Using Blog Software to Understand Real Content Management Needs

At first blush, blog software, designed for personal Web publishing, provides a limited subset of Web content management functionality. A look under the hood suggests blog software can help site operators understand the true scope of their content publishing needs, a prerequisite for effective vendor selection. [JupiterResearch]

I recently had a conversation with one of the speakers for the upcoming Jupiter Weblog event (John Lawlor) who originally brought the issue of Web log page ranking to my attention. One aspect that he pointed out was kind of interesting ? Weblogs are not about getting a specific OUT OF CONTEXT domain to the top of a Google. Rather ? he said that page ranking driven by Web logs has the greatest value for indexing content in a particular context and creating a greater likelihood of contextual discovery.

B2BMarketingBiz: How to Create a Series of Automated Follow-Up Emails to Convert Average Sales Leads into Hot Leads

The goal was to be able to perform regression analysis on the database to determine which marketing factors resulted in the best leads. Plus, each incoming lead could be scientifically scored as to if and when it was worthy of being passed to sales (or not.) [...]

[MicroStrategy's Director of Marketing Strategies & Lead
Development Fred] Richards learned [...] that a lot of otherwise perfectly-good leads simply weren't ready to be passed off to sales. They might be the right person at the right company ... but perhaps they weren't in a decision cycle at the moment, or they needed a lot more education before buying. [...] He and the direct response team developed dozens of different email messages that would be sent out in addition to the regular newsletter. It was enormously complicated to set up at first - but. with the wonders of automation, it would be easy to maintain in the long run.

Lead management is one of the tricky interaction zones between marketing and sales. Marketing might be tempted to send as many leads as possible to sales, for fear of losing prospects. But if these leads aren't properly qualified, expect sales reps to reject the whole system as unworthy of their time. This case study shows how a software vendor focused on when to send leads to sales.

All the following is from the Emerging Interest Newsletter. I'm presently doing some stuff in this area, looking at how the web, wireless and iTV can be integrated together within a campaign. This is nice follow up on yesterday's report on the TV Meets the Web Seminar.

Says here in the ABA Journal that Howard Bashman's blog, focussed on appellate law, gets 3000-5000 visits a day, which is a bit more than the one your'e reading now gets.

Thanks to Denise for the pointer.

By the way, Denise points out that we'll nearly all be missing D:all Things Digital, unless we chip in to send our best on-the-spot blogging appellate attorney.

Press Release: Jupiter Launches New Search Service; Releases First Report

Jupiter Research...today released the results of a survey confirming that search marketing will continue to be the hottest segment of online marketing into 2004.

"Seventy six percent of marketing executives that used search engine marketing rate it as more successful than banner-style advertising, and 64% plan on increasing their spending," said Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein.

[MarketingFix]

Good news for businesses starting a blogging program aimed at increasing their search engine rankings.

John Lawlor - Business Blogging Evangelist - Boca Raton, FL - 2003-05-27

Earthlink's New Spam Tech: Strains Out Non-Humans [MediaPost]

The general idea is that each time a subscriber gets sent an email, the message doesn't get delivered into the main in box until the sender responds to an Earthlink-sent confirmation message.

Call me an optimist, but Earthlink's new anti-spam "technology," just might work.

iMedia Connection: Elusive Reach II - The At-Work Audience

No medium can reach the at-work audience as consistently and comprehensively as online can. It's a fact - a simple fact that warns marketers to ignore the Web during office hours at their peril.

E-Mail Prevails As Preferred Biz Communication

An April study from Meta Group determined that 80% of business people around the world prefer to communicate at work through e-mail, compared to just 20% who prefer the phone. These findings are backed up by a similar study from AOL and RoperASW. Why is e-mail so popular in the workplace? [eMarketer]