"Marketing strategy, marketing strategy, why do I need that?" seems to be the thought of many a small business owner.

And you can see why they think that.

They have a limited budget and they say things like,

"it's important thing to get leaflets and brochures designed, written and printed"

or "we must have our web site set-up professionally"

or "we need offices set-up so we can meet our customers"

 All of which costs money leaving very little to invest in other forms of marketing. Some of which could actually be more cost effective for them.

And yet why are they in business?

The aim of any business is to get initial sales and back-end sales and to trade profitably enough so that the business is not just your job.

"We're Trying Marketing"

I'm beginning to lose count of the number of business people who say they're "trying" this, that or the other marketing tactic before they "try" another one.

As an entrepreneur you always want to be moving forward and sometimes simply trying a marketing tactic may be a good move.

However, it's better to work out your marketing strategy first so that you can check whether your tactics fit your strategy and if the tactics you're using are working as planned.

Marketing Is Like A Plane Journey

Spending money on marketing without having a real strategy is like going to your nearest airport and jumping on the very next flight in the happy expectation that it's going to arrive at your planned destination.  You're more likely to end up where you don't want to be.

Hopping onto a marketing tactic like cold calling, PR or blogging is not as powerful as working out beforehand how to integrate all your marketing tactics so they work together.

Lets Create A Marketing Campaign

I'm not too keen on the phrase "Marketing Campaign" because it has all the hallmarks of a temporary sticking plaster to cover over the gaping wound of too few sales.

Marketing needs to be strategic to be at its most effective. As an example you may decide that you want to offer your customers a report called "The 5 Best Ways To Recruit IT Superstars" as a tactic you could offer it when you create your web site.

Thinking strategically you could be aiming to position yourself as the expert in IT recruitment. In which case you might want to offer a number of related reports and offer them through different channels: PR, direct response email, direct mail, joint ventures and not just from your web site.

Build A Strategy

 Take a pen and paper and think of some ambitions you have for you and your company. For example:

• To be the best widget maker in the country
• To be the best widget maker in the world
• To be seen as the widget making expert
• To be asked to present widget making seminars
• To mix with the greatest widget makers

Get yourself with a good marketing expert and come up with a thought through marketing strategy that links back to your ambitions and goals.

 Then you'll be able to check you're going to the right place - to meet your ambitions.

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Ok I'm not sure if I'm quite that cool just yet.

However, my Search Engine Optimisation blog is going nicely.

I've just added another post giving a few more tips on improving a web site's rankings in the search engine positions.

Obviously SEO copywriting is a sub-set of marketing.

The trouble is as we specialise and go into finer and finer detail it's easy to lose the plot and think SEO is the main reason for doing SEO!

As I never tire of telling my clients SEO is one pillar of the Internet marketing temple.

There are so many others.

Fail to use them and you're placing too much importance on one marketing tactic.

After all how do you know  that one day Google may pull the rug from under it with a completely new method of deciding popularity - like using human-based reviewing even more?

The post I've added to my SEO Blog notes that although you should concentrate on 20% of the things that payback big in for SEO you should also do the other 80% that incrementally build your ranking.

The same thinking applies to your marketing strategy. That is

Consider every tactic that applies to your company and web site. Decide what tactics give the most/best payback. Focus on them but keep the others going too.

 Update: I just checked my position regarding whether I am the coolest guy on the planet and I've gone from 99th to 26th since 24th October 2006. So I'm getting there...

I've had an invitation to join Blogger Beta for several months now.

But I haven't felt inclined to move to it because you can't move old postings or my tweaked template to it.

Finally I decided there are ways to get posts from Marketing for Power Packed Profits and anyway I could create another blog specifically about SEO Copywriting.

A subject that I know is dear to the heart of many an Internet user.

So I logged into my Blogger Beta account and was very pleasantly surprised to find some great improvements:

• The ability to tag (or label) posts
• The ability to show the labels on the side bar
• The ability to drag and drop page elements, including Adsense

It's definitely an enormous leap forward for Blogger and I'm pleased to start using it.

