As business people, are we visible online as a valued source of trade media for our target marketplaces?

This video by XPlane strikes me as a reminder to leverage knowledge and every day practical experience online as marketing. We have the ability to create & distribute content; we can stand out and connect with marketplaces by simply having the discipline to share what questions we answered today. If one person asked, it’s likely a multiple of 10 to 100 times more are searching for that same answer online. What did we see? What have we heard? What do we know!

The fact is that in most business verticals there is competition for consumer attention. Unless we are demonstrating our value through content, we can’t expect them to choose us. If consumers have any uncertainty it undermines our ability to capture them. Your public facing business blog can prove your value, raising your profile while lowering any perceived risk of buying from you.

Are You A Valued Source Of Trade Media?

Related Posts:
Business Bloggers, You need to consider yourselves a source of [modern day] Trade Media!

In it’s ongoing effort to protect consumers, The Federal Trade Commission has revised its’ guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising… to include bloggers. They have specifically added that “material connections” between an advertiser and an endorser, via payment of any kind and that consumers might not expect, must be disclosed.

These revised guidelines go on to include bloggers and “word-of-mouth” marketers, saying that any payment to this sort of an endorser is included AND must be disclosed. 

For more detail see FTC.gov

An interesting NewYorker.com piece published July 6th by Malcolm Gladwell, titled ‘Priced To Sell’, looks at free and the value of content & ideas. It’s a useful read for the average small to medium sized business marketer.

In it Gladwell questions some of Chris Anderson’s [Wired Magazine and 'The Long Tail' fame] theories on free products and services.

Says Anderson, “…an ability to participate in Journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of traditional media. Journalism as a profession will share the stage with journalism as an avocation.”

What Anderson is saying is digital storage, processing and bandwidth costs are so low that there’s no longer any barrier to entry for content creation. He also suggests that by sharing some things with a target market for FREE, actual paid business products or services can become viral! With the cost of distribution to targeted searchers, social networkers and RSS subscribers also being negligible in cost, *we’d argue* publishing or blogging to share useful advertorial information is actually less an avocation and more a business responsibility! Ultimately a business can create & distribute it’s advertorial messaging, without time or space limits, at a negligible cost. So, versus the cost of traditional advertising, a business is either sharing useful and timely product / service knowledge for consumers to find OR… missing the boat on how those same consumers are evaluating future purchases.

However, for a business, there are responsibilities to marketplaces. Time, effort and intellectual capital have cost. Entrusting them to free communication or advertising services, for instance, has downside. Gladwell doesn’t necessarily argue for or against these points so much as he questions them. Partly cautioning against free he says, “Free removes the necessity of aesthetic judgment.” Using Youtube as an example he asks, “So how does YouTube bring in revenue? Well, it tries to sell advertisements alongside its videos. The problem is that the videos attracted by psychological free—pirated material, cat videos, and other forms of user-generated content—are not the sort of thing that advertisers want to be associated with. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year.” He goes on to use the power and drug industries as other examples to further his questions about anything free and whether or not it is truly sustainable.

Time will tell, but Gladwell certainly makes interesting arguments the serious business person should consider. By all means, give ‘Priced To Sell’ a quick read.

Related Posts:

• Disintermediation: reduce direct marketing while reducing overall advertising costs
• Can You Afford a Free Business Blog?

Frerecks: “Claude, can you tell us a little about California Olive Ranch?”

Weiller: “We’re North America’s largest producer of extra virgin olive oil and the world’s largest producer using the system of cultivation called Super High Density Cultivation. Our goal is to do for California olive oil what Napa Valley did for California wines in the 1970s. We harvest all our olives mechanically, not by hand. This enables our olives to be crushed into oil much faster which in turn produces more consistent and fresher tasting extra virgin olive oils. Our process is also more effective at preserving the full flavor of the olives – as if they just came off the tree. Increasingly, world-renowned top restaurant chefs use our oils in their dishes as both an ingredient and to finish them off. They drizzle it over grilled fish or roasted vegetables, for example. And they use it for cooking. Home cooks do the same. The oils have garnered numerous awards.”

