I know I should just let it go, but I can’t.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a screed here in reaction to an opinion piece in DMNews about how useless blogs supposedly are for marketing by direct marketing copy writer Robert Bly. Then, DMNews’s editor, Tad Clarke, followed that up with another commentary about the stink bloggers raised in response to Bly’s column, in which Clarke said Bly found "not one iota of proof" that blogs were "the next big thing in marketing."
Well, I’m not sure who suggested blogs were the "next big thing," but the idea that Bly had since found "not one iota of proof" that they were a good marketing tactic, after I’d given at least one iota if not several to that effect, got me all miffed again. So, I wrote Clarke a letter to the editor with further a piece of my mind. Not only has he not yet published it, but he didn’t even acknowledge receipt of it. So, rather than let a good rant go to waste, I offer it to you, below:
I know that Mr. Bly read my blog post in response to his article (because he emailed one of my friends about it, with his panties all in a twist).
Granted, I was juvenilely sarcastic, but such is the prerogative of bloggers. Nonetheless, I cited more than a dozen examples of companies and individuals making money off of blogs or at least credibly citing their marketing power, from Bill Gates and Jonathan Schwartz (president of Sun Microsystems) down to several one-man brands. What would convince him, I wonder? This is his idea of being open minded? Who exactly has he interviewed on the subject who is credibly an expert?
Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft; Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun Microsystems; Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman PR; Stephen Jurvetson, managing director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (leading Silicon Valley VC firm); Mary Meeker, senior analysist, Morgan Stanley; Alan Meckler, CEO of Jupitermedia; Charlene Li, principal analyst with Forrester Research; George Soros, billionaire financier and philanthropist; Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur; Seth Godin, best-selling author, marketing guru and former VP of direct marketing at Yahoo!; Jerry Michalski, president of Sociate and former managing editor of Esther Dyson’s Release 1.0: all bloggers and/or blog evangelists. All of these folks know less about marketing and the value of a dollar than Robert Bly?
No, blogs are not going to steal huge share of marketing dollars from traditional marketing tactics, but they don’t really need to in order to be effective, as they’re redonkulously cheap to operate. And granted, their best application may not direct marketing (despite a few examples I cite where they are being used effectively for that). I’m not aware that blog evangelists are claiming that’s what they’re best at. But they are good for many purposes in a marketing context, including brand evangelism/thought leadership (akin to Mr. Bly decision to advance himself as an "expert" by writing a column in your publication; "dead tree medium" was a joke he apparently didn’t appreciate), customer support, dynamic content for otherwise static site, Google fodder, and an opportunity to join in a genuine conversation with customers and prospects outside of the intolerable din of marketing garbage we’re all bombarded with every day (dare I say by the likes of Mr. Bly’s customers), which we’ve all been conditioned to ignore or at least treat with great skepticism.
Mr. Bly is presumably one of those died-in-the-wool DMers who sees the world in black and white: direct response good, all other marketing a waste of time. I don’t disparage direct response, but I believe that the way customers buy is a bit more subtle than that. I believe that trust in the integrity of a company is going to becomes ever more important to the bottom line in our media- and marketing-saturated world, which is exactly where blogs can be effective. He may want to stick his head in the sand and ignore the validation that companies like Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Nike, General Motors, Audi and countless other companies large and small have provided for the effectiveness of blogs because he feels personally threatened by them or whatever, but you’re doing a disservice to your readers to let him advance his evidence-free opinions on the subject without taking seriously the proponents of this burgeoning medium.
Bruner’s rant on why blogs make marketing sense
A couple of weeks ago, Rick Bruner, a well respected specialist in e-business strategy consulting and market research, posted to Business Blog Consulting reacting to an opinion piece in Direct Marketing News (DMNews) by direct marketing copy writer Rob…
Trackback by Real Lawyers :: Have Blogs — November 17, 2004 @ 2:33 pm
Your comment:
“Granted, I was juvenilely sarcastic, but such is the prerogative of bloggers.”
My response:
No, it isn’t. And that’s one thing I dislike about blogging: the inane assumption that it’s OK to be rude just because you are talking about a person behind his back instead of to his face.
One thing I like about a “dead tree” publication like DM News vs. a blog is that there is an editor — and he would never allow me to talk in his pages about you like you talked about me.
By the way, all the companies you name indeed make a lot of money — but all I questioned was whether there is a substantial direct dollar ROI correlation between sales and blogging.
Comment by Bob Bly — November 19, 2004 @ 7:26 pm
Rick – love your blog and as fairly new blogger have learned much from from you. Wanted to let you know that DM News did post a response to Bob’s article from a blogger – mine. http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=30982
Perhaps Tad chose to include it because my little blog is below the radar…I don’t know…doesn’t matter…what is important is that a blogger’s comments were posted in response. While Bob may still question the direct sales-to-blog relationship, the forum that blogs provide to debate the issue is validation in its self of a bigger picture…the power of blogs to create dialogues/communities…which lead to stronger customer relationships…which is showing us the money!
Comment by Toby — November 19, 2004 @ 11:01 pm
there is indeed a direct correlation, see this post
http://texturadesign.com/archives/000521.htm
Our market was built with a blog.
Comment by -b- — November 22, 2004 @ 9:25 am
Bob,
Yes, it is my prerogative to be sarcastic on this blog because it’s my blog, and having no editor is basically the whole point. And don’t be so sure I wouldn’t say the same to your face, particularly if we were on a panel together. I’m a bit of a jackass, and I also like theater.
Besides, you’re awfully thin-skinned. What’s the meanest thing I said about you? That you didn’t know what you were talking about vis-a-vis blogs? I have seen little evidence to the contrary so far, save your recent launch of your own blog, which I am quite pleased about (and not just in a gloating way; but mostly). Or that your web site is ugly? Sorry, man, but I speak truth to power. It looks like it was designed by your nephew in 1997. I mean, frames are like the trucker hats of web design, for cripes sake.
I made it personal because you pushed my button. I’m an evangelist for corporate blogs. You wrote a sarcastic piece saying that corporate blogs were a waste of time. But more than that, you were lazy about it. You didn’t present any evidence. So I sat down and spent a lot of time gathering evidence, and then you go on to further dis me, albeit indirectly, writing my friend (you didn’t think she’d forward me the email?) saying I was wrong in so many ways you didn’t know where to begin and telling your editor that you hadn’t seen “one iota” of evidence to change your mind, while never demonstrating that you were looking for any such evidence in good faith.
And again here in this thread you write “all I questioned was whether there is a substantial direct dollar ROI correlation between sales and blogging.” But what is your methodology for questioning that? Pie-in-the-sky speculation? I pointed to quotes from the presidents of Sun Microsystems and Jupiter Research saying they can attribute sales benefit to their blogs, not to mention the various direct-marketing model blogs I noted that are selling directly through their blogs. How can you respond to that with abstract skepticism? Are you actually picking up the phone and having people tell you it doesn’t work?
Comment by Rick Bruner — November 23, 2004 @ 3:09 pm
Your criticism of my Web site is subjective, which makes it kind of silly.
The only way to evaluate a Web site is to ask the question, “Does it achieve its goals?”
Since you have no idea of what the goal of my Web site is, and you don’t know the results it has generated, you are in no position to dis it — yet you have done so anyway.
We could have hashed all this out in the teleconference Deb Weil asked us to be on together, but you backed out. I didn’t — because I know my position is more sensible and defensible.
Comment by Bob Bly — November 30, 2004 @ 4:27 pm