Promoting the Blog

Lots of things on the to-do list for this week. First and foremost, I have to work on promoting this blog now that I have a few entries.

Also, we're sending out our press release regarding the partnership we've forged with Writer's Digest to publish their competition compilation. Then we need to locate a contractor company to conduct follow-up on that release. We'll send it via our international syndicate, but also fax blast the local media with phone follow-up to try and secure interviews or exposure on newscasts for Outskirts Press.

Our full page ad in Writer's Digest is due, so we'll examine the results of the full page that ran in January and February's issue and make some adjustments. The February issue just came out, so the results will be preliminary. It's like throwing pudding at a donkey (?) -- soon, there will come a time when affiliate marketing is common place in magazines like it is online -- and soon thereafter, results oriented marketing like pay-per-click campaigns will allow more accurate assessment of marketing initiatives. Whenever I've tried to introduce these concepts to old-fashioned magazine advertisers, they shy away from it. Well, no wonder! They know advertising isn't as effective as their prices make it out to be.

Does anybody know the customer service number for Google and Overture. We spend an atrocious amount of money with them each month and we don't have a way to talk to a human being. I'll be anxious for MSN to launch if, for no other reason, they may have the incentive to offer better customer service. So far, they both suck, but they're a necessary evil. Unfortunately, they act as if they know and believe that second part. I'd love to take my business from them.

Daily Frustration: See above.

So also on the to-do list is finding that contact information and resolving some last minute web host migration issues that are affecting a few of our key word clicks. Also to be fixed is the affiliate and pay-per-click cookie tracking. The new site didn't like my cookie coding, so we have to resolve that ASAP. This will get the affiliates working again and enable us to track the keywords we're using on our PPCs.

Our new brochures will arrive in the mail on Thursday and we're conducting some direct marketing mailings to our prospect list and the SPAN membership file.

I'll also investigate other opportunities of SPAN to time an article in their newsletter with the receipt of the brochures. Our full page ad in their directory is being published soon.

PMA will probably have to wait.