Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I had coffee with a young entrepreneur last week, she was telling me about setting up her business - choosing a web site URL, and a business name, getting set up to take credit cards… We got into a whole conversation about whether she’d be better off having a web site or a blog, since she’s starting a service taking people on culinary and wine tours around the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

I was reminded of our conversation by an article in ClickZ this morning called: “Do you need an actual website?”

In the article, Sean Carton, the author, defined a web site in this way:

“Most of us have these kinds of sites. They’ve got “about us” sections, “portfolio/case study/customers” sections, “services” sections, perhaps even “product” sections. They’re constructed as tightly integrated packages, designed to be browsed in a certain order. Information architects carefully craft the user experience. In many ways, they’re publications about our companies, designed to provide a positive brand experience fine-tuned to what we want to tell visitors about ourselves.”

Yep, that’s pretty much the status quo for most business web sites. And these sites aren’t easy to keep up by mere mortals; which is only one reason that I encourage people like Candace to look for alternatives like blogging software.

After years building and managing corporate web sites both personally (using a content management system (CMS)) and through other people (using a team of marketers and IT folks); I was recently introduced to Drupal and Joomla (open source CMS tools) for a couple of of my clients.

As a result, I have been forced to learn a tiny bit of HTML coding in order to work within it and rebuild their web site. The novelty of it wore off pretty quickly, but I’m glad I’ve had to learn it.

My point? Does Candace want to take the time it’ll take her to maintain a web site, or does she want to take the time to sell her services? She should start a blog.

Myth: A blog doesn’t look like a ‘real’ web site.
Fact: Have a look at Clip-N-Seal - a web site built on a blog engine that’s been so successful, it’s the only marketing vehicle Byron uses to sell them. There are a million other examples, but this is one that I personally know is true.

Myth: People looking for products or services want to find substantial businesses or brands to buy from, especially when they look online.
Fact: People want to find relevant products and services online. eBay and Craig’s List have proven that people are willing to buy products from folks they don’t know.

So who needs a web site anymore? Candace does. She just needs to create it using blog software. And forget getting set up to take VISA - she should get a PayPal account and be done with it. Then she’ll have the infrastructure set up to run a successful business…

… and she’ll have the time to go out and sell it.

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As I hit “publish” this morning on my very personal post about my parents, I worried a little that the few readers who expect to hear about marketing and technology and such would be (once again) rolling their eyes/ignoring their feeds from miss JLJ.

But about an hour later, my sheepishness went completely away when I received an email from an angel who was paying attention:

“Hello Janet Lee Johnson,

I am Linda Sue Johnson! I found your blog through a Google news alert for macular degeneration. I am sorry to hear about your parent’s health problems.

My mother had dementia. I found one thing that helped. Omega oils. If you go to Sam’s Club of CostCo, you can buy a month’s supply of LiquiMax for about $12.00. It contains many good nutrients including Omegas 3, 6, and 9. It takes like citrus and I like to put it in orange juice and/or 7Up. My mother had become very paranoid. We started giving her LiquiMax and within a week she turned into a happy five foot two year old.

As for the macular degeneration that my sister also has, in about 5-10 years there are two treatments that should be available. Stem cell treatment (from the patient’s own body) and Muller Glial Cell treatment.

In the meantime, please take good care of yourself. I have not had the chance to read your blog but I do know that watching parents age in poor health is very stressful.

Take care
Linda Sue Johnson”

Linda was kind enough to let me publish her email in entirety, as she said:

“Please feel free to use any information I give you to spread some good.”

Consider it spread, Linda, at least in my heart. Thank you for that.

It showcases two things to me:

1. the passion of people to help others
2. the power of persistent search

Put them to good use in your own lives - you never know what might turn out as a result!

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There’s a great conversation over on Shel Holtz’s blog about whether or not organizations should embargo news releases any more - especially when they’re opportunistically naive about sending such news releases to influential bloggers like Shel. In it, he summarized:

“The advisory included a press release, which also is embargoed until the 14th. Maybe I’ll remember to blog about it then, but don’t count on it. I’ll be on the road and will have undoubtedly received hundreds of additional emails by then. Chalk it up as a lost opportunity based on a poorly thought-out communication plan.”

The comments are extremely excellent, and the one I agree with the most is from CT More who wrote:

“I think that you have a point of how the communication landscape has rendered the rationale obsolete. It’s pretty much the same story, though, with copyright, intellectual property, and any other industry where the majority of higher-ups obtained the majority of their experience before the interwebs popped up. Oh well, they’ll learn in time.” (emphasis from JLJ)

The good news? Some forward thinking journalism schools are educating their students well. Take Robert French at Auburn University for example. He’s having PR pros collaborate on a student blog called Marcom Blog. My buddy Tara Smith participated there for years when we were at Marqui together.

I subscribe to both blog feeds to see how the world of journalism is changing. It gives me hope for the future of the craft. Let’s just hope the “aging higher-ups” at professional PR organizations and their clients learn to subscribe to their futures, too.

It’s a pretty simple thing to do - you, too can have education delivered to your inbox every single time someone cares enough to write a post. I use Attensa for Outlook - my client and partner in SEMPR - search engine marketing public relations - an emerging trend in PR practice. More on that here.

Robert, if you want to add me to your list of collaborators, I would love to join the advisory team (at least I hope I could keep up!). We’re doing some pretty innovative PR work out here in Portland. Meanwhile, glad school’s back in session for all of us! Thanks in advance for your mentoring.

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Here’s how I’ve been spending time recently. My apologies for the personal nature of some of this, but I figure if it can help others fight the good fight for their aging parents and the situations they face or people who take advantage of them, let’s go!

Anyone is welcome to steal phrases or entire sections of any of this - might as well share the time I’ve spend writing…

The aging population is more and more on my mind now, especially as I’m getting older right along with my parents. And while technology can help in many ways, we really have to rely on people to help in these situations. In example one (my mom and dad) I got immediate response. I just wrote example two this morning, so it’s too early to tell how that will play out.

My Mom and Dad - situation - failing minds and eyes.

Good morning.

I’m writing to connect with someone about exploring resources for my parents, who live in Longview.

Mom is 84 and dad us 83. Mom is blind (macular degeneration) and dad is battling dementia which seems to be getting worse. Other than that, they’re both relatively happy and healthy, it seems.

Read more »

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So here’s what I’ve been thinking about since 3:30 this morning, and what made me finally get up at 5:15 to research:

Mom and dad, 83 and 82 respectively, becoming more and more dependent on each other and us kids.

Am I crazy to get up and write an email to some anonymous person in Cowlitz County describing the need we have to get some help for them?  We’ll see.

Love you, mom and dad… Off to work now, already tired.

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