Chicken or egg...

I'm not promoting this blog. There are so many ways to get this website out there (Technorati, using SEO, joining blogging communities), but I'm trying to not fall into a trap that I've noticed many marketers fall into:

We promote something before it's ready to be promoted.

How often are you in a planning meeting where the discussion turns from "what is the product or service that we're launching" to "let's plan the promotion for the launch"? I think this tends to happen because promotion tends to be the more exciting area of marketing (feel free to disagree in comments).

Here, to clarify what I mean, let me tell you where I've noticed this occurring in the past two weeks:

1) I was in a meeting where we were planning a webinar event for clients and prospects on a particular area of service. We spent five minutes on "what is the outline for the presentation" before we launched into "how we'll get people to attend the presentation".

2) In a planning meeting for an awards ceremony, we spent less than two minutes discussing what awards will be given out and how the selection/judging will occur. After that brief moment, we launched into discussions on the invitations, entertainment, and yes -- even the food for the evening.

I think I understand why this happens -- most people would say that the success or failure of the service, event, or product that is being planned hinges on how well we can get the message out to our audience. While I agree that's an important area to spend time on, I think we need to realize that promotion is not what maintains people's interest, it's the substance of what we're promoting. I can run an amazing promotion campaign that attracts 200 people to my webinar, but if the webinar itself doesn't meet the expectations of the audience, I'll start to develop a reputation of giving boring presentations and that will far outweigh any promotion campaign.

So with this blog: I'm going to wait and make sure that I have substance here so when people start to visit this site, my content will keep them coming back for more.