The blog I've created is called SEO Copywriter King

So check out my first post and I'll see you there!

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You may be aware of the fuss still being generated by postings on a blog called Wal-Marting Across America.

(if you're not aware see Business Week's article about it).

The problem was that the postings were being "created" by people sponsored by Wal-Mart's PR company Edelman to journey through part of the USA visiting Walmart stores.

That wouldn't have been a particular problem if the sponsored couple had revealed it right up front in their first posting and reminded people as they went along.

The postings showed Wal-Mart employees as very positive in their attitude to the company not something anyone expects across the board.

Word of Mouth Marketing Association

The huge amount of fuss generated ties into blogosphere's belief that blogs are better than that. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) actually say on their site:

"We believe that word of mouth marketers have a special relationship with consumers and must go above and beyond the normal expectations of marketing ethics and honesty."

Edelman apologised for the lack of transparency on the
 "Wal-Marting Across America" blog on his own blog.

As a member of the WOMMA whose values he subscribes to he certainly failed to live up to their aspirations.

Will WOMMA Stop This?

I think WOMMA is doing a good thing in trying to bring blogs into the core marketing mix. My major concern is that they don't seem to appreciate that we (the bloggers) don't have a special relationship with consumers.

Blogging is just like any other communication channel.

What is written or spoken about is weighed and checked against what is known by the people who read the blogs. Disagreement is flagged in comments or a new site could be quickly set-up to disagree with the blog.

So WOMMA is completely powerless to stop bloggers lying or creating positive spin.  I'm sure they're able to remove offenders from the association but it still wont stop it.

Human nature is to push the boundary. That's how we got the Internet in the first place.

Is Blogging Different At All?

The main advantage of blogging is that lies can be uncovered very, very quickly - as demonstrated with Wal-Mart.

So really blogging becomes self-regulating.

Is it different?

Yes because positive postings or negative postings can reach vast audiences extremely quickly and continue to attract readers over time.  It's really more than "Word Of Mouth" it's "Long Tail Word Of Mouth".

What's Long Tail Word Of Mouth?

Once a blog has been posted the posts usually stay there for a long time. And they are searchable.

That means that an initial buzz about something may create huge amounts of traffic. 

Then nothing...

Yet weeks, months or years later a search that reveals that same posting may create another huge buzz of traffic for the same reason or a related reason to the same audience, or a completely different one.

You can't predict who will see your post and what they may do with it.

That's why so many companies are still worried about blogging.

Yet treated properly as I posted about in The Best Company Blog Writing post there should be little to be concerned about.

If  Edelman had followed the points I gave there the "Wal-Marting Across America" blog would have been fine and seen as a PR exercise by Wal-Mart, or Edelman, to improve Wal-Mart's image.

And it would still have been read but without the attendant fuss over dishonesty and lack of transparency.

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CK (also sometime known as Christina Kerley) posted  ways a company can improve their blogs.

In a nutshell she says,

• Just be yourself
  
• Share with others
  
• Play fair, too
  
• Want friends? Then be one
  
• Say you're sorry
  
• Keep promises

I totally agree with her that company blogs or corporate blogs should be written honestly.

The major difference I have is that I believe a good third party blogger can write also write a truthful open blog for a company.

Without scattering their issues and secrets to the winds. Or even making them sound different to their company ethos. 

After all how many companies have the time or people with the writing ability to post regularly to their blog?

If they don't have in-house time or ability how can they ever start or run a blog?

 

So what safeguards, or rules should be in place to ensure that everything works smoothly with third party blogging? I suggest these:

• The blog and postings are owned by the company
  
• The blogger works to documented and agreed objectives
  
• The blogger commits to regular posting
  
• The company responds quickly to requests for information
  
• The company provides regular information to the blogger
  
• The blogger and the company should agree to a schedule to post comments to related blogs
  
• The company appoints someone to represent them to amend postings if required
  
• Whenever the blogger is asked to blog specifically about something it should be made clear in the blog

I realise this sounds as though it's too buttoned-up for blogging. In fact it works in practise and these types of blog appear no different to "normal" company blogs. 

