This past one year has been a great learning experience as I have expanded my business network, built strong relationships with many small businesses, developed websites, done speaking assignments and made big plans for the year ahead.

While the best is yet to come, past one year has taught me that networking is a key to successful business.  While it does consume time, networking brings results sooner or later. My co-networkers that I met about a year ago, remembered me and have provided referrals that has resulted in substantial business.

Finally, I would like to thank members of my networking group Business Development Alliance for providing me strong support in the form of business masterminding and referrals.

I arrived early at Qwest Center to make sure I visited the exhibition. One thing that impressed me this year, was the High Definition Videoconferencing system from Conference Technologies Inc. The picture was crisp and clear as expected from a Hi-def system. They had very reasonably priced point-to-point and multi-point systems. Others were usual IT staffing companies, media companies, universities and IT companies.

Infotec 2007 concluded today in Omaha, Nebraska. I made my presentation on “Business Blogging as a Marketing Tool” at 2pm and it coincided with the drawing for the Disneyland trip. You can guess where people decided to go :-). However, I had 11 dedicated attendees who decided to listen to me. I had a good mix of eager-to-learn audience from couple of universities and private sector. Ron Woerner from Conagra made his brief presentation on Web 2.0. I have included Powerpoint slides of the presentation in the PDF format which can be downloaded here:

Business Blogging as a Marketing Tool PDF

What is a Blog?

• Definition

• Blog Defined
• Business Blog Defined

• FAQ Blog
• Company news and Press release Blog
• New Product sneak-preview Blog
• Consumer Input and Education Blog
• Client Case Study/Success Story Blog
• Brandmaker Blog
• Product pre-launch Marketing Blog

• IDEAS – Feedback on ideas from the readers.
• PRODUCTS – Fine tune products by asking readers what  they want.
• VISIBILITY – Converts single interaction marketing campaign to a multiple experience campaign by encouraging reader participation.
• TEAMWORK – Creates opportunities for company staff members and readers to interact, thus allowing exchange of ideas.

• Current Customers.
• Potential Customers.
• Internet savvy.
• Decision makers.
• Research oriented  - who research  before  they buy.

How Search Engines work?

• Search Engine Robots

• Complex algorithms
• Freshness of the content
• Relevance of the content

• Crawl
• Index

Marketing

• SOLUTION - How appropriate is the solution to the customers problem/need
• INFORMATION - Does the customer know about the solution, and if so how, who from, do they know enough to let them make a buying decision
• VALUE - Does the customer know the value of the transaction, what it will cost, what are the benefits, what might they have to sacrifice, what will be their reward?
• ACCESS - Where can the customer find the solution. How easily/locally/remotely can they buy it and take delivery.

Connecting Marketing and Blogs
Business Blogs as

• Solution
• Information
• Value
• Access

Pros and Cons of Business Blogs
Discussion and Q & A

Today, for a fraction of cost paid to the previous Website developer, Moran Tele-com, Inc has a fully functional website, complete with a Business Blog of their own, embedded within their website. Barb Moran, CEO of Moran Tele-com Inc is obviously very pleased with the website implementation after a frustating experience earlier. She had a certain vision about her company website which finally became a reality on October 7th, 2006. In this process, I learned a few things from Barb. Being a tele-communications company CEO, she always wanted contact details and forms on every page, which have been implemented.

“When a visitor visits your website through a search engine, he/she can land on any page depending on the search results. If there is no contact information on every page, there is a chance of losing a potential customer”.

Moran Tele-com Inc website has a simple but elegant layout with a contact form always showing on the right sidebar. There is a flash animation with scrolling “MT” text and constantly changing background images. The menus are located on the left sidebar. All products are always viewable in the left sidebar. Behind the scenes, the website is being search engine optimized (SEO).

1. TechCrunch creates a new Web 2.0 index, which is later adopted by Wall Street.
2. TechCrunch unveils a new Web 2.0 stock trading website which is an instant hit and generates virtual millionaires.
3. TechCrunch becomes unofficial Better Business Bureau for Web 2.0 companies.
4. Michael Arrington’s commentary on a Web 2.0 company drives stock prices up or down depending on optimism or pessimism demonstrated in the commentary (like Alan Greenspan).
5. TechCrunch announces entry in the Financial world with a Web 2.0 Mutual fund.
6. Om Malik’s GigaOm merges with TechCrunch.
7. TechCrunch enters e-commerce arena, selling Web 2.0 related Test results, White papers and comparisions.
8. TechCrunch goes Public and shares rise 200% on first day.
9. Google (replace with Yahoo or Microsoft) announces special search engine for all things Web 2.0.
10. TechCrunch announces the arrival of Web 3.0.