Frerecks: “Why Blog about Olive Oil?”

Weiller: “A lot of people like extra virgin olive oil … make that love extra virgin olive oil! EVOO is the top grade of olive oil available. And an Olive Oil blog helps us create a two-way dialogue with our customers, something you can’t get with traditional media such as newspapers and radio. The Web also is a platform to market and advertise at a depth we never could with traditional resources. It’s 24-7 marketing and advertising. And it’s done in a way that allows consumers and chefs to seek us out, instead of the other way around.”

Frerecks: “Has anything in particular led you to believe your target audience is online?”

Weiller: “Yes. We believe there is a food-loving, health-conscious crowd online seeking out new information all the time. These people want new recipes, tips for using extra virgin olive oil, health information, etc. The huge popularity of food-related Web sites such as Epicurious and food blogs such as Orangette and Chocolate & Zucchini are a testament to that.”

Frerecks: “Why, in your eyes, has online become important versus traditional advertising opportunities?”

Weiller: “I love traditional media such as newspapers. But, unfortunately, they’re dying at an alarming rate. They’re also not as effective at reaching our consumer and our chefs who increasingly turn online for their information. The online world, by contrast, is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s where young people go to get their news and information. It’s the same for Baby Boomers on up. It also allows a company such as ours to tap into a critical distribution channel and an emerging marketplace. The online world also makes it possible to reach the broadest number of eyeballs and to aggregate that audience.”

Frerecks: “Any specific strategies?”

Weiller: “We’ve actually chosen to create two blogs, one olive oil blog for consumers and another for chefs. Both love extra virgin olive oil. But the two audiences are very different and have fundamentally different needs and use blogs for different purposes. Chefs create meals to be served to paying customers. They want to understand everything they can about how we make the oil, store that oil, and what makes it taste so good. Chefs have also told us they’re interested in sharing recipes with each other. They have a culinary knowledge far deeper than your average consumer, though many a ‘foodie’ knows a great deal. So we want to address our EVOO Chef Blog to that kind of audience. That may mean offering up different recipes or writing about the same recipe in different ways – i.e., we’ll do a bit more explanation for consumers by offering information that chefs already take for granted.”

Frerecks: “As for olive oil marketplace coverage, what do you intend to put out there?”

Weiller: “We want to make our blogs very useful for our target audiences – a place where each audience can go to get practical information and tips about EVOO. So we’ll offer: recipes; tips about using extra virgin olive oil and storing olive oil; information about how to taste extra virgin olive oil [it’s an eye-opener]; and relevant health information. We’ll provide links to our products and recipes on our site, as well as outgoing links that will hook people up with useful information.”

Frerecks: “Are you seeing any positive indications yet?”

Weiller: “Oh yes, our blogs were visible in the search result pages almost immediately. It’s an encouraging step toward our goal, which is to build community for Extra Virgin Olive Oil [EVOO] Lovers.”

DiMora Motorcar and legendary automotive entrepreneur Alfred DiMora have released a document entitled, “The DiMora Initiative” – an “informed perspective on the proposed $34 billion bailout of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler and a forward-looking initiative and call to action to envision the new American automotive industry for the 21st Century”.  It is a simple, easily read two-page document outlying concerns and ideas for the future of this industry. This is something that directly or indirectly will affect us all. DiMora Motorcar has launched a blog as a grassroots effort to listen and learn from concerned US citizens. They want to hear your valued opinion!

If you’d like to be heard and / or to pass along the message we encourage you:

1. to share the story in Digg, Stumble Upon or your favorite Social Network [via 'Bookmark It' bottom of post]
2. to comment here on The Dimora Motorcar Blog OR
3. to write your representative [upper left home page button link.]

