Online marketing communications are cost-effective, quick to implement, and give you immediate, measurable feedback at the click of a mouse. It’s no wonder more and more corporations – large and small – are turning to Web sites, blogs, micro-blogs, and other social media.

A common mistake, though, is to just take your print materials and drop them onto the Internet. They simply don’t translate, and here’s why:

•    People have no time – they are trying to do three times as much in the same time, just like you are
•    People have no attention span – they want access to answers immediately, and the Internet has trained them to expect that
•    People have no tolerance – they  know they can click somewhere else in an instant if they’re dissatisfied or disinterested

So before you go online with your 8-page white paper or even your 3-page brochure, consider these three tenets of writing for the Web:

1.    Make it quick – Make one clear point, support it and get out of there
2.    Make it relevant – Know the answers your customers are looking for and don’t clutter your message
3.    Make it good – Do whatever it takes to deliver high-quality online content

“Blog fade” is an expression used to describe the fading enthusiasm for a blog; posts become less and less frequent until the blog is finally left sitting idle collecting pixel dust.

It’s happened to the best of us. We start out of the gate with a plan to blog twice a week, weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly. The blog was so easy to set up, we launch right in.

And it’s precisely because blogging is so immediate and accessible that we sometimes push it back in favour of more pressing tasks like, oh, I don’t know, taking care of clients! We figure we can always jump in there and put up a blog post; we’ll get to it later.

As part of a broader marketing communications strategy, well-written blog posts will improve your search engine rankings, attract traffic to your website, and reinforce your credibility as an expert. You may also use them to get a conversation going with your clients, prospects, team, employees, vendors, suppliers or other stakeholders.

When you don’t post regularly, you’re losing out on all of those benefits. But not only that – you’re also sending a subtle message that you’re not around anymore. People surfing the Web are hungry for information. They want more and they want it now. As brilliant as it was, the post you wrote last month is ancient history.

Have you ever heard the expression, “How you do anything is how you do everything?” When people look through your blog and don’t see any recent updates, they may start to wonder if you’ll “fade away” in other areas of your business as well.

Over the last few years, the Internet has created a profound transformation in the world of marketing. I’m not talking about Google, Technorati, YouTube, FaceBook or even the industry’s latest darling – Twitter. I’m referring to something much more fundamental, and far more precious to marketers: the diminished attention span of our prospects and customers.

Here’s the thesis. Just five years ago, Web surfers still enjoyed engaging in extensive online research before making their purchasing decisions. Now, those days are gone. Most of us feel so overwhelmed by the vast amount of information we have access to, and the ever-increasing directions it comes from, that we’ve basically stopped processing that data. This is information overload at its zenith. Customers and prospects have so little time to make informed purchasing decisions that they are simply opting out of making any decisions at all.

For marketers, this creates one heck of an objection to overcome. If our prospects feel uncomfortable making intelligent decisions, it’s high time we introduced a new way to engage them in the decision-making process. We call it the “Easy Button”, and our experience with it is showing some incredible results in practice. More on this in my next post.
Welcome to the Attention Age.

When you’re trying to simultaneously manage 17 initiatives that all have a deadline of yesterday, it’s hard to keep track of current marketing best practices. How can you maximize the effectiveness of your print communications? Are leading companies even still using print? Should you be producing podcasts, hosting webinars, posting videos on YouTube, buying Google AdWords?

Clearly, the strategies you adopt need to align to your corporate objectives and your budgetary constraints. But there are some quick steps you can take to glean industry best practices:

Build your network – Find other marketing professionals via your professional associations, alumni group, connections through family and friends, service groups, or networking services, like LinkedIn. Visit their Web sites and check out their client lists. Get an introduction and interview them about where they look for advice and trends. Share your own resources as well, to strengthen these new alliances.

Read the want ads – Study job descriptions for marketing professionals, particularly the skill sets, responsibilities, and best practices that are stated outright as well as between the lines.

Consult with specialists – Have a chat with senior corporate marketers who are in the business of staying ahead of the trends. Look for people with hands-on experience, as well as training and certification in the specialty areas that most interest you, such as online marketing or search engine optimization.

If you or your employer are having trouble with the idea of spending time on this research, remember that your company is in danger of being left behind if you don’t. Getting up to speed on the newest and most effective marketing practices is a far better use of your time than ploughing forward with outdated campaigns just for the sake of getting done what you’ve always done.

You will be more valuable to your company and in a much better position to advance your career.