It's an 80:20 World

My opinion of the blog, world was until recently, distorted by ignorance and a smug sense that it was something taking place at the extremities of the marketing communications world and not something my North East of England clients needed to be to concerned about. How wrong I was.

I had misguidedly shelved the blog world as something that I should keep an eye on but not actively integrate into my consultancy advice. I must make it clear that I’m not a PR professional however I do work closely with PR people primarily under the broad banner of e-marketing. I know what you’re thinking, how could I possibly claim to offer e-marketing advice without being in possession of a reasonable understanding of the blogsphere well believe me I feel suitably ashamed.

Within the regional marketing sector here in the North East I must confess, blogging has rarely cropped up in the discussions I’ve had with clients and when the subject has been raised it has been in the context of a general enquiry about what is blogging all about. I have fielded these questions by dismissing blogs as online diaries primarily used by computer people and extreme pressure groups. Sadly, this is what many old school marketing people want to hear. They like the old ways. They know how to make money out of the old ways. Their clients understand the old ways. Given this situation why would you potentially unsettle a client by introducing a whole new communications paradigm that is totally measurable thus making yourself directly accountable?

I think this notion of measurability is crucial. No ad agency is going direct a client’s budget toward pay per click advertising if they can get away with booking ad space instead. Why? Because fundamentally most ad people don’t know what it is and there is no money in it for them in the short term. Similarly, why would the NE PR industry embrace a new channel they don’t understand and ultimately can’t manipulate by calling in old favours or entertaining the right editor?

To me this is just like the candle maker who dismissed electricity as he failed to see he was in the light business not the candle business. Ad agencies and PR firms are in the communications business and if marketing is mirroring effective sales strategies by becoming more of a conversation between customers and suppliers then we are severely short changing our clients if we do not take time to learn how these new methods can be used to add value and profit to our clients businesses. Maybe I have read the situation incorrectly and the NE is teaming with marketing professionals all actively promoting new marcom methods if so I apologise unreservedly.

Last Friday (18th of November), I attended an e-PR conference at Sunderland University in the North East of England and the main thing that came shining through was the exponential growth of blogging.
Not much surprise there as anyone with even a passing interest in the web and new media communications could have told me that. No, the comment that hit me right between the eyes came from Tom Murphy of Microsoft who reminded everyone in hall that marketing is now all about conversations. It seems quite an innocuous statement yet I think it has quite profound implications on the marketing communications industry and highlights a profound lack of copywriting skills in the new media sector. The words on a web page are the only thing between you and your client yet all to often getting text for a web site is seen as a necessary evil – the result copy being published from other marketing materials just because it is there.
All the techies out there have pushed us towards Content Management Systems sadly this doesn’t address the problem of content generation. This has led me to consider the power of blogs and RSS feeds and suddenly I can see how it starts to fit together.
In terms of it’s revenue generation potential for marketing communications companies I am still a little bit unsure – what I am just sure of is that it can’t be ignored.