Only the time will prove if Web 2.0 has a great future or will end as a Dotcom bust, but the truth is Venture Capitalists are supporting Web 2.0 ventures. It has made Michael a millionaire. So hatch a great idea and join the Web 2.0 bandwagon.

P.S. A notable mention to PostBubble is in order here. This blog covers startup and exisiting Web 2.0 companies and provides indepth analysis and views on Web 2.0 companies. It is a definite addition to my RSS Feeds to get an alternate viewpoint to Web 2.0-o-sphere.- Harish

1. What exactly is blogging [or blogs] and how does it apply to direct marketing?
2. Discuss the technology.
3. How are direct marketers utilizing blogs?
4. Provide examples of brand name companies that have effectively used blogs to enhance their marketing efforts?
5. What are some of the misconceptions that marketers have about blogging?
6. How will blogging redefine the industry? Or will it?
7. Why should direct marketers pay attention to blogs?
8. What are some important tips to remember when utilizing this type of marketing?
9. How do you see blogging utilized over the next five years?

Read online version of the interview titled “Do you Blog?” or if you are in Retailing business, you may subscribe to the Electronic Retailer Magazine.

Here are my answers to the questions asked for the interview.

1. What exactly is blogging [or blogs] and how does it apply to direct marketing?
A “Weblog” or “Blog” is defined as an online journal of day-to-day events. The writer of a blog is called a “Blogger” and the daily activity of writing a blog is called “Blogging“. This online journal is available in form of a web page for anyone to view. An individual entry in a blog is called a blog “post“. Each blog post may have comments from readers. Sometimes, these comments become a discussion between the blogger and readers of his/her blog. The blogger may or may not allow readers to post comments.
In early days, teens used blogs to write about their rants and raves, but the blogs have evolved a lot. Today blogs are being used to promote a business, run a political campaign, establish an opinion or even release features of an upcoming product.

To explain how blogging applies to direct marketing, let me first explain the power of search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN are three most used search engines. Over 80% of the people start their search for a product or service on a Search Engine. With such a large number of potential clients, can a small or medium sized company miss out on a great opportunity like this, to be found on the net by the potential customers? The way these search engines work has a lot to do with Blogs working as a successful direct marketing medium. As blogs are written almost daily, “content” or “blog post” is fresh on the sites where blogs are written. The search engines indexes this fresh content more often than a business website which remains static most of time. The result is a higher ranking for this fresh content compared to a business website. In layman terms it means, if you have a product to promote and you write enough about this product on your business blog, but in small installments, chances are your product will be found by millions of people who may be seeking information about the product.

Direct marketing is defined as “Sales and promotion technique in which the promotional materials are delivered individually to potential customers via direct mail, telemarketing, door-to-door selling or other direct means.” However with blogs, the bloggers spread the breadcrumbs in form of keywords for search engines to pickup. Search engines deliver this blog content in form of useful information to prospective customers. Thus company can hope that after reading the blog post, the potential customers will come and visit the “online” or “Brick and Mortar” store.

2. Discuss the technology.
Blogs are very easy to create if you need them for personal use, but if you need blogs for the business, they must have a look-and-feel of your business website and must be embedded within your business website. It is worthwhile to spend few hundred dollars to get a business blog embedded within your business website. Another important piece of equation is RSS or Rich Site Summary. RSS is an effective way of syndicating news, blog posts and advertisements to potential customers. This tool provides your readers with an ability to receive your blog posts in an easy to read format, once they have subscribed to your RSS Feed.

3. How are direct marketers utilizing blogs?
Direct Marketers who have already realized the potential of blogs are using it daily and building an advertising campaign that will have a lasting positive impact on the sales of the product. They are thinking about ROI, but this ROI is not based on conventional direct marketing campaign. It is based on how many potential customers will convert to confirmed customers after searching and finding the information they want about a product or service from the blog contents of the company.

4. Provide examples of brand name companies that have effectively used blogs to enhance their marketing efforts?
One of the best examples of brand name company effectively using blogs to enhance their marketing efforts is Stonyfield Farm Blog (Stonyfield is a maker of fine dairy products). They have not one but four blogs. Each blog is devoted to a product line and a community-like environment greets the visitors when they visit the blog.