Alfred DiMora, founder of DiMora Motorcar Palm Springs, California, is legendary for his limited production luxury cars designs such as the Clenet and Sceptre. Also the founder of Starbridge Systems, Inc., the world’s fastest FPGA supercomputer, DiMora has blended his two worlds to unveil his newest creation. The Natalia is the world’s first hand-built, $2 million, sixteen-cylinder production automobile. The Natalia, the world’s most luxurious, expensive, and technologically-advanced creation will be a premier Internet, televised, educational, and media event of unprecedented proportions. Millions of viewers from around the world will be able to watch renowned craftsmen in its creation.

So, what is all the hype about Business Blogging? Is it difficult? Is it just a fad? Do you have to be a genius? The answer is an emphatic "NO!" In fact, if you are NOT investing in organic search engine result page findability/ in the presentation of trustworthiness/ in direct subscription [which are simultaneously available to the Business Blogger] than you are missing the most cost effective & qualified advertising opportunity that has ever presented itself to a business.

10 Reasons Business Blogging is the Top Marketing & Advertising Value Proposition!

1. Search: All consumers search and they research. Search engines [like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.] reward those businesses willing to publish [or blog] content regularly with relevance and visibility in the natural areas of their index [this is often also called the organic area of the search engine.]  Organic results are determined by the search engine and are NOT influenced by advertising dollars.

2. Organic Search Results: 87-92% of all searches performed lead to a click through in the organic search result set [unpaid recommendations, NOT Pay Per Click.]  What’s more, the cost of the remaining 8-13% of traffic generated by Pay Per Click advertising is rising. Often the cost is well over $1 per click…. but the lion’s share of search is going to those visible in the organic search results index. 

3. Unlimited Findability: You can become high in the organic search results pages for an unlimited number of search topic keywords and key phrases surrounding your product and/ or service offering! Think of how the Long Tail of Search will reward those with the broadest possible visibility 

4. Advertising Longevity: With search and blogs, you are never limited by time or space. Unlike traditional advertising, where you pay for limited space and circulation time with the distribution of media content, your advertorial content is limitless remaining available online 24/7 to all comers. Think, ‘Advertising Disintermediation’ and the breaking of barriers between your business knowledge and those who want it.

5. Qualified Leads: The search engine interface is a natural lead filtration system. Because consumers can [re]search the topic keywords and key phrases emanating from your advertorial content in the search engine indexes at will, your advertorial content will only attract the most qualified leads.

6. Simple Content Publishing: Good Business Blogs make it very easy to compete for the attention of qualified searchers. The content publishing interface makes blogging as easy as crafting an email. Creating a discipline to release advertorial coverage of the enthusiasm you have for your business, its merits and your authoritative knowledge is NOT difficult.

7. Builds Trust: Business Blogs give you the chance to present your business in a much more human way than any traditional advertising or static website ever will. A business blog helps to build brand and garner trust – it is an ongoing advertorial journal which keeps the attention of your current and future clientele.

8. Direct Subscription: Possibly the greatest value to a business is the unlimited potential for direct and voluntary subscribers. Good blogs offer RSS and email subscription services to their content.  Once a consumer is subscribed they will automatically receive your message every time you publish.  This means you remain on radar screens until buyers are ready to buy. Or to buy again.  

9. Cheap Website Technology: Versus websites, which often require high upfront costs and the help of a programmer to make changes, blog solutions & services are cheap and simple content publishing tools. Easy to manage technology, means less cost. 

10. Reduced Overall Marketing & Advertising Cost: Versus other forms of advertising a good Business Blog can dramatically reduce overall marketing & advertising costs, while simultaneously raising findability!

Get yourself a good Business Blog… here’s what you get with Kinetic Blogs.

