Seth Godin has a great blog.. despite my disagreeing with his "Limits of Meta" post from last week.  He's published various books on marketing, and has an amazing knack for simplifying concepts.

His recent post titled "Are they ready to listen?" talks about the concept that most marketers forget:"is my audience ready to listen to what I'm telling them?"

I really like this concept, and totally agree that it's vital to a business's communication with potential customers. 

This can be related to all facets of life.  For example, I went to a concert on a Sunday night in Indianapolis recently.  The bands were all talented, and the promoter worked hard to flyer the city and get the word out.  But, people don't want to go out on a Sunday night... regardless of how good the act is.

The same thing applies to business, as Seth points out: "The tragic mistake of demographics and media planning is that they overlook the single most important issue: is the person you're talking to ready to listen?"

Guess what??  The web has changed marketing. Search engines give you (a company) the power to LISTEN, instead of shout at prospects with traditional forms of media... hoping they are ready to hear you.  Business blogs allow you to be found easier in Google, engage readers with relevant, conversational content, and convert them.  Simple as that.

Easy blogging software allows this process to happen with little effort.  Start creating content today, and spread those two ears out over the internet.  Now, you can sit back and listen... When people WANT you to talk to them, you'll be there. 

To see this in action, Google "blogging solution", and see what the top 1 or 2 result (out of 11 million) is in the organic results.