Another good example is Ford Motor Company’s Mustang Blog. Basically, Ford Mustang team writes this blog about finer and/or little known features of Mustang car. People who are considering to buy Mustang, they get in-depth information about the product from technical team of Ford. This is a great selling point.

Some enterprising EBay Sellers use blog for direct marketing their products to thousands of potential buyers who are searching for a product on Google or Craigslist.

5. What are some of the misconceptions that marketers have about blogging?
Direct Marketers are used to an “almost instant ROI”, whereas blogs have some waiting period before there is any ROI. The most common misconception is to expect ROI too early in the game. When product information, tips and tricks, little known features of a product are posted daily in a blog over a period of time, one can expect a steady inflow of traffic to the website, thus increasing the chances of a better ROI.

6. How will blogging redefine the industry? Or will it?
Direct Marketing in its current form and in the form of blog will co-exist. Blogs will have a special place in the world of Direct Marketing. E-mails and RSS feeds will continue to dominate the influence on direct marketing. Blogging will be another source of marketing and will be a good fit especially due to longevity of the campaign this type of marketing has with the search engine advantage.

7. Why should direct marketers pay attention to blogs?
Conventional Direct marketing has a ROI per advertising campaign whereas Blog continues to receive steady stream of traffic from search engines long after a blog post is published. This is significant as the impact of blog is everlasting because the “written word” is always there on the blog and is indexed by the search engines to be presented to potential clients who are searching for a product or service. Direct marketers, while continuing to use conventional methods, must explore blogs to reap the benefits and gradually reduce the conventional marketing methods.

8. What are some important tips to remember when utilizing this type of marketing?
While advertising, key is to provide something of value to the readers. Ford Motors in their Mustang blog, provide tips, technical details, and little known features of their product which is valuable to the readers.

The biggest fear that companies have about starting a blog is about adverse comments they might get about their products from irate customers. However if companies are proactive and solve customer issues, it paints a positive features in the minds of potential customers about the level of customer service provided by the company.

Use both conventional direct marketing and Blog marketing for a certain period of time. Once Blog marketing starts giving substantial returns, conventional direct marketing may be phased out.

9. How do you see blogging utilized over the next five years?
Next five years will see blogs being utilized in creative ways.
* The blog will be used to build pre-release publicity for a product.
* Press releases of a company will be released through business blogs.
* Online Contests will be conducted through a blog.
* Companies will put Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on blogs itself.
* Product usage tips will be presented via blogs
Some of these are already in use but others are yet to happen.

Those of you, who are visiting this Carnival for the first time, The Carnival of the Capitalists(COTC) is a brainchild of Jay Solo. This Carnival is hosted every week on the blogs of the Bloggers and Companies who volunteer and register at the COTC website. Next week, the carnival will be hosted at Free Money Finance Blog.

A little about us: Ideologic L.L.C. is a web design, blog consulting and search-engine optimization company in Omaha, Nebraska run by Harish Keshwani (yours truly), who is an entrepreneur by heart, software developer by profession and a Blogger by choice. My two blogs - this one and the BusinessWorks Blog, which was featured on Forbes-Best of Web 2005 under Small Business Category.

Now onto the Carnival…

For your reading pleasure, the posts are categorized and each post opens in a new browser window.

Business Advice
All organizations, who are wondering about how to get started with Six Sigma, look no further, just head towards Six Sigma Blog and get a pilot project started.

Hockey teaches a Business Leadership lesson! David Daniels of Business and Technology Reinvention draws a parallel between Olympic Hockey Team management and Business management strategies and comes up with interesting similarities.

Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World advises, when your business is at crossroads, don’t panic. There are many creative solutions that will solve your problems.

The Boring Made Dull thinks that Social Responsibility is just one of the 8 criteria for which any company is admired. Social Responsibility just helps in avoiding negative PR for the company.

Business Communications
In this spam infested world, will e-mail newsletters remain an effective marketing tool? Find out in Business Communications Blog.

Business Ethics
The socially responsible companies also show strong financial performance and profitability. How so? Find out at Business Ethics Blog.

“Last month the Maryland General Assembly enacted a law that requires large employers to spend a certain percentage of their payroll on health care. The bill was designed to apply solely to our company, Wal-Mart”. Read more at Eidelblog, where Perry Eidelbus speaks in defense of Capitalism.

Business Events
After the bust of the dotcom bubble, comes a boom of Web 2.0. TechCrunch is a blog that profiles and reviews new web 2.0 products and companies. TechCrunch had recently organized a networking event. Elisa Camahort of Browster Blog cover this exciting event in this post.

