Banners on Blogs = Media Planners in Soup Lines

I came across an article in this months issue of OMMA regarding advertising on blogs.

I don’t care what technology you use to tie-in the banner placement to the content, this doesn’t stand a chance of being a relevant Internet marketing channel for banners. It’s applying mid-90s banner and media planning mentality (which by the why is proven to know longer be terribly effective in its previously successful channels) and applying it to a 2005 Internet marketing channel. This is an example of one trick pony media planners who haven’t been paying attention for about 10 years and are on some desperate and pitiful crusade to “Save The Banner”.

There is a need a way to monetize blogs for the blogger and simply giving kick backs to bloggers just won’t work – the blog readers will likely sniff out the corruption. Full sponsorship might make more sense if there is a relevant tie-in. For example, I write an Internet marketing blog so maybe someone like OMMA could potentially sponsor the site for their OMMA East and West events (if anyone from OMMA is reading this I accept cash, check and money orders). This could include mentions (such as a weekly update as the event’s schedule evolves), banners, the OMMA logo in my posts, text link from the home page, etc. (postings to my friends list and groups would probably be too spam-like so I think I’d lay off that). I don’t think my readers would be put off if I shilled something like this as long as:
a) It’s totally relevant and ties in well to their reason to reading my blog in the first place
b) I disclose that I’m on the take
c) I reserve the right to maintain an even keel (if OMMA does something stupid, I’m not responsible if I choose to blast them for it)

From an advertiser standpoint, turning blogs (or in a larger picture community building, of which blogs are merely a subset) into a viable marketing channel is a totally organic process. With blog monitoring tools and external link identification tools it’s easy to find out who the players are. I did a project for a large telecom product and we found that the bloggers hated them. Why, because they never took their phone calls, responded to their emails, sent them information, or otherwise acknowledged their existence. Just reach out to them. Find out who they are, give them an easy way to communicate with you (like a Bat Phone – or a Bat Email address as it were), offer to put them in touch with members of the product team, or any other number of sweet hook ups not available to the general public. This doesn’t guarantee glowing posts about your company or product but more often than not is an effective way to develop brand champions.