The Ten (not quite) Commandments of Marketing With Business Blogs and New Media - Part 2 » Advanced Business Blogging… A New Media Marketing Expose’

In part one of this business blogging and New Media Marketing series we looked at the first two ‘not quite’ Commandments of marketing with business blogs, podcasts, social networks, and any other type of participatory media.

They were:

1. Thou shalt be a market thinker, not a product pusher
2. Thou shalt participate and profit without becoming an evangelist

You can check out the full details on these two ‘not quite’ Commandments, why we say ‘not quite’, and also discover how you’re in danger of being hacked to pieces by a hoard of midget Ninjas if you ignore them — all here in Part One.

Speaking of midget Ninjas, a few of our coaching clients emailed me asking me to explain where midget Ninjas come from. (Come on guys and ladies, it’s OK to post your wise-@$$ comments here instead of emailing us. ) Anyway, as far as midget Ninjas, I know most come from a remote island chain in the Western Pacific. But if I were to reveal the exact location of that island, I’d be sealing both your and my fate at the same time.

Within minutes, a midget Ninja that’s been hibernating at the back of your refrigerator behind that 3 gallon jar of olives from Costco would awaken to snuff out your life. I don’t want that to happen to you or me, so unfortunately we’ll have to keep the midget Ninjas home location a mystery.

But what I can share with you today are three more ‘not quite’ commandments of marketing with blogs and New Media.

#3. Thou shalt keep thy marketing an ongoing conversation

Once a conversation takes place, a relationship is formed. You nurture that relationship and you build rapport. That rapport leads to trust, and eventually to influence and persuasion. Not influence and persuasion in the way those terms have been bastardized by political correctness, but in a good and healthy way that exists in any relationship.

A conversation can occur one-on-one. Or as we’re talking about here, one-on-one x 1,000, one-on-one x 10,000, or even more.

Seth Godin predicted this trend of leveraged marketing back in 1999, and most companies STILL haven’t gotten it.

Marketing is permission; it’s not interruption.

Interruption marketing (the way old-school advertisers and mass marketers are still trying to do it) doesn’t work anymore. Marketing is permission and permission is only gained after engaging and listening. If you haven’t read it already, Permission Marketing is a great little book where Seth explains this all in more detail.

The Cluetrain Manifesto is a another great book for exploring the concept of the marketplace being a conversation. It primarily focuses on large corporations and the corporate world. And it was written in an attempt to get corporate leadership to understand in their own type of language how they need to change and adapt to this new marketplace.

Just remember — the marketplace is a conversation. And conversation leads to connection, rapport, and trust.

#4. Thou shalt understand your target audience and honor their wants, needs, and desires

This is just good solid Marketing 101. But it’s surprising how many business owners don’t have a clear and specific description of who their target market is.

Your ideal audience of prospects and clients is dying to tell you what they want. But if you don’t know exactly who they are, you can’t use new media to make marketing easy.

Take the time to sit down and define your ideal customer. And don’t just focus on the typical demographic descriptors. Look at psychographics and emotional wants, needs, and desires. Draw as complete a picture as possible and finding members of your ideal audience already gathered together will be a comparative “breeze.”

#5. Thou shalt listen, learn, observe, and adapt

This is easier than ever before because the New Media Marketplace is so connected, dialog is so active in social networks, and search engines (both regular and blog-specific) are so well adjusted to the new LIVE nature of the Web.

There are two types of listening and observing: active and passive.

Active listening is like being at a party: you’re interacting, you’re engaged, and you’re in there.

Passive listening is like being behind the glass of a focus group: you’re observing the market or your target audience from a distance.

You want to practice both types of listening, as they’re equally important.

In the next installment we’ll take a look at the ‘not quite’ commandments of marketing with blogs and New Media having to do with participation, conversing in context, and linkability.

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John-Paul is a published author (Secrets of Online Persuasion, Morgan James Publishing/Ingram, Fall 2006) and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. He is a New Media Marketing Consultant working with business owners and politicians to leverage online influence and persuasion for more clients, more profits, and more votes. He and his partner have developed a simple scientific code for maximizing personal performance and influence online and off-line. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].