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"The coolest guy on the planet" phrase is a sort of competition between search engine optimisation gurus.

It's a bit of a laugh that (I think) Brad Fallon started. He certainly has the first position on a Google search for the phrase.

What they've done is placed links and references to the coolest guy on the planet in their articles, blogs, web sites and even their testimonials for other people!

I'm always game for a laugh so I joined in and posted The Coolest Guy On The Planet and also briefly mentioned it at another Marketing For Power Packed Business Growth post about blog rankings.

A few days after I posted the first time about "the coolest guy on the planet" I wasn't even in the search listings.

Now I'm 99th out of 1,170,000 search results.

My point?

It's great to rise in the rankings for such a competitive phrase, and believe me it's competitive! What it teaches though is that a blog has a lot of power to fuel your rise to the top of the Google search results.

If you're in  a business that you want to succeed on the Internet you need to be blogging.  If you really feel you can't write or don't have the time employ someone to create posts for you. And if you need to edit them to make them your own.  After all you must stand by what you say in your blog. 

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I posted about the Top 25 Marketing Blogs in May 2006.

How things change over only a few short months...

Here we are in October 2006 and the current rankings are shown with the April starting Alex ratings and their position in the top 25.

October 2006

1 - Seth's Blog - 5,310 was top dog in April too with 11,018.
2 - Duct Tape Marketing - 18,072 was position 4 with 18,562
3 - Creating Passionate Users - 18,540 was position 5 with 22087
4 - Gaping Void - 18,694 was position 3 with 18059
5 - Marketing Shift - 34,643 was at 6 with 53,816
6 - Daily Fix - 42,028 - not in the April list
7 - Coolzor - 52,950  at 11 with 108026
8 - HorsePigCow - 66,138 was at 7 with 53986
9 - Church of the Customer - 68,690 was 9 with 87685
10 - The Viral Garden - 78,971 - not in originally. Although I'd suggested it should be at 13a with 131,783
11 - New School of Network Marketing - 94,440 not in the original list
12 - Brand Autopsy - 98,282 was at 8 with 85,385
13 - What's Next - 98,694 was at 10 with 90,302
14 - Emergence Marketing - 100,164 was 12 with 118,773
15 - Logic + Emotion - 107,072 not in the original list
16 - Converstations - 108,084 not in the original list
17 - Experience Curve - 110,511 not in the original list
18 - Marketing Nirvana - 141,852 not in the original list
19 - Jaffe Juice - 146,177 was 13 with 126,679
20 - Diva Marketing - 189,487 was 16 with 153,025
21 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing - 206,218 not in the original list
22 - Brains on Fire - 217,903 not in the original list
23 - Marketallica - 229,710 not in the original list
24 - Spare Change - 237,221 not in the original list
25 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 248,397 was 15 with 147,519

And these are the ones that have dropped out (original April position shown first).

2 - Guy Kawasaki - 14,793
11 - Coolzor - 108,026
14 - Marketing Roadmaps - 137,510
17 - Jack Yan - 163,243
18 - Johnnie Moore's Weblog - 165,287
19 - What's Your Brand Mantra - 183,879
20 - Marketing Begins At Home - 259,014
21 - Decker Marketing - 260,171
22 - Being Reasonable - 268,503
23 - The Origin of Brands - 282,050
24 - Crossroads Dispatches - 294,041
25 - The Brand Builder Blog - 430,378

Originally “Marketing For Power Packed Business Growth” was an undiscovered gem because my rating was 5,422,486. Although it was 2,980,459 a few weeks previously when I blogged about “The Apprentice” TV show (UK version).

And now I'm happy to report that the cream is starting to float to the top and my rank is now 863,344.

