Why corporate blogging works, according to Hugh Macleod's Gaping Void

Hugh nails it... and with a cool cartoon to boot. (© Hugh Macleod). He divides your marketing into two parts, using an inner and outer circle.

1. The "internal conversation" your company is having with itself (circle A).

2. The "external conversation" your company should be having with, er, customers (circle B).

The membrane between these two areas should be porous enough that they are "aligned." I.e. you're listening to your customers and talking back to them about stuff they care about. In other words, you (your company) and your customers are talking about the same thing.

And... corporate blogs can enable this conversation. Tony Dowler makes a good point, however. Blogs are not the only conversations you should be having with customers. You can still use "press releases, white papers, training courses and presentations."

Did you know you can order Hugh's sketches for the front of your business card? I'm a huge fan of his blog cards as he calls them.

Comments

[Yoram]

This is one of the most confusing graphical arguments I've seen in a long time. I understand the theory, but it's just really confusing.

[Tony Dowler]

The thing that really cheers me about the way Hugh describes the conversation is that when he talks about "aligning", he's talking about a process of give and take with respect on both sides.

Too many times I've been asked to help align customer thinking where
"align" means something more like "herd" - no respect for the customer at all.

[Debbie Weil]

Yoram,

What's confusing is the way he's depicted the "membrane." Think of "X" as the membrane between the company and the wider audience of customers, prospects, etc. Don't worry about the "Y."

[Yoram]

What's confusing (in a graphical sense) is that his labels of things include arrows, that seem to be piercing through lines, etc.