[epub] Re: Blogs as marketing tools?

["Stephen Neils" <sneils@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey all,

We've been building blogs (multi-directional communications) for clients for 
nearly 3 years, or since inception of blogger.com.

Clients love them, search engines love them, the general public loves them, 
and everyone abuses them. They're big with the press, but I have to tell you 
in my opinion, they're arguably near the end of their usefulness, or 
lifecycle.

I could blather about why, but who cares what I think, clients are moving on 
to RSS feeds in a big way, oftentimes either augmenting, or completely 
replacing their blogs.

For the last year to 18 months, we've moved on to converting quality blogs, 
with quality content and useful dialogue into hybrid RSS feeds.

Primarily in the areas of:
Customer Service
Technical Support
Customer Loyalty Programs

Here's what we found to be of benefit w/RSS feeds over the last year:
-Intense customer focus of the medium. 
(once you ask for the RSS, and its of value, you stop surfing the mother 
ship, or the corporate website.)
Obviously this has big UP and Down slides if you're the marketing manager 
with an interactive budget to guard.

-Intense customer support
(Just like the early days of the web, customers need a great deal of hand 
holding to understand the nuances of how to install, and use RSS feeds)

-Intense ROI
Quik case study of a large nation-wide automotive parts distributor who 
feeds competitive price changes/notifications on a need to know basis to 
their independent owned customer base.
Results: Mucho increase in daily sales recorded on distribution days, both 
in terms of volume AND dollar amount per order. In the last six weeks, we've 
tested a slick process that allows the recipient to include and manage the 
RSS feed into their Outlook in box just like email. Blending familiar 
technology with funky new technology.

Bottom Line:
We still support and service Blogs, but not if an RSS feed is applicable.



Stephen J. Neils
President & CoFounder
AbsoluteBusiness LLC
Milwaukee US
London UK
414.278.7474
mailto:sneils@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Build a website, Build a Business
www.absolutebusiness.net


-----Original Message-----
From: "Terry Matlen, ACSW" <terrym@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Epub Discussion Group <epub@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:19:26 -0600
Subject: [epub] Blogs as marketing tools?

> Hi all,
> 
> Is this the proper list to ask opinions on the use of blogs as a
> marketing
> tool?