Question 1: So why is a blogging platform at a conference focused on email?
Answer 1: Email is a great tool for retention --- nurturing those relationships with prospects and customers that you have "met". But how are you acquiring NEW prospects online? Hopefully, the answer is by winning search...and a great way to not only win search, but engage readers is through a corporate blogging strategy. There was some great conversation during a session this morning (titled "Introducing SAM: Search and Email...check out the picture above) --- it seemed as if everyone in the audience had mastered one or the other; either they had their email marketing panned out or their search strategies...but the whole idea of integration between the two was lacking for most which leads to some huge opportunities for using information from your blogs (analytics, conversions, etc.) into a traditional email marketing campaign that you can now further segment and target and in turn get that increased response/click through rate.
Question 2: Why not just use Wordpress?
Answer 2: I think the best answer to this question is that Wordpress/TypePad/etc. were not built for business...think about it --- these tools were founded on the premise of citizen journalism and thought leadership; not a true business blogging strategy. Check out this post by Ali Sales from this fall that really addresses the issue of why 'doing it yourself' isn't always a good choice.
More to come from the EEC...