Hmm. OK still some way to go then! When on earth will I be the coolest guy on the planet?

  DVR (or digital video recorder) maker Archos has taken back the Archos AV 500 portable digital video recorder that I've had on long term loan for review since May this year.

The Archos Av500 DVR allows you record from cable, video recorders, DVD players and PCs onto a pretty massive 30gb hard disk.  You can play it back on its own screen at any time, anywhere because it's about the size of a small paperback book.

The Archos DVR made me feel rather like Lamborghini owners must feel. Everyone comments on how great it looks and rave about the fantastic quality of the screen.

Archos Digital Video Recorder Design

The unit looks and feels solidly built with a brushed aluminium case and with two sets of control buttons. It fits nicely in the hand and yet provides a very good sized screen which displays extremely sharp images.

On first glance the navigation and control buttons seem complicated. In fact they're so intuitive that without even looking at the manual I quickly discovered how the controls worked.

The Archos arrived complete with a neat leather protection case which again looks very smart. The only 2 extremely minor issues I found with the case were that I couldn't fasten it if I had the earplugs in and the inbuilt loudspeaker was slightly muffled by the retaining elastic band.

Getting Stuff In And Out Again

At the back of the machine are ports for USB, USB 2.0, microphone, power connector and multi-connect for headphones,  TV docking pod, FM remote and av in/out connections.

The manual reports that you may not get a TV docking pod with your Archos. To my mind this is an essential piece of kit for allowing you to record from cable, DVD, VCR or TV.

There's even an infrared sensor you can use to control it remotely. I didn't actually try this as I've enough remotes scattered around and don't need to add to their number. Besides recording from the TV was simply a quick press of a couple of buttons.

When the navigation buttons are pressed a context sensitive set of buttons are popped up on the screen so you can easily select whether you want to watch a video, view a photo or listen to music with navigation keys.

It's reported that you can get up 130 hours of video, 15,000 songs or 300,000 photos. I certainly didn't completely fill the Archos, even though it was my constant companion.

How I Tested The Archos

I went about my normal life and incorporated the Archos into it!

I've been on several 3 to 4 hour train trips over the months I've had the player and found that rather than being boring necessities the trips became enjoyable visits to the cinema or the concert hall.

The battery lasted well on the trips but I always took the main charger and at least one of the trains always had mains power I could plug into. 

In fact waiting for delayed trains was no hassle. Just plug into the Archos and I was watching Frasier, Grease, MASH even The Disney High School Musical put on by my kids.

I've taken it shopping and placed in the shopping trolley I watched re-runs of Dad's Army and listened to Bob Dylan and The Black Eyed Peas.

I've walked to and from the Manchester Metro listening as I walked.  The only downside is that the tram itself was so noisy that even with the unit and earpiece volume controls turned to the maximum there were times when it was difficult to hear.

You can even use it as a high capacity voice recorder for making notes and you can plug a microphone in for high quality recording.

The Issues

There were three minor issues that cropped up during my review. And I'd stress these were minor issues.

One rare issue was that sometimes the unit froze and I had to remove and re-insert the battery. It didn't affect anything and was only a slight annoyance.

Another is that the earphones became uncomfortable after long use as there were no foam covers with them.

The final issue was that the TV docking pod wasn't as easy to cart round as just the Archos itself so I couldn't record TV programmes at other places I went to.

Would I Recommend It?

That said I would unhesitatingly recommend the Archos for listening to music and marketing seminars, watching films and recording and watching TV programmes. If I'd kept the Archos it would have replaced my current (newish) video recorder and I might well have transferred some of my DVDs to it too. 

It's so flexible that I would defy any user to find a better portable way of storing their photos, songs and videos.

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Video bloggers appear to be in danger of falling foul of the nanny state European Union concern for "standards for  TV."

Adam Sherwin, writing in The Times,  notes that the EU propose making web sites and mobile phone services conform to standards they lay down.

