The Ease of Blogging

A lot of business people worry about having a blog to which they have to contribute regularly on their website. They ask themselves, “Who cares what I think?”; ”Oh, I can’t write worth a hoot!”; “I never got good marks for writing in school.”; and the list goes on, and on and on. People have as many excuses not to write publicly as there are people.

The reasons for writing a blog for your site have really very little to do with you. Your blog is for your prospective clients, primarily. It will serve as a place where they can get answers to their questions about you and your offering. Ideally, they will be able to get enough information from your blog and from other parts of your site to become comfortable making a buying decision, to buy from someone they have come to like and trust. A blog is a place for you to supply information, yes, but more importantly it is a place where people can get to know you and what you stand for. Don’t write off the importance of what you stand for. It is what helps your business stand out from all the rest. For one thing it can help establish you as one of those rare people for whom no question is too small or too silly. That is rare, indeed. Such an attitude among prospects would be invaluable.

It really is as simple as, if you can say it, you can write it. The type of writing you will do in your blog is different than what you did in school. No one is marking you here. You speak to people when you sell your product or service, don’t you? If you are successful enough at that to survive, that standard of communication will serve you fine as a writer in your blog. Say it first. If spelling or punctuation is a problem find someone you like and trust to be your proofreader. Their only criteria need to be what you want them to correct for you and whether or not they get your point. You obviously make a point when you sell. Your writing needs to make the same point(s). Grammar is secondary to the point(s) you wish to convey.

More important than technical quality in your blog writing is your “voice”. This is a concept many people have trouble understanding but it is important in relationship building and branding, which are two of the key things you are doing with your blog. Everyone has a way of expressing themselves; the way they use contractions, or not; the metaphors (funny expressions) they use; their peculiar (sometimes) grammatical habits of expression. Our voice is one of the things that attract people to us. This is one of the reasons a conversational style is important. This is also why it is important to “be yourself” when you write. If you talk and write the same way, people will recognize you when they meet you. If they have come to like and trust you as a source of hassle-free information, help and ideas, you will have a leg up on the buying process. (You should have twigged by now to the value of social media in this “friending” process) For example, Merri writes a column for the local paper which I proof-read for her. The first thing I check for is that it sounds like her. It is not my job to critique her choice of topics, just whether it works as a communication in her “voice”. Punctuation and spelling is usually an important part of that.

Anyway, we will revisit this topic in more detail later but that, I think, takes care of three very important considerations. Most important, what do you think? Take the time to drop your thoughts in the appropriate box. More information please visit this site www.merrimacmarketing.net

The Implications of Mission and Vision

Having well thought out mission and vision statements is not the end of the process for you and your business. These statements should be intimately tied to how your business is structured and how customers are treated today and long-term. Let’s take the ones developed for our business and see what that means.

Merrimac Marketing Mission – Building on the strong information foundations underpinning the Merrimac Marketing offering, we are committed to helping our clients identify solid, worthwhile, marketing goals in their businesses. We work with them as coaches to avoid the inevitable risks they face achieving them online. An important first step in our unique service offering is to facilitate the opportunity represented by establishing the unique Merrimac Marketing coaching process.

Merrimac Marketing Vision - In its community Merrimac Marketing is recognized as the first, best choice for information, products and services in the area of online marketing for small businesses. Merrimac Marketing differentiates itself by the exceptional level of personalized service and coaching that it can provide to its clients who are business startups and other small business owners. Merrimac Marketing attracts new clients regularly and easily because of the strong referrals that its clients provide.

First off, look at the structure of the website, www.merrimacmarketing.net. Notice that the business is geared to help people get established online quickly and easily without needing a lot of expertise right now. Secondly, the whole business is directed toward the development of a strong coaching relationship. We have actually built this into the process from the get-go by providing a lot of advice in the development process. (Most people select options initially without thinking about all their information needs down the road.)

The website has been based on providing information to our clients and potential customers. Eventually it will be a place where customers can find all they need to take advantage of online marketing opportunities that put them ahead of their rivals as sources of expertise and information in their chosen field. It will allow for marketing opportunities in line with modern expectations. Such positioning makes them and their business “findable” in the marketplace.

Modern customers increasingly show a marked preference for control and initiative in starting the buying process. It used to be that the business owner/marketer controlled this process. To them belonged the initiative to contact, or not. They controlled all the important information and its dissemination. Well, things have changed.

You can deliberately fashion your business to take advantage of these important demographic changes or you can leave your online efforts in “old mode”, providing brags about you and your company, your products and providing basic contact information “serious” prospects. It’s a recipe for financial ruin.