Business Issues
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act on one hand provides ample job opportunites to the Accounting and IT professionals but on other hand is a headache for the companies that are required to comply with the Act. Steven Silver of Scatterbox sorts through the SOX drawer to provide his insight on Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Roth & Company P.C. writes about 1990 tax-shelters and the pretensions attached to them.

Business of Blogging
My 4 P’s are Plan, Persuade, Participate and Play Hard. What are your 4 P’s of Blog Marketing? Read more at MarketMonger.

Do dull Business blogs have a place in the Glamorous Fashion world? Read more about business blogs and shameless plugs of yours truly at the Ideologic Blog.

Economics
Can development of Democratic institutions affect a nation’s economic growth? Find out at Ironman’s Political Calculations.

We have heard - investing in stocks is compared to gambling, but now it is compared to falling knives! “Go ahead - catch a Falling Knife” is the headline in the Capital Chronicle blog.

In Open Source Business, Clair Ching talks about how businesses are taking wrong advantage of the open source community.

Josh Cohen of Multiple Mentality Blog says Luxury is being sacrificed for Economy, in the interest of a cost-effective model in the Airline Industry.

Oil at $15-30 a barrel !! Sure, I will take two barrels (and one for the road!). EconBrowser investigates whether there may be a rational basis for oil companies’ fears that oil might return to $15 - $30 a barrel.

I have been hearing a lot about curling lately. First a Canadian wins a gold medal in curling at Turin Olympics and the whole country celebrates. Now Dave Tufte at VoluntaryXchange compares Economics and Curling in his post.

There is no business like movie business. Professor Bainbridge writes about The Economics of Summer Blockbusters. With movies like MI-3, Poseidon, Superman Returns, X-Men 3, The DaVinci Code and many more, box-office returns are expected to soar along with the temperature this summer.

New technologies always come with a promise of changing this world. Photon Courier has one such technology to discuss-UltraCapacitors. He also talks about the economics associated with this technology.

“Credit derivatives are the fastest growing part of the $270 trillion market for derivatives” and we will need cash to settle these trades! Read more about this on Mover Mike’s Blog.

Entrepreneurship
Learn at interim thoughts how microentrepreneurs, equipped with two M’s - a mobile phone and a moped, conduct their microbusiness.

Jeff Cornwall at The Entrepreneurial Mind says “Growth puts strains on all aspects of entrepreneurial businesses. But, growth also creates personal challenges for the entrepreneur.”

Management
This week, Random Thoughts from a CTO wander to the management guru W. Edwards Deming and his 14 points. Excellent reading if you are in a management position.

Management of other people’s time is the title of Jack Yoest’s well illustrated post. He discusses traits of a successful manager

Investing
Get The Big Picture on the stocks and find out if you, the individual investor, is once again late to the Party.

Steven Towns of The Japan Stock Blog believes stronger yen is good news for American investors in Japanese equities. Read his post to see if you agree.

George at Fat Pitch Financials shares some tips he found, to become a better trend watcher.

Michael Weinstein of The Consumer Electronics Stock blog provides his reasoning why Apple Computers will reign supreme in the business of digital download service in spite of an announcement from Amazon.com about their new digital download service.

Outsourcing
Does Outsourcing have something to do with rising wages? Brian Gongol thinks so. (Brian’s post reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon on outsourcing where a US company outsources work to a company in Country X, which in turn outsources same work to another company in Country Y and this company in turn outsources same work back to the same US company who had outsourced the work in first place, thus completing a full circle)

Personal Finance
Nina Smith of Sitting Pretty Financially paints a dismal picture of irrational exuberance with housing, which is a bubble waiting to burst.

Is debt consolidation good for you? Of course it is! But do you need a debt consolidation service to do it for you? Read what Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has to say.

An excellent eye-opener post about mortgage loans comes from Searchlight Crusade. I thought, I knew quite a few things about mortgages, but this article gave me an insider look in mortgage financing world!

Doug Mataconis of Below the Beltway Blog writes about a new study related to recently implemented Bankruptcy laws.

A little known Bankruptcy Risk Score is used by creditors to determine whether you get a loan and at what rate. Jeffrey Strain of Personal Finance Advice, advises to keep your eyes open for this score.

Miscellaneous
At least 75 million people use RSS and XML feeds on everyday basis but 65% of these people have no clue about what is RSS. I would call them RSS consumers. Read what Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends says about this trend of RSS Consumerism.