All I can say is I'm just glad they weren't involved with the early Internet otherwise they wouldn't have the opportunity to stunt it's growth now.

For once UK ministers appear to see the stupidity of trying to apply the EU's draft rules (aka the Television Without Frontiers directive) to amateur Internet video.

But of course at the same time they compromise, saying that if a video on the Internet looks like a TV programme it must be one.

What does that mean?

It opens a further can of worms.

And of course we'll get more regulators, the video police. They'll spend time and money creating criteria to help them decide whether a video is a programme, or not. And pursue to the ends of the earth those who aren't licenced to create content.

 The Minister notes that businesses can operate from outside the EU.

Really? Well they're certainly operating in the enormous US market.  Do they honestly think they're going to stop business from using the Internet to provide content people want?

That's the point of the Internet content can be hosted in any country and available in almost any country. You might as well suggest that you try and close down all the adult sites that break a law in one or more countries. I suspect that's a greater danger to the World.

Does this storm in a teacup matter to business?

Yes it does because:

•  what happens if you video your annual meeting and put it on the web with some extra footage from your company CEO and Operations director? Does that make it a documentary and require you to get licenced?
  
• Or perhaps you've some great video tutorials that you want to use as an incentive for people to buy your coaching course. Are they educational programmes?
  
• What about if you've a product video that you offer freely to all your prospects? Does that make the video a product placement programme?
  
• What about video diaries and video bloggers. Are they reality shows? Will they need to spend time blanking out any product logo they show? Do they need to be licenced too?

The beauty of the Internet has been an almost pure free marketing approach so that if people want something they can get it. If they don't want something offered on the Internet they can simply click away or not visit in the first place. So a business lives or dies by delivering what customers want.

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Yesterday I watched Sky's heavily promoted "The Big Idea" with Ruth Badger of  "The Apprentice" fame and sundry other people.

In principle "The Big Idea" is a good idea itself.

The downside is it's implementation.

For example inventors who claim to have a "Big Idea" are provided with the opportunity to present their idea to a panel of 3 experts. Sort of like an idea audition.

The auditions looked cheesy and unlike "Dragon's Den" there seemed little attempt to tart up the set so that it looked interesting. Rather it looked just like the judges were sat behind a couple of tables covered with a cloth in an anonymous hotel somewhere.

It looks as though all it takes is for one expert to say it's a good idea for that idea to get through to be seen in the studio for the series proper.

The ideas that got through were road tested by a "mad inventor" and I did quite enjoy a couple of those.

The ideas themselves?

Actually they weren't bad.  Would they sell? Who knows...

As for the first episode I turned it off after watching the first half  I just found it unappealing and uninteresting. 

Why?

I think there's much too much talking from the experts, Ruth Badger and the studio presenter and not enough questions to the inventor.

It also seemed very disjointed. For each "Big Idea" there was a review of the original audition, with a couple of failing big ideas thrown in, a try at using the big idea and getting some feedback by the "mad inventor" and then the introduction to the studio audience and the experts (again) of the big idea.

Now you know my keenness on business-related programmes. So I'm extremely disappointed that "The Big Idea" is a damp squib for me.

It may be a ratings winner, but not for me.  I am going to have another look next week. But if it fails to impress again that's going to be it.

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You've carefully worked out what to put onto your business card. Or you've forked out hard cash for a designer to produce a great card for you.

What if your cards are almost always landing in the bin?

They're not much use to you there as a continuing reminder to your prospect of your product and services are they?

I did a review of the business cards I've collected previously and highlighted the errors people can unconsciously design into their business cards.

Since the review I've had more business cards pass through my clutches. And still the same old issues arise.

...only showing mobile phone, not showing what the company does, no address, no offer and on and on. 

My pet irritation is oversize business cards because they just don't fit through my card scanner.

Yet amongst the all the hum-drum cards I finally found a business that another marketing company has shown how to produce a better business card. It's still not perfection but it's way down the road compared to 80% of cards I've collected.

