Business blogging is gaining more power and momentum as blogging in general gains popularity. Blog readership has increased 45% in the last year according to a recent report by comScore. And that means more and more businesses are trying to jump on the marketing bandwagon and take advantage of this groundswell.

But when it comes to marketing effectively with business blogs, most companies (large and small) are stumbling along blindly, or just falling flat on their face. A recent example is highlighted by Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal. He goes into significant detail about what the upstart search engine company Quintura Search has done right, and verrrry very wrong with their blog marketing campaign.

Quintura Search just released their 1.0 beta system, and when they did they simultaneously started a press release/public relations campaign which has built some solid web coverage on their search application. But when they started their blog marketing strategy, that’s where a downhill slide started. It’s something we’re seeing again and again as businesses try to jump into the new and expanding World Live Web to quickly piggyback or blatantly exploit the blogosphere. Many companies just don’t understand how to market with business blogs so they try to apply “old school” internet marketing methods to get results — and that’s where they fail miserably.

I’m not trying to say that Quintura has knowingly stepped completely and intentionally into the internet marketing spam arena. I only bring this to your attention so you can learn from their mistakes. And Loren makes it clear that he’s not launching an all out attack on Quintura either when she states:

… I would like to say that I do not intend for this post to be an attack on Quintura Search, just a review of their questionable blog marketing tactics to date and how they can improve on their strategy by building a trustworthy relationship with bloggers and the search community.

The key point that Loren addresses is the comments Quintura’s blog marketing team has been posting to blogs all throughout the search engine optimization industry are as he puts it, “spammy.”

I found it especially funny (or sad, depending on your view) as I read the comments Loren highlighted — Quintura’s blog marketing people had obviously at least scanned the posts they were submitting comments on. But none-the-less they still leaned way over into spam comment territory anyway. It almost seems like there was a combination of a self-promoting spam approach combined with a poor understanding of the English language. At any rate, I seriously see that you can learn a lot from this powerful case study.

If you’re in a hurry, the summary of the story is stated clearly by Loren:

The moral of today’s Quintura Blog Marketing case study is to view blog comments as a personal and intimate part of a site’s community, where readers can respond to a story with additional view and thoughts. Tarnishing the opportunity to speak your mind or even a useful product in a comment can lead to a negative reaction by the site owner or community bloggers.

But don’t just rely on these summary points. Loren has done a great job of laying out all the details and history of the Quintura story. His hard work deserves a thorough read. It could mean avoiding some serious pain and costly mistakes in your business blogging endevours! Check out the full business blog marketing mistakes story here.

Learn how to unleash the maximum marketing power of business blogs, podcasts, and RSS (in any industry, profession, or niche) with Marketing With Business Blogs™.

John-Paul Micek is a published author and weekly columnist for the business section of the Honolulu Star Bulletin. He’s known as the “Click-and-Mortar Business Coach” by business owners around the world thanks to members of the Business Owners Coaching Club™.


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