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One of the things which Management teaches is to do proper planning for any activity. It is often said

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

So today charging up my management cells (if they exist ), I thought to myself about how to plan for blog marketing for a company, does there exist any “What to do list for blog marketing?”

I came up with the following list. I am sure that this list is not complete and there is lot which can be added to it.

1) The Objective: Before any marketing campaign, it is important to understand the objective behind it. Its knowledge would also help to determine the success criteria for the campaign. Same goes for blog marketing. One must gauge what is the objective behind blog marketing. Is it lead generation, Is it for brand building or is it a platform to share information with the customers (both internal and external). Since the success criterions for each of these objectives are different, the clear understanding of the objective would go a long way in making the campaign a success.

2) Internet Usage Pattern of Target Customers: Tons of literature has been written about customer centric marketing, about understanding customers’ behaviour before designing any product. So naturally this had to feature in the list. J On a serious note, for blog marketing to become a success, it is imperative that internet usage pattern of target customers is studied. This would include:

i. Studying what the target audience is looking for. What is the kind of information they search for, what are the web sites do they visit, what sort of social media do they visit.

ii. What kind of language is being used on those web sites to engage the users.

Understanding of internet usage pattern would help in 2 ways:

i. Identify the keywords which target customers are using to search the information. Help from tools like wordtracker or hitTail could be used.

ii. The kind of language which would engage them.

3) Identify the identity: For a corporate blog, it becomes very important to find out the identity who would be writing the blog. Identification of identity for the blog would drive the attitude and hence the language. Clues could be taken from Brand identity prism by Kapferer which helps an organisation to identify the brand identity. I will cover the model in next post in great details.

4) Style Guide for the blog: After putting the pieces of objective, internet usage pattern and identity in the Jigsaw puzzle, it is the time for style guide of the blog. This would include the format, the design and the color combinations. By format I mean would it be like a simple diary like or magazine style or something else. Many would say magazine style or simple diary format is just an aesthetic issue and does not matter. I agree to an extent to that argument but the difference comes in at the perspective level. The thought process has to be clear before taking up any kind of format since that would be reflected in the blog as well. Design and color combinations have to go hand in hand with the objective and the identity. Here again Brand identity prism could be referred for help.

5) User Experience: You would say how could one plan something intangible and then put it into tangible form? Well I also used to think the same way till sometime ago but now I am learning how to put rich user experience into your web presence. There are many ways by which user experience could be increased. I will share one simple method of navigation. It has been found out in a research that users like to read vertical than horizontal and eye moves from left to right.

Now those are facts. But what do they signify?

Following are some of the implications:

i. It is preferred to have vertical navigation bar rather than the horizontal one. Vertical bar would make it easier for users to glance at the information.

ii. If pictures are to be included in the post, then it would be better if those are included in the upper left corner of the post as it would attract the user.

iii. Try to include the kind of words which the user is likely to use in his daily parlance. This would make him feel at ease while reading the post.

These are just the planning steps which should go (according to me ) into any blog marketing campaign. If will be more than happy if you have anything to add to this list to make it much more comprehensive.

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It was a treat to read the conversation between 2 giants of internet industry in the form of an interview. Guy Kawasaki interviewed Darren Rowse of Problogger. Out of the several things which Darren mentioned, one of particular interest was use of “No comment policy” by Seth Godin as a potential viral marketing strategy. He goes on to mention that it may work for an established personality like Seth but may backfire for small bloggers.

This insight charged up my grey cells and forced me to think about how to use “No comment policy” for viral effects. Since the interview appeared on Sun’s Place for Small and Medium Businesses, I thought to myself, Is there any way by which small and medium enterprises involved in blogging for building brand can use this policy? Or is it only for thought leaders who define the contours of the industry?

I am not too sure about its usability for SMEs but would love to learn from you all.

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Recently Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog conducted a survey on “How Online Marketing Blog readers use twitter?” The survey has 220 respondents which is a decent number and results are also pretty much in line with the expectations.

To read more about the survey and result, please visit Top 10 Uses of twitter and Tools.

One of the uses which Lee mentions in the last part of the post is “Customer Support and Customer Outreach“.

I would go a step ahead than Customer Support and Customer Outreach and would talk about Engaging customers with Twitter. Customer support is a product’s view of marketing where customers are seen as a burden and hence the word “support”.

