PowerBlog Review: DuctTape Marketing Blog Channel

Editor's note: This is the eighty-first in our regular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of business weblogs. This week's review is being guest-blogged by Lynne Meyer. Lynne Meyer, APR, is president of A Way with Words.

By Lynne Meyer

Duct tape is terrific because it's readily available, and it works!

So does the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel. The blog channel is a group blog or blog network, that latest of blogging trends that we have talked about here before. It is the brainchild of John Jantsch, a business marketing coach, author and founder of Duct Tape Marketing in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

We previously reviewed the Duct Tape Marketing blog when it was an individual effort of John Jantsch.

He developed his blog channel in June 2005 as an extension to his own initial Duct Tape Marketing blog. "I view the channel blog as an extension to our own blog in that it carries the same brand and still incorporates my blog as the jumping off point," John explains.

John explains that he initially started blogging because:

"I love to write and had been writing articles for publication for years. Blogging just sounded like a great extension of that. My goal is for this to be a place where small business owners come and find lots of valuable but simple tips."

The Duct Tape Marketing Channel says it is a network "featuring 9 of the best and brightest small business marketing minds." All nine are assigned to a specific area of content around small business marketing.

Networks of multiple blogs are becoming more popular because of the old adage "there is strength in numbers." It is easier to generate traffic where there are multiple writers, especially those with acknowledged expertise.

If you're at all familiar with the marketing blogs out there, you'll agree that John has, indeed, assembled an impressive group of bloggers for his Channel:

• Zane Safrit -- Business Life


• Georgia Patrick -- Customers Count


• Dan Janal -- PR Leads


• Troy White -- Word Wealth


• Martin Jelsema -- Buzzworthy Branding


• Jill Konrath -- Selling To Big Companies


• Don The Idea Guy -- The Idea Department


• Mark Beck -- Internet Marketing Unleashed

John has arranged things to make it extremely easy to check out what each person has to say about their topic. You arrive at an entry page that has each blogger's channel listed, along with name, topic, and even a photo of each individual blogger. "You can choose a blog from the list and start reading. Jump from channel partner to channel partner."

If you want the whole shebang, you can subscribe to the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel in one comprehensive RSS feed. Or, in common with a trend we have noticed recently toward specialized RSS feeds for specific portions of a blog, there are individual RSS feeds offered for each channel. That means you can subscribe with your favorite feedreader program to individual channels, rather the entire site, if certain topics interest you more than others.

There's good substance and style to the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel, and everything about it is convenient. The result is a wealth of great information for readers -- all within just a few keystrokes!

If you haven't already discovered the Duct Tape Marketing Channel blog, let your fingers take you there right now.