Last January 19, MarketingProfs Publisher Allen Weiss sent me an email from his office in LA. "Hi Ann," Allen wrote. "Just want to confirm your interest in the blog concept...? Should be done within 7 days with a basic layout...." I wrote back from Boston within a few minutes, "Are you kidding...??? YES!" So began this blog....


The truth is, it took longer than 7 days to get it to lift off. Launching as we did on March 29, 2006, it actually took over two months to roll it to the ramp. So after a year in the blogosphere, I wrote an article in this week's MarketingProfs newsletter detailing the seven things I've learned. I encourage you all to read the full story here.
Here are some highlights:
1. Blogging is a high.... With a little sweat and elbow grease and a cadre of fabulous thinkers as contributors, this blog has enjoyed great success. We are No. 6 in the list of the Top 25 Marketing Blogs. Our weekly blog newsletter is mailed every Thursday to 8,500 readers. And our ranking in Technorati has climbed to 3,367, with links from close to 600 blogs.
2. ...except when it's a downer. Launching a blog may be as painless as getting hitched in Vegas, as my friend David Armano says. But like the actual marriage, the real work comes later. The truth is: Blogs really aren't widely read by marketers. At least, the marketers who subscribe to MarketingProfs. That's changing quickly as blogs gain credibility and exposure, but it's slow going.
3. I'm amazed at who I've met. Almost half of the people now writing for the blog, and many of the names in my inbox on any given day, are new blog friends I've made since last spring.
4. I know our readers better. Prior to the launch of the blog, I thought I had a pretty good sense of the MarkertingProfs audience of 200,000+. But a year into it, I have deepened that understanding. In other words: the blog has helped me do my job better, because I have a better sense of what my job actually is.
5. Blogging has made me a better writer. Like many writers, I have a particularly severe and unforgiving inner critic, which often made me give up a piece of writing before I'd really begun it. Blogging has helped unfreeze some of my creative concentrate.
6. Blogging begets a life observed. The very act of coming up with a regular supply of relevant blog posts forces bloggers to look a little more carefully at their life experiences, not necessarily to simply vet for post material but try to see the context and the larger meaning, the subtext and what's left unsaid, and the connections among experiences.
7. Finally: Bullet points are ALWAYS a good way to break up a blog post into bite-sized chunks!
So–in closing: A huge thanks to all of you who have been part of this blogging year. That includes all of the writers–a thousand thanks to you! –but also the readers, those who comment, and the wallflowers, too. You all make the Daily Fix the vibrant and alive place at it is.