Earlier this week, our internal media guru, Jessica Kleppang, pointed out that we would likely reach WebAttract’s 1,000th blog post before week’s end.  That certainly caused me to stop and reflect on all the work, and fun, I’ve had with this …

We created the WebAttract blog, and its corresponding LinkedIn group (now with nearly 1,000 members), in October 2009, and for the longest time, yours truly wrote most of the original content and brought in relevant news from other thought leaders to ensure that we had a meaningful post each business day.  Remember, now, that I also wore the sole sales hat during much of that time as well, so crushing out solid, relevant, expert content was a labor of love that I had to continuously ensure as one of our top priorities.  And, like so many marketing activities, I knew that measurable outcomes would have to be gauged over time, rather than day-by-day.

The point is that, from its earliest days, the WebAttract philosophy around promotion and marketing was this:  expose much of your IP within legitimate posts of useful content, and your business will grow over time as folks grasp your level of expertise in the field.  The blog and LinkedIn group, along with our videos on YouTube, white papers on Slideshare, case studies on Box.net, etc., were crucially important to us putting this philosophy in action.  And I can say, without equivocation, that it’s been an investment of time, effort and intellect well-spent.

Why?  Two reasons: 1) We’ve been guests on BtoB Magazine’s webinar series, as well as Omnovia, and on 4/27, we will be doing one with Citrix Online.  We’ve been guest speakers at a dozen trade events, including the Online Marketing Summit last month with over 1,000 attendees.  Expertise – projected!, and 2) We’ve closed AT LEAST one major deal ($100k+) which we can attribute to our LinkedIn/blog posts.  Doing the math, I guess that makes each post worth at least $100, eh?

Anyway, once Jessica arrived in December, I finally got some relief <g>, and now she’s front and center of our marketing/social media strategy for 2011 and beyond.  I can’t think of a better person to whom to pass the mantle!  Do look for me though on guest posts like this one, and in those times where the power of webinars stirs my passions to put “pen to paper”!

By Bret Smith, Principal
WebAttract, LLC