A post by Janine Popick, CEO at Vertical Response, on 10 things you should have on your marketing to-do list for 2008 reminded me of the importance of focus when blogging, sending your email newsletter (ezine) or any other customer-focused communications.

Her first item says,

1. Use a Calendar – iGoogle has a great one where you can use alerts to remind you to write your copy and send your communications. Bonus? You can also share it with others so that they know exactly when you’re planning to launch.

I’ll amend Calendar to Editorial Calendar. Unless you write current events types of blogs or ezines then you should develop a publication plan that details what you’ll write on, when and how often. The narrower you can focus your communications the easier it will be to target the interests and needs of your most important customers. You’ll also have an easier time attracting the attention of search engines for the areas in which you have the greatest expertise (assuming that those are what you’re writing on). What a vicious circle, eh? Better search engine placement = more customers. Not a bad pay-off for introducing a little discipline into your communications.

Use analytics to track the response to your topics and fine tune your message based upon the attention paid by your visitors and subscribers. Services like Vertical Response for email communications and Google Analytics for web site visitor analysis can be invaluable in helping you determine what matters – and what doesn’t – to the audience your trying to reach.