1. What would you say is your “claim to fame"? At this moment in time, it appears to be my passion and knowledge of how to use blogs as a marketing strategy.

2. What do you enjoy most about the work you do? The opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects with some great people.

3. What was your first year in business like? Stumbling about testing concepts; trying to find the right voice and direction that would differentiate Bloomberg Marketing from the maddening crowd and provide value to clients. Lesson learned: it’s a continuous challenge.

4. What is the most unique aspect of your business? Recently, we added a new offering – blog consulting and have created a process to help clients integrate this exciting tactic into their marketing plans.

5. From where do you draw inspiration? Would it sound corny to say my dad? My dad was one smart dude. Much of how I look at business reflects what he taught me. Treat your customers and employees right. Do business with people who you respect and who respect you. Give more than 100%; especially important in a service business when your reputation is critical.

Walks on the beach and drawing inspiration from nature and art help me reflect and discover new ideas. Also, Max, my Westie pup, makes sure that I get a little playtime every day…whether I want to or not!

6. Tell me a little bit about your website(s) – why you developed one and how it has increased your business? With the launch of Diva Marketing Blog we have two websites. Bloomberg Marketing was developed, not as a commerce site, but to increase our credibility, awareness and to provide value-add to customers and prospects through links, articles and information.

Diva Marketing Blog is an alter ego of Bloomberg Marketing. Our goal was to provide marketing tips and ideas in a fun but sassy, savvy style.

In keeping with the philosophy of the blogosphere, it offers a more personal look at what “Toby” is passionate about vs. the who-what-why-how of the Bloomberg Marketing site. The comment section offers immediate feedback and helps build relationships. Another benefit is the huge lift in rankings from the search engines.

7. How do you market your site? Marketing both sites are interwoven with other marketing strategies. Of course, the urls are on business cards and email signatures. Both sites include links to the other site. However, as with many small businesses, networking is one of our key strategies including speaking at conferences, conducting workshops and writing articles which offer opportunities to promote the website and blog.

The lift in search rankings from Diva Marketing Blog also serves to increase traffic to the website.

8. What’s the best advice you have ever received about website development? Develop to the lowest common denominator.

9. What are some of the trends you are noticing in your industry? Blogs are gaining in acceptance as a marketing strategy faster than even I anticipated. Companies are testing new ways to use blogs for example, incorporating commerce, using a company’s icon as the “voice” of the blog and soliciting customer feedback on product development.

Companies are adding monitoring the “blogosphere” to their public relations clipping/ environmental scans.

As blogs gain in popularity, ads on blogs will continue to compete with website ads.

RSS, a technology that syndicates website content, is heating up. Not only for blogs but for ezines (email newsletters) and website content.

Also keep a watch on Podcasts – audio files in mp3 format that you can download to a website and on then feed to your iPod or mp3 player. A few people are experimenting with video blogging.

10. What is the one thing you would like readers to know about you? About your company? We have a true passion for marketing and for developing creative strategies that … bottomline … make the cash register ring! Ooops that’s two.

(For more information on Toby Bloomberg or Bloomberg Marketing, visit www.bloombergmarketing.com and www.divamarketingblog.com).

© 2006 - Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 8 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-kī) – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” She can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com.