Secrets to Success Deborah Cole Micek and John-Paul Micek

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Helping your audience is a good tactic

LAST month, the ad agency for the state of Maine filed what not long ago would have been a crushing lawsuit against small-business blogger Lance Dutson. Instead, Warner Kremer Paino Advertising has issued an unconditional surrender. Score another win for David. Goliath once again underestimated the power of the blogosphere.

After widespread "new media" coverage by bloggers and podcasters, Warner Kremer Paino withdrew its suit which had alleged: "Dutson's [blog] contains numerous defamatory statements designed to blacken [our] reputation, expose [us] to public contempt and ridicule, and injure [us] in [our] business and profession."

All that Dutson had been doing was drawing attention to the fact that the state's payment of exorbitant rates for keyword placements in search engines was pushing out Maine's smaller business owners. If this were big companies against little guys, well, that would just be business. However, when a government spends taxpayer money to take away opportunities from its taxpaying citizens -- that's a problem.

Instead of paying lawyers, WKP could have handled the issue more effectively in the blogosphere. And, in the process, they would have had a good chance for the state's government to rebuild credibility with its small-business owners and taxpayers.

But as private attorney Jon Stanley (who helped defend Dutson) said: "The plaintiff failed to understand it's a new world. This is a textbook case of how blogs work. This result could not have come about without the blogosphere. Lance's defense team was put together through the blogs and pressure was brought to bear on WKP through the blogs."

In addition to the obvious win of David over Goliath, with the big guy underestimating the power of the blogosphere, there are persuasion principles at work here for your business, among them: Think laterally to get ahead.

Ask yourself, what are some little known facts that are or soon could be damaging to your target audience? How can you can educate and alert your audience to those facts?

When you focus on this and use new media marketing tools to get the message out, you can become a hero, too. The fact is, your audience will stand up for you when you've proven that you're dedicated to their interests. If you're disingenuous or try to use old-school marketing tricks instead of learning how to build relationships and market with the interactive new media -- your audience will see through it.

When you influence and persuade through your actions and passion, you'll be on the road to marketing successfully in the new media marketplace.