Anyway in this post I thought I'd take a more positive approach and highlight the way design can be used to improve any business card.

I'm going to talk about the following aspects of the design process:

• Paper quality
• Card size
• Font
• Graphics and Colour
• Congruent Message design

Paper Quality

 Choose the best quality you can afford. Don't use plastic cards, laminated cards CD cards because:

1. Cds don't get watched
2. Plastic is difficult to impossible to write notes on

Card Size

Please make it a standard size. Yes by all means be quirky, be interesting, even be off-the-wall but make it so I can get it through my card scanner. Otherwise it goes in the bin.

Maybe other people think like me too? Because odd sized cards don't easily fit into card cases or other card filing systems that are around either.

Font

Please choose a font we can all read. I use Times Roman but there are plenty of other equally clean fonts.

Don't use quirky or unreadable fonts that look great and match your image but don't help me to read the card or its message.

Font size should be such that even those with a little age-related detoriation can read them, even if only under a bright light with their arm outstretched.

Graphics & Colour

The font colour is personal preference. I prefer black on a white background. I've discovered that some business cards choose font and card colours that almost match each other and the result is an almost uniform colour with unreadable text.

By all means put your logo on your card. But remember that people are more interested in what your business can do for them.

Photographs should be treated with caution. If you're showing a photo of yourself remember that a card can be kept for a long time and you will change.

If you're a photographer a mini photo gallery is good. Similarly a design studio.

Other graphics should be related to the business. If they're not they shouldn't be on the card at all.

Congruent Message design

Your card should reflect your company ethos  to your prospects and clients in the way it's designed and in its content too.

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Some marketers got all excited about using databases and email for creating complex multi-dimensional customer lists that they can send highly specific offers to.

If you're sending out an email campaign based on events like customer birthdays, high value purchase, large volume purchase or other  similar criteria you're doing "Event Based Marketing".

Which boiled down means that you're targeting a much smaller and specific set of customers or prospects than your whole list.

Event Based Marketing Studies

Fascinating Case studies in event triggered marketing conducted by the Forrester Research Inc are provided free by Responsys.

Some interesting points arise from the studies.

1. Use Existing Processes
2. Use Manual Testing
3. Check Overlap & Frequency
4. Keep it Simple
5. Ensure Delivery

Use Existing Processes

Look for an existing process that can be automated. For example where your salespeople currently trawl through orders to find high spending customers to send great offers to.

And don't simply replicate the manual process. See if you can create extra value for the customer at the same time.

Use Manual Testing

Test any event program you're considering by trying it by hand. That means extract by hand a list of customers based on an event you've chosen.  Then create the special offer letter or email and follow-up as required. Then send them out to the list and monitor the results.

If it works, that is makes a profit, check whether automating it makes it more profitable or not.

Check Overlap & Frequency

There's nothing worse than sending a customer lots of different emails or letters with completely different products or services. Or even worse the same product but at a different price - for no reason.

Keep It Simple

Don't try and work out lots of multiple criteria to extract customer lists from. For example the customer spend was at least 10,000 last quarter, they own a house on the west side of town and the previous year they spent at least 50,000.

That makes the mistake of assuming that because the data used to extract the list is the same the customers are the same.

They're not...

There could be piles of different reasons why they all happen to meet the extract criteria you set.

Ensure Delivery

Make sure your delivery channels know, and agree with, what you're planning. If they can't handle a sudden volume change you're going to lose the prospective sales of the customers you worked so hard to encourage to buy.

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Internet marketing expert Frank Garon is hosting a free 2 day Internet marketing bootcamp at the Novotel in London on  Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd October 2006.

If you're already into Internet marketing you'll know quite a few of the people who'll be presenting at the two day camp. With Frank they include:

• Stephen Pierce
• Carl Galletti
• Len Thurmond
• Willie Crawford
• Mike Filsaime
• Ted Ciuba
• Martin Wales

Everyone of them knows exactly which hot buttons to press to get traffic, get that traffic converted into sales and make money.

