More Monomaniacal Windbags Are Needed In Marketing

Stowe Boyd lists ten tips for corporate blogging, all very useful. What attracted my attention was Stowe’s last paragraph.

" I recently fired myself from an American Marketing Series on social media, because I sensed that a high proportion of the folks that were attending the seminars were approaching the whole idea of blogging tactically: "How little of this do I have to do to be doing an adequate job?" My problem is I only want to talk to people who approach the subject strategically, working backward to the various elements from an analysis of excellence. I bet that those who buy in on that approach will at least find an echo of their own thoughts in these recommendations, and the rest will simply think I am a monomaniacal windbag with too much time on my hands."

As the President of the Boston Chapter of the American Marketing Association I attended the AMA’s hot topic’s series in Boston last year, where I first saw Stowe give a presentation. Stowe’s description of himself ‘monomaniacal windbag,’ does come to mind when I recall that presentation.

However, when I read Stowe’s blog I see a serious businessperson who has a lot of passion for the marketing concept. I’ve worked around the web and web design companies for a number of years, and a lot of clients are looking for the quick fix in building a website or building a successful company. The reason Google is doing so well is that their model really does provide a better ROI than traditional ads, by only displaying ads to people who might actually be interested in the content. Most marketing people are not really following the marketing concept they are focusing on the short-term goals of meeting the monthly targets and less on building a product that people want to buy. That’s understandable because senior management wants sales from marketing people not product development. As a profession marketing professionals can only really succeed in the long run by thinking about strategic issues, developing a product that satisfies their customer’s wants and needs, efficiently and profitably, or developing a blog that has a content and blogger relations strategy that focuses on relevant content and dialogue with a community.

That’s why I regret Stowe left the AMA building, he understands what it takes to build a successful product, business and blog, and his type of leadership is needed.