Failed implementations have destroyed many good concepts. Find out the reasons why it happens at Spooky Action.

Got a job interview lined up over the phone? Check out phone interview tips at Find-New-Job blog.

Which do You Prefer: Making More Money or Making Less but Being Paid More than Others? Unlike vacations, groceries and real estate, happiness is bought with relative dollars, for everything else, there is MasterCard and Free Money Finance.

Visit InsureBlog to find out the Cost of Care and a possible cure for Healthcare.

Does Technology make you less productive? E-mails, Instant messengers and other distractions are causing interruptions thus bringing down productivity, says Jim of BizInformer.

Kicking over my Traces discusses the advantage of grouping related products together on an e-biz website.

Fashion industry has various segments like designer garments and shoes, fashion accessories and fashion magazines to name a few. Then there are fashion “makers” like designers, models, event organizers and others. In today’s “even-my-dog-has-a-website” world, fashion related companies and people have their own websites, but how effective are these websites in bringing potential clients to your business?

As per the research done by Forrester Group, in today’s “Googlized” environment, more than 80% of the people searching for the product or service turn to internet. Are these potential product and/or service buyers reaching your website?

Here is a simple test: Think of a keyword or keywords that best describe your fashion product or service, then go to www.google.com and enter those keywords and press enter. Do the results show your website in top 10 results? If yes, try the search with other relevant keywords. If your website is still in top 10 results, then you do not need a Business blog. However if your website is not on first page of Google search results, you may need a Business Blog.

What magic does a Business Blog do to elevate your website in search results? The blogs, due to richness and freshness in content compared to static websites, are placed higher in Search Engine results.

Now that you know what a business blog can do to your fashion website ranking on a search engine, let me give an example using NirvanaWoman Magazine. They have a great website www.nirvanawomanmagazine.com. They have taken first step by establishing a blog http://nirvanawoman.blogspot.com . There are few things that they need to do to make the business blog work harder for their business.

1. Business Blog must be part of the main website.
2. Articles must be carefully planned to direct traffic to the website with proper selection of Keywords
3. Articles must be written at regular intervals, at least thrice a week.

You must be wondering where do I fit in this picture? So here is your answer:
I provide strategic Blog Consulting services. I focus on consulting and guiding small and medium businesses in setting up their blogs and managing it for them as an outsourced process. Entrepreneurs running the small businesses are generally supermen and women, who try to do everything from being the manager to marketing the products within 24 hours available in a day. I help them by designing the Blog content for them. With appropriate content, I help companies to keep their existing customers satisfied and attract prospective customers. I promote blogging as a marketing and customer response tool to the companies.

In past one year and three months, I have written a must read blog for an aspiring entrepreneur, named BusinessWorks Inc - A Dotcom in making… that has already featured on Forbes - Best of Web under Small Business Category. My other blog is about Business Blog Consulting and Outsourcing. Here I advocate Small and Medium Businesses to have a business blog of their own and if they lack time and resources to write the blog, outsource it to a professional content creator. Here is an example of an outsourced blog. Now onto today’s edition of the Carnival of Marketing …

Jack Yoest thinks Toyota’s Ad Campaign for Hybrid Cars is a triple loser but at the same time he provides us with couple of different perspectives from Marketing Playbook and Being Reasonable.

Built-In marketing works better than promoting the average. Read all about this interesting concept in Michael Chaffin’s blog. I certainly agree with Michael about being unique, extraordinary and meaningful is more powerful (and leads to more success) than “spinning” an average experience and trying to sell it to the masses.

Unbundling of media is slowly and surely happening. Audience wants their news bundled (or unbundled) in their own way. Noah Brier provides subtle hints to the media to free up the content. Are media marketing guys listening?

RSS is touted as one of the best online marketing weapon in future. How do we increase awareness about RSS so that more and more people use it? Jens Berget of MLM Forums introduces us to a new way of making RSS popular.

Starling Hunter discusses an innovative marketing strategy adapted by the cattle ranchers in his post, the other red meat.

Martin Neumann of HomeOfficeVoice discusses the business of understanding branding for your small business.

Christopher Baer at Secrets of Extraordinary Student Leaders is on a noble mission of building Student Leaders. In his post on motivation, he says, “it’s important to know why people are motivated to be with a club and then convey that through marketing.”

Lastly, yours truly writes about marketing your products to introverts with the help of Business Blogs.

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s carnival. Next week’s carnival will be held at Solotees. To learn more about Carnival of Marketing, visit Okdork.com.