Obviously free because it's a major pitch-fest, right?

Wrong! Frank has said that this is not going to be one of those where you turn up and get sold to. he says (check it out at the web site)

"This event is a hands-on, face-to-face training event - that's why we call it a "Bootcamp".

I'm not getting anything for telling you about this. I just know that almost anyone who wants to use the Internet to market will benefit.

When you return from the bootcamp and you've recovered from all the hard work let me know what you thought of it.

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Wikipedia: Frank Garon, Stephen Pierce, Carl Galletti, Len Thurmond, Willie Crawford, Mike Filsaime, Ted Ciuba, Martin Wales, internet bootcamp, internet marketing
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When we were all struggling to work out the best ways to create and market web sites back in the 90's Ken Evoy stuck his head up above the parapet and waved "Make Your Site Sell", the ebook that told you how to create your web site and get traffic to it.

I immediately bought it, applied my own marketing angles and never looked back.

Ken updated it in 2002 and now I'm amazed to discover that he's offering it as a free download over at his Make Your Site Sell web site. 

The reason it's free is that since 2002 new web marketing and traffic advances have been incorporated to create a more advanced product called Site Build It. 

This is still a useful product and I'm sure almost anyone will benefit from it.

I've downloaded the updated book myself and I'm looking forward to really digging into it.

To be honest I'm, not expecting to find a lot of new stuff.

No I don't know everything!

It's because I had the original Make Your Site Sell and I'm also up to speed daily on most Internet marketing techniques.

If I find one new wrinkle that improves traffic and preferably conversion it's time well spent.  

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My previous post on well-known companies that blog really points to the fact that the UK and Europe are in danger of missing a trick on the marketing front.

As the Internet makes it easier and easier to order goods and services world-wide it means we're looking at web sites and blogs to decide whether to do business with people. Whether  they're just down the road from us or 2 continents away!

These 12 reasons (or excuses) for not blogging make interesting reading.

I'd add another 3 reasons/excuses:

13) "We blogged for a few months and it didn't work"

A few months is not enough. Plus you need to really know what you're doing. After all why should your blog get read amongst the millions out there. You need a proper blog strategy and action plan.

14) "We just don't have the time"

OK. Would you have the time if you started placing a lot higher in the search engine pages? Oh and by the way don't think this great way of placing higher by using blogging will last - it wont. Do it now or lose out.

15) "No really we have no one who can do it"

Get someone else to blog for you. I blog on behalf of other companies. Other do too. I suggest that whoever you employ you read their blog before approaching them. Whatever you do don't take on any blogger who hasn't been blogging for at least a year and with regular postings.

Why?

Because they need to enjoy writing. And the ability to stick at it through thick and thin on your behalf.

I was at a networking meeting yesterday.

It was fun, as usual. And this time I got a few more questions about blogging.

Several people noted that blogging is becoming bigger...

Yes, it is in the UK. It's already big in the USA. If you look  here note the USA's Fortune 500 Companies That Blog.

USA Corporate Blogging

It makes for interesting reading. Certainly there are a high number of high tech companies that blog:

• Microsoft
• Motorola
• Honeywell
• Cisco
• Hewlett-Packard
• Dell
• Texas Instruments
• Oracle
• Sun Microsystems

And of course the largest web companies also have blogs:

• eBay
• Amazon
• Yahoo

There are other non-high tech companies blogging. They include McDonald's, Eastman Kodak, Boeing, General Motors, Nike and Wells Fargo.

What About UK Corporate Blogging?

In the UK we've got BT, the Adam Smith Institute and newspapers like the Financial Times, The Daily Mail and The Guardian with Blogs. And of course many of the US companies with offices in the UK also have bloggers here as well.

I've searched for others and looked at companies like Virgin, BaeSystems, GEC, Cap Gemin Ernst & Young who you might think would be blogging.

They're not...

In the course of my research I found another blogger who was trying to see how the UK Corporate Blogging Scene is going.

