Fiona, the Marketing Manager of a major hotel group often phones the IT department to complain when her mouse is faulty, her PC is running slow or the printer runs out of toner.  At the same time the IT department are bedding down extremely complex routing traffic shaping protocols to ensure that voice data gets higher priority over email across their wide area network and that the company infrastructure is free from Trojans, a threat that could collapse the entire group infrastructure within moments.

Fiona has no idea of the level of complexity and commitment the IT team has to put into keeping the business running.  She never calls to congratulate them on keeping the key company infrastructure running for 365 days without fail.  The IT team is as important to a business as oil is to an engine.

Stuart works in the IT department.  Often distracted by being called away from his complex world to perform tasks for the Marketing department.  He views their efforts as little more than spending big budgets on pretty pictures. “Anyone could do that job!” claims Stuart.

Stuart doesn’t see the effort that goes into creating the stories around the pictures, the long hours spent on exhibition stands, the detailed review of website content and customer journey planning needed to turn a prospect into a customer.  Marketing is the water needed to make the business live, grow and prosper.

Internet Marketing requires both oil and water.  It’s an odd combination, as they don’t readily mix. Often we make the mistake of outsourcing Online Marketing decisions to IT experts and frequently make the mistake of having traditional Marketing experts telling us what is technically achievable.  To create a successful online marketing strategy, add three-quarters water to one-quarter oil.

YES: If you can passionately articulate something that both you and your customers care about.  If your passion is about politics, sailing boats or saving small puppies and it corresponds with your line of business, then blogging and engaging with those like minded will enhance the likelihood of you being talked about, your influence becoming policy or donations coming in to help save more puppies.

NO: If the only thing you can blog about is what you had for breakfast or the new wallpaper in your office.  Because you want to talk doesn’t mean others want to listen.  In my experience blogging is often added to an online marketing strategy for the wrong reasons, such as to try and enhance search engine position or to fulfill the desires of the CEO.  Unless the blog integrates with the other elements of your digital marketing strategy, feeds your email marketing, your tweets and enhances the readers understanding of your topic of expertise, then it is likely  your blog will have no following.

The Merchant

I have the great privilege to work with one of the worlds leading boutique hotels; The Merchant Hotel in Belfast.  When creating their new online marketing strategy we discussed the power of using stories to help in stimulating interest and how a story spreads much better than a low room rate or an interesting menu.

When the highly ornate and modernised Victorian building opened, it could have been marketed for its high impact visual features and quirky historic artifices but that wasn’t how the marketing/conversations started.  It started around it serving the worlds most expensive cocktail.

This is marketing genius at work.  The story of opulence or history is harder to pass on and not quite as interesting.  The worlds most expensive cocktail however lets us know exactly what sort of hotel you’re talking about and of course, we’re likely to tell someone else about it.