Integrating New Marketing Technology

Blogs, podcasts and RSS are all the rage in marketing circles, but sometimes you've got to remind folks just why that is. In my book, new technology for new technology sake can be a waste of time or, at least, a distraction if there is no marketing payoff in its use. For some, seeing the benefits of blogs and podcasts is hard when they are viewed as individual marketing tactics. No, for me the beauty of most of this new marketing technology comes from your ability to use it to integrate and more efficiently distribute marketing mediums, messages and strategies you are currently promoting. I ran across this very powerful example recently. Jerry Boutcher runs a title company and hosts a local radio show to, in part, promote that business. (The radio show also happens to be a great forum to promote the benefits of working with several well chosen strategic partners.) The format of the radio show is primarily a real estate question and answer kind of thing. Over the course of a year or so of doing this radio show, a lot of questions get asked and answered. Recently, Jerry added both a blog and a podcast site in order to publish what amounts to an encyclopedia of great real estate questions and a ready backlog of radio shows that also provide great content. The ability to repurpose this content and create another channel for their marketing message is a very powerful use this new marketing technology.