internet Marketing and social media marketing along with traditional marketing and branding.
3. Clean Out Your Sock Drawer – What? You mean procrastinate? NOOOOoooo. I mean look at what you have, what works and what doesn’t. Those fuzzy argyle socks you bought a few years ago really don’t go with your business suit. And those socks with the holes in the toes, you were going to sew up the holes? If you haven’t done it already, you won’t. They’re taking up space. Get rid of them. Stick with what works and make room for new ideas, or even new staff members.
4. Learn and Train – Now’s the time to improve your skills. Attend a sales training or marketing seminar. Read a few business, sales, or marketing books. There’s plenty of old concepts you’ve yet to master, and certainly new ones waiting in the wings.

If I were adding a fifth item it would be stop wasting time. The 4 items above are Business 101. If you haven’t considered them, you’re already behind. But the good news is you can always start today and play catch up. So what are you waiting for?

-C

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At a recent BtoB NetMarketing breakfast (note: a highly recommended event!), one topic that came back to life was site “stickiness.” Yes it sounds messy, and it can be just that if the intentions of stickiness are misplaced.

Stickiness is essentially your site’s ability to retain viewers. That can mean their average visit at the site is longer (lasting several minutes to hours); or they are viewing more pages of the site (which can also increase their time at the site); or they simply return often and regularly.

These are all good things and often difficult to achieve. However, several different delivery methods have emerged, such as blogs, podcasts and email marketing. Each of these can help a viewer to obtain the information they are looking for and make it easy for them to come back for more.

The biggest issue with stickiness is content. You need to ensure that you have carefully planned and executed a content strategy to ensure you give viewers a reason to come to the site - and then come back for more.

There’s more on this subject in my latest blog on ReveNews.

Once again, Single Throw’s Caryl Felicetta looks at search marketing and search results giving her own spin of a “perfect world” in SERPs.

Felicetta notes how many results simply do not provide what searchers need.

How many of you are frustrated when you are trying to find a new vendor, or a new product, and you instead are fooled by spammy link farms, or simply sites that do not really suit your needs?

Organic search results - those that are indexed by the search engine spider, then run through a series of formulas, or algorithms - are generated by content found on a site, as well as Title and META tags. By including the content searchers are looking for, you are serving on of the formulas requirements: relevancy.

Relevancy is the key to generating qualified leads, bringing you that much closer to the sale. It is the connection made between you and the searcher. If that connection is not made, or broken, you will likely lose the sale.

Understanding the basics of relevancy and customer need combined with tailoring our sites and messages can help to improve the quality of search results - and business! I know it’s not like saving the Earth, or global warming, but it’s a start to making information, communication, and maybe even the economy, better.