Yesterday I had a chance to be on an e-marketing panel hosted by the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), which is geared toward marketing people from architecture firms, engineering, or construction firms.

The first question to kick-off the panel was something to the effect of, "Why should organizations in our industries try to embrace new e-marketing mediums (blogs, email marketing, etc.).”  I know it sounds basic, but in my opinion, the first place to start when answering this question is by thinking about what you want to accomplish at the very highest level. The truth is, as creative as we marketing folks would like to think we are, the goal of our efforts really hasn't changed much in several, several years.

The goal is to build better relationships, whether it be starting new relationships, or nurturing current relationships, and the fruits of our labor are more business and repeat business for our companies. (For those of you who have read Email Marketing by the Numbers, you’ll recognize this as the same goal mentioned there). The simple truth is that new e-marketing mediums will help your organization accomplish the goal of better relationships.

Of course I'm going to focus on blogging specifically here. And that means that I'm going to focus on building new relationships as blogging offers a lot as an acquisition tool (whereas email is a great retention tool). Here is exactly how to start a great relationship:

Make it easy for someone to find you. You know that saying, “Great marketing is being in the right place at the right time, when the right person is looking for you.” So as a first step, you have to be present.

Be friendly. Make conversation. That’s the very opposite tone that most of our websites take. Yes, of course you want to be professional, but at the same time, you need to be human. Once someone has found you, they need to feel like they are being welcomed by a real person, not by a marketing department.

Provide valuable insight. This all comes down to relevance. Your prospects are more intolerant than ever to irrelevant information, and they’ll quickly move on unless your conversation with them strikes the right chord.

Offer to further the conversation. You’ve got to give someone a way to get in touch with you in the future –or better yet, for you to get in touch with them. If they don’t have a clear way to do so, this beautiful relationship is going to stop just as it’s getting started.

Okay, I told you this was basic stuff. So how, exactly, does blogging help with each step in starting a great relationship? You’ll have to read the next post, which will focus on blogging for search engine optimization and how easy to use blogging software like Compendium make it possible to quickly get those new relationships started and off on the right foot.