Shout It From The Rooftops With Mini-Windmills And Blogs

The mayor of New York City proposes putting windmills on city bridges and on rooftops to help supply renewable energy to the city in the form of wind power.  Neighbors worry about having unsightly wind turbines on street corners, but the city’s director of the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability reassured a New York Times reporter that you can make them (the windmills) so small that people think they’re part of the design.

Business owners on a budget can learn a useful lesson from Big Apple.  Just like the city of New York, businesses need to generate marketing power.  The cost of extensive print advertising and direct mail campaigns can be daunting for businesses struggling to grow market share in today’s economy.  What’s needed is wind power to propel new customers and clients to the business without the owner needing to make extensive and inflexible upfront financial commitments.  In business marketing, blogs can serve as the parallel to what New York is calling eggbeater-like wind turbine models.  Blogs are small, shorter and more centered around just one idea than e-zines or newsletters.  Like the proposed rooftop mini-turbines, which require less wind force and less set-up time than their standard-sized counterparts, blogs require less of business owners than major advertising and marketing thrusts.

Blogs are informal, friendly, conversational, and, because new material is posted frequently, blog posts tend to be more up-to-the-minute. Blogs can link to other blogs and web sites, turning mini-power into maxi-power, and increasing exposure to the search engines.  As blog expert Denise Wakeman enthuses: Search engines love blogs!

Mayor Bloomberg is trying to reduce New York City’s dependence on a power grid that caused big blackouts.  He’s thinking small; eggbeaters on the roof. Businesses trying to reduce marketing costs while increasing marketing power might do well to think small, too.  Blogger on the roof, anyone?