Social Media Domination

I don't.

Thinking that every visitor would be a perfect fit for our platform and strategy isn't a winning strategy.

Could every visitor benefit from Compendium Blogware? Of course - but internal goals, strategies, and resources may not align with a corporate blogging strategy. That will cost us more time in support, client management, and ultimately the client's success.

Ali (Corporate Blogging 101) and I spoke with a prospect last week that was double the size of our company and had about the same number of resources to build an online presence.

When asked, "How many inbound leads would make a corporate blogging strategy a success for your company?", the marketing director simply side-stepped the question and said that they didn't want to change what they were doing... even if it would prove more effective than their current strategy.

Really?

As a long-time marketer, I couldn't believe my ears. I was actually was getting a bit hot under the collar because I'm sure that business leaders above this employee's pay grade would probably disagree that implementing a more effective marketing strategy isn't a good idea.

Instead, Ali thanked the prospect for their time and hung up.

It was a great move and a learning experience for me. I hate seeing a prospect fall into the lost column but it was the right thing to do. This is a customer that probably would have never been successful using our platform since they were closing the door on every aspect of the strategy throughout the conversation.

That's an exceptional advantage of business blogging being a part of your overall inbound marketing strategy. At the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Conference in San Jose this week, a colleague asked me how any company can compete with big media on the Internet?

I told them that corporate blogging affords a company with the opportunity to pre-qualify leads through search by setting expectations with companies in your content. Every day you can speak about your client successes - and even their failures - and, over time, you begin to develop authority, a personality, and most of all - expectations!

Why would you want to compete with big media when you can grow your business exponentially with prospects who are already bought in to your strategy? I guarantee you the prospect we spoke with last week probably never read our blogs, downloaded a whitepaper, or spoke to our clients about the results we're driving their business!

I don't want every visitor to be a customer. I want every customer bought into our strategy and open to our consultation, to leverage our platform for maximum results. Those are the customers that are great to work with and the ones that are most successful in the long run.