The Marketing Opportunity

Why in the world wouldn’t we think of our Business Blog as trade related media? In case you haven’t noticed, the landscape for reaching our marketplace[s] has changed. Here at Kinetic we see it as this giant opportunity to make marketing, advertising & public relations not only simple but cost- effective for our business. Sure, because of the Internet, Search and ’Really Simple Syndication’ [RSS] consumers have the luxury of unlimited information. And sure, the empowerment to have whatever they want, however much they want and exactly at the time they want it can seem intimidating; however and versus what we’ve been accustomed too, why not meet this challenge head on? Why not become the source of ’trade specific information’ that is being searched, subscribed, consumed… and that is needed?

“The blog… it’s the absolute cheapest and most effective way to get top search engine optimization fast [see my blog.bryanbomba.com on 1st page in Google for hinsdale il real estate.]“ Bryan Bomba

Versus Traditional Marketing

Very unlike traditional media, where time and space for an advertising message is limited, Business Blogs do away with limits to how much we can share. Search & subscribe means there are no longer limits to the distribution of our information. The more content we blog the more topics we index with the search engines and the more likely we’ll attract direct subscription. The message is always there, seven days a week and 24 hours a day. To a degree, advertising in the traditional sense is fading as noise where a consumers’ ability to research is only limited by how much we [the marketer] put out there. Sure, we should still hunt for our next client, but making ourselves available to them when they’re searching for what we have just makes sense. And don”t just focus on the obvious either because having more specific search phrases indexed [i.e. Santa Barbara CA Oceanfront Home For Sale] demonstrates an interest in serving specific objectives. More specific indexing positions oneself to capture more qualified buyers.

Search doesn’t intrude, so it doesn’t look or feel like advertising. The development of trust just isn’t possible with [soundbite] advertisements. As business bloggers we can demonstrate genuine knowledge and enthusiasm for our trade. Consumers don’t want to be told what to do, how to think and [now] they demand respect for their point of view. Demonstrate sincerity and the empowered consumer will find you! 

“I’m convinced our commitment to sharing lots of good local information via the blog allows for people to find us and develop a comfort level and more importantly to see if we would mesh with their personality type. The visibility in search engines is only part of the equation. People want flesh and blood.” Santa Clarita Real Estate Connor MacIVOR Santa Clarita CA Real Estate Blog

“I’ve found that blogging is an excellent way to develop relationships with potential clients, real estate agents, developers, journalists, and people in the community. It’s a way to demonstrate my knowledge and expertise and to develop trust.” Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL Real Estate Blog
 
Modern Day Marketing Success

But how do we meet this challenge? Is it difficult or expensive? NO not at all because Business Blogging in is not only simple but the development of an independent brand shouldn’t cost much either. Rather than an environment limiting us [the advertiser] to interruptions while people consume good media, we can become an available and timely source of it: no longer an interruption, but a valuable source for product & service consumer research. We can do it by sharing all the useful and timely information we have, demonstrating our sincere sense of service. Business Blog what you see, hear, know and have to offer… simple! After all, Google readily says it intends to “organize and make the worlds’ information universally accessible and useful.” If they can successfully connect ALL searching consumers with the fresh, relevant and unbiased answers they want than why wouldn’t we give Google all the answers we have?

“More than 95% of our new business comes from the Internet, and it’s coming from blogs rather than websites. The bottom line of value is not comments or hits – it’s closed business that came because you blogged. Blogging has also raised my visibility and credibility in the community.” Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL Real Estate Blog

“Since we got started blogging we actually have 15 new clients, 10 relocations from other states. I have a few traditional websites, but we don’t use a lead vendor and we discontinued Yahoo & Google Pay-Per Click a couple months ago. In each case, they volunteered that they had found us on the web and that they read our Blog.” Connor MacIVOR Santa Clarita CA Real Estate Blog 
 
Blogs have reduced the cost for content creation and distribution to a negligible low. Very much like our consumer we’re empowered, but with the opportunity to be prepared for them… every day. The barriers between our daily knowledge and those who want it have been broken… So as marketers, we should not only see ourselves as but we should be trade media!