For more information please visit: http://www.merrimacmarketing.net

Day-to Day Use of Mission and Vision Statements

Talk to almost anybody about Mission and Vision statements and you will probably get a classic eye-roll in response. Everybody knows they were just a fad, right? Well, wrong! There may have been a faddish element to their development years ago. Every organization had to have one and considerable time and effort went into developing one of each. Generally, they were well done. They looked really good hanging on the wall in the lobby above the receptionist’s desk and that’s as far as they usually got in day-to day utility.

It’s a little like all the hype that surrounded brain-storming and other thinking tools that dominated business planning sessions for a while and then went off into oblivion, dismissed as ultimately over-hyped and of low utility. As Tim Hurson points out in his book, Think Better, people typically give up too soon on thinking tasks before the real rewards are reached because going deep is hard work. Typically, the low hanging fruit gets picked and people give up, blaming the task itself for their shortcomings.

Einstein summed it up well when he said, Thinking is the hardest work men do, that’s why so few do it,” or words to that effect. So it is that people give up on mission and vision statements once they are made. When the really hard work is needed, applying them in daily work and planning, most throw up their hands and walk away.

It’s tough subjecting everything you do daily and in the future to ideas and statements you created last month. A mission statement is going to be used to evaluate immediate plans and performance. It’s a standard created by the players and needs to be applied as it was meant, as a measuring stick. Take your plans or performance and ask the question, “How does this measure up against our standard?” does this activity advance our mission or push us toward achieving our vision. If the answer is no, maybe the whole thing needs to be reevaluated, or maybe just the activity in question. The point is that having a measuring stick allows all concerned to be systematic in advancing their business.

Likewise, a vision statement is a long-term measuring stick against which to measure daily activity. This is what we want to be someday. Is what we are planning and doing today going to get us there if we keep it up? If not, why are we doing it? Those can be tough questions against which to measure your business plans and performance in the short-term. It takes no small amount of will to haul those standards out and apply them in this way. Most businesspeople aren’t up to this much effort daily. Iron discipline is not that common. Unfortunately, it is the foundation of predictable success.

Share your thoughts on such statements and your business. Do you have one of each? Do you use them to guide your activity and planning daily? If not, what’s your alternative? Register and make a comment.

Automate Relationships – Not

Technology is a wonderful thing; especially when it works to save us time and money.  In business where time is money, Having things done for us automatically is a no brainer. Or is it?

Sometimes, using any form of automated communications with our customers seems like a really good idea but it isn’t always.  Our customers are savvy and very knowledgeable about automated responses. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to cut corners just to save a little time.


Today’s customer is looking for a relationship with the people who run the businesses they frequent. They want to be treated like a valued person, not some nameless cipher on a bottom line.

Today’s customer is savvy, knows they are in control and holds the purchasing power that can make or break a business. There are ways around that, of course, but that’s a story for another day.

Automation works when it is meant to deliver information but not for relationship building.  That needs to be done one on one.  So how can you do both?

By letting your customers control the automation you let them have access to the information delivered automatically. You post regularly to educate and they will ask to get it automatically in a preferred format.RSS feeds are a good example of this. The client can register to receive the blog information in a preferred format delivered automatically to a place they designate.

Your customers will appreciate your efforts.  The law of reciprocity dictates that they return favour.  And they will.  Trust them.

Blog Policy II: the downside of blogging

Since last we talked about policy for posting comments and “The Ease of Blogging” it now seems to be appropriate to deal with what is not so much fun about blogging,  and  the inbound marketing approach to marketing in general. We have been “discovered” as a business and a blog according to our traffic numbers. The problem seems to be that some of those who have discovered us are spammers. This has made looking after, or administering our blog, an ordeal and has necessitated the installation of WordPress’ spamming plugin, Akismet, for starters.

For my money, the spammers are a good place to start making changes.  As of today anybody with a nonsense comment, a vague comment or a too much used I.P. address, a non, relevant name (parts of the business name or other trivial non-name entries), bogus emails etc., all the symptoms of spam, will not be posted.

Thankfully, Word Press provides the ability to adjudicate comments. The place to start is by activating the A kismet plugin provided by Word Press as a means to help. We’ve done that as of this morning. The spammers that have found us have progressed beyond the bogus email stage. We’ll have to see what comes of our action in terms of traffic. Regardless, the spammers just make the whole thing too unpredictable. Something has to give.

Make no mistake, we will make this site successful in spite of spammers. They have tools, but so do we. Spammers are not a reason not to pursue an inbound marketing strategy any more than rats, like the one in the graphic, should prevent anybody form pursuing any other business idea.

This is definitely a down aspect of starting an SEO effort like a blog, but the end results are worth the effort
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If you are one of the unfortunates that gets their comments sidetracked by mistake, hang in there and send us a clarification via comments or email. Thankfully, again, like most everything else in Word Press, most actions are reversible. The good news is that this is almost as bad as it can get and there are tools and people to help put it right. After all, the spammers found you. That’s good news. You’ve been found, which is what you are trying to accomplish, right?