Today businesses talk about customer centric marketing and believe in relationships. For maintaining relationships, it is important to engage customers rather than supporting them. But how does one engage customers?

Customers get engaged when they have an ecosystem where they have the freedom to not only provide feedback, express their concerns and complaints but also partner in designing better value proposition for them i.e. better products and services for themselves. The engaging ecosystem also provides a platform for businesses to offer their services in a fun manner which in this case is 140 words tweets. J And above all, it comes free.

To provide an example of engaging customers through twitter, assume an online internet based marketing club which offers its services to small and medium enterprises. Now being a small company itself, it can’t afford to invest much on marketing collaterals or feedback channels. Also since the industry is so dynamic, it becomes imperative for the company to partner the customers in designing value proposition rather them delivering them a product.

Keeping all these things in mind, what should the company do? How should it make sure that it engages its customers in the true sense?

It uses twitter as a platform for feedback where customers can complain, if they have any and then they are taken good care of (and not Support). The company also uses twitter to provide consulting to its customers as telephone sessions across the globe would cost much more. Community is built around twitter for people to interact, communicate and share. Above all, it provides a medium to the company to make their customers, partner in designing better value proposition in future. Customers could be reached directly and requested to provide invaluable insights on products before the actual launch.

Conclusion

Uses like customer support are product’s view of marketing and not good for any business. Today for businesses to thrive, it has become imperative for companies to talk about engaging customers rather than satisfying them or just meeting their needs. And Twitter provides a perfect platform to companies to do just that Engage Customers.

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OK! A quick question: How many $$ is a million hits per day worth for? Of course there is no definitive answer to that question and I don’t think an industry benchmark exists for it.

When it comes to the traditional medium of advertising (the idiot box!) there are definitive models used by broadcasters and Television channel owners to ask for a price. Factors involved in quoting a price primarily consists of the viewership (TRPs) and the length of airtime involved.

What would be an analogues model on the web? It’s not very complex on the web. It basically boils down to Number of hits and the ad size and placement. But how much would you charge?

Here is a case in point: The Indian Railways online booking website invited bids for ad space on their site, perhaps one of the most viewed websites in India (irctc.co.in) . They receive around 5 million hits per day (The newspaper ad did not mention whether these were unique hits), and they have quoted an earnest money of Rs 600000 ($15000) for an ad on their pages for a  period of two years.

So next time somebody asks for $$ for X hits, I am surely going to do a quick rough comparison!

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I read somewhere in a Philip Kotler’s marketing book that the smallest and the simplest definition of marketing is “meeting needs profitably”. Therefore the process starts from identification of needs, designing a product or service which contains requisite features and then the exchange of the same. The exchange will leave all the parties involved in the transaction better off i.e. a win-win game and not win-lose game.

For both (assuming there are only 2 parties involved, although there could be more than 2 as well) the parties to gain from the transaction, it is important or rather essential that both see some value proposition in the exchange. Due to its extreme importance in the business, the concept of value proposition is taught in every B-School. Every marketer, every business man, every CEO swears by it. They always talk about adding value to their share holders and stake holders.

But does the concept hold any relevance at SME (Small and medium enterprises) level? Do they also understand so called Value Proposition?

Recently I met with one of my friends. He has skates manufacturing unit in Noida (a suburb of Delhi). He happened to mention that he would like to have web presence for his business. We readily offered our (my friend as well) services but he mentioned that the final decision had to be taken by his father, who was running the business. He also warned us that his father is a tough nut to crack as many SEO consultants have found out earlier. So we decided to meet his father to explain to him the benefits of internet marketing and internet at large.

After an hour discussion, we were able to convince his father about the benefits of internet marketing and got the final approval. My friend was ecstatic and surprised as to how did we pull it off!

The answer is simple.

“Value Proposition”

Yes, we tried to show him the value which he would derive out of internet marketing instead of talking about Meta tags, keywords, alternate tags etc. which previous SEO companies did. We understood a very elementary thing that at the end of day, it is the extra business which he is interested in and not “search engine visibility”. He does not see value in being top on Google or Yahoo but generating that extra revenue.

So after this whole experience, I can safely say that yes the concept of “value proposition” is universal, exists even at Small scale level and will never lose its importance

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