Suw Charman notes a number of smaller companies in her post Strange Attractor as well as a very few large corporate bloggers such as Guinness and Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

She also notes quite a few PR companies that are blogging too.

Should UK Corporates Be Blogging?

Like I've said many times before...

Blogging is one channel of communication with your customers.

Remember paper business directories?  They were a very important channel for business to communicate their presence to their prospects and customers.

Now with so many people on the Internet searching the Internet for businesses those directories are dying.  

Regular blogging about your expertise means that you'll be in the top positions for searches made on your subject keywords.

Is that important?

Yes. Because people don't want to go to the effort of going through one to two pages of search results. If your entry helps them why would they go elsewhere?

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The Coolest Guy on the Planet is a phrase that our happy band of SEO experts are trying to beat each other to the punch.

Personally I can't see what all the fuss is about. After all I'm the coolest guy on the planet.

Ah...

You've found me out. Yup I was just having a go to see where I landed in Google search results for the cool guy phrase "The Coolest Guy On The Planet".

The Coolest Guy On the Planet Is

Is wait for it...

As at 4th October 2006 still Brad Fallon.

I'll update this post from time to time. So we can all see that really I am the guy who keeps the planet coolest.

I'm talking about Internet affiliate marketing and in particular for a program called Stompernet that's aimed at helping people go up the Search results in Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.

In my quest to keep up with what's happening in copywriting, marketing and business I subscribe to a pile of ezines.

Foolish? Maybe.

It certainly feels like it when I get a barrage of emails through on how desperately important Stompernet is to almost anyone who can breathe and has a business.

The messages came through in a variety of formats from all of the following: 

• Keith Wellman
• Armand Morin
• Dr Mike
• Andy Jenkins
• John Reese
• Dymphna Bolt
• Mike Filsaime
• Shawn Casey
• The Rich Jerk
• Joel Osborne
• Brad Callen
• Andy Jenkins (Runs Stompernet)
• Brad Fallon (Runs Stompernet)
• Cody Moya
• Stephen Pierce
• Willie Crawford
• Joel Christopher
• Ben Shaffer
• Carl Galletti
• Yanik Silver
• Andrew Fox
• Shawn Casey
• Gary Ambrose
• Jeff Dedrick
• Ken McCarthy
• Soren Jordansen
• Kevin Wilke

Rich Schefren didn't do an affiliate message but did get in on the act by warning me (his email list) to wait before ordering and then choose the affiliate with the best bonuses.

I've started auto-deleting all emails with the word "stompernet"  in it.  After over 200 emails asking me to look at videos, PDFs and web sites my interest dwindled from "so what" to "get out of my hair now!"

It's my fault that I got so much email about it. Normally I like to see how (or even if) affiliates change their email copy from that given to them.

To prevent this type of email log jam happening again I suspect I'll be unsubscribing from a few of the lower echelon marketing affiliates.

Normally I love reading Brad Fallon's blog. It's a slice of SEO life and usually quite interesting. So I'm quite sure the Stompernet is going to help some businesses become super-successful.

I'll soldier on applying my own methods for the moment. And I'm doing pretty well thanks. Certainly this blog often comes up in the first 10 on Google for some quite intriguing keywords!

For example...

  Keywords               Result Page and Position

1. toma branding..........................................#1 result 1 and 2
2. david ogilvy book.....................................#1 result 4
3. duncan ballantyne dragons den.................#1 result 8 and 9
4. apprentice uk sayed...................................#1 result 3 and 4
5. lorel langemeier media...............................#1 result 4
6. telemarketing selling skills- mobile phone-uk..#1 result 9

 My only recent real failures to get into the top 10 results was for "gary bencivenga"  the world's highest paid copywriter and "Ogilvy advertisment". In both cases I got on the second page. Not really much use in SEO terms. Even though the Ogilvy advertisment keyword returned 1,630,000 results.

Must Try Harder on those two then! 

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