Marketing 2.0

Blogging for Business

Here is the presentation I delivered this week to the Ithaca Marketing Group, titled "Blogging for Business." We had a good meeting and participants learned more about weblogs and how to apply them for business communications. If you'd like to learn more about using a weblog in your organization, please contact me.

Download blogging_for_business.ppt

Put RSS Feeds On Your Web Page

If you have a traditional web site and want to add RSS feeds, here is a good article from Research Buzz on how to do it. They will refer you to a provider at http://www.bigbold.com/rssdigest/. If you are already operating a blog, you should have RSS capability through your service provider. If you don't, pay a visit to TypePad. (I'm not their official spokesperson!).

While you are checking this out, bookmark or subscribe to the Research Buzz site. It's a good resource.

Put RSS Feeds On Your Web Page -- ResearchBuzz, September 20, 2004

What a Business Blog Can Do For You

Here's a good article on the benefits of a blog, especially for small businesses.

What a Business Blog Can Do For You

Ads That Annoy Also Succeed

Tired of pop-up ads and spam? Think they don't work? Guess again, says this article from Wired. The author claims that because the cost to publish spam is so low for marketers, they need only a tiny response rate to turn a profit. A study by the Direct Marketing Association claims that $32 billion is spent annually on products advertised by e-mail. Thankfully, my browser and mail client are pretty good at blocking pop-ups and spam.

Wired News: Ads That Annoy Also Succeed

Marketing Focus :: Absolut Cool

Good article from Business 2.0 on the use of elaborate, Flash-animated websites. Are they valuable in helping to build a brand? The key example cited is Absolut vodka. Here's my favorite quote from the article, "Content is still king," Mayes says. "If you've got nothing to say, but use a ton of Flash, you're just polishing a turd."

Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Marketing Focus :: Absolut Cool

Natural Enterprise: Filling An Unmet Need

Dave Pollard offers a good article on his blog concerning business innovation. The focus of the article is finding a need and filling it. Pollard provides 4 useful criteria for successful products and services:

1) They fill an unmet business, social or consumer need.
2) The enterprise understood why the need wasn't already being met, and overcame those obstacles.
3) The enterprise has the competencies to effectively create and deliver offerings that fill that need.
4) The enterprise has the resources to bring those offerings to the marketplace.

Read more at the "How to Save the World" blog.

How to Save the World