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Product category: Web measurement, analytics
News Release from: WebTrends | Subject: blogging
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial Team on 02 April 2008

To blog or not to blog?

Conrad Bennett, technical services director at marketing intelligence and web analytics specialist WebTrends, discusses why a blog is worth serious consideration.

In early 2007, WebTrends launched a survey to ask businesses which marketing techniques they were using on a regular basis, and found that only 5 per cent used blogs as a communication tool, and 78 per cent had never used them at all So although blogging as an online activity has grown rapidly among everyday internet users, with forecasts predicting that the number of bloggers will peak on reaching an impressive 100 million, the same dramatic upsurge seems not to have taken hold in the business world

However, blogging is much more than a "nice to have" in business today - whether you're a growing SME or a corporate behemoth.

Corporate blogs have become increasingly effective communication tools in or on behalf of a corporate community.

Conversely, more businesses are paying greater attention to what those 100 million consumer bloggers are saying about them.

A dissatisfied customer airing negative views can damage reputations faster than Gerald Ratner can call his own jewellery crap.

There are of course inherent dangers in sharing personal views over the internet, and a measured level of insight is crucial.

The attendance record in the Waitrose boardroom was recently exposed in a blog by chief executive Mark Price.

Capitalising on his food-loving image, the blog started on the grocer's website after Christmas to catalogue his struggle with weight gain and to cross-promote Waitrose foods as he describes his calorie intake.

One entry muses that he "fleetingly thought" about exercise "but thought better of the idea when it struck me that more of my colleagues on the Waitrose board are off sick with sports injuries than anything else.

"Three weeks here for knee surgery, one week there for achilles tendonitis, another few days for a sprained ankle".

Price's efforts - supported by commentary from a Waitrose nutritionist - demonstrate how a blog can deliver product messaging without becoming impersonal and 'salesy', and follows less than successful executive blogging efforts by the likes of Carphone Warehouse co-founder Charles Dunstone.

Last year he gave up the blog that was started to promote his broadband offering but subsequently became a running apology for poor service.

More successful is Reuters boss Tom Glocer - although his filing is sporadic.

Which brings us neatly onto one of the most important considerations when it comes to belting up and launching yourself, and your business, into the blogosphere: if you're going to use blogs, they need to be done properly.

The key is to use them to drive engagement and involvement with your business, products or services.

To do that, they need to (preferably) be interesting, useful and most importantly regular.

Visitors like the idea of the 'inside track' they can get from a blog, but it needs to be more than just fluff, and must be updated consistently.

Nothing kills engagement like content that is not posted on a predictable schedule.

Your first port of call when contemplating a business blog is to examine closely your reasons for doing so.

While it's possible that for some it could be a case of the devil making work for idle hands, that's an unlikely prospect for most of us, so ensuring that you're doing it for the right reasons and in turn getting value from it is essential.

There are a number of factors to consider, from what makes a good blog to what you can do about negative consumer blogs.

However the first question to ask is: "Why blog at all?" and to answer that it is worth discussing the different types of blogs you may be considering.

Business blogs fall into two broad categories.

Internal contributors: these are blogs where the content is generated by individual(s) in your operation.

Intended as a communication tool with the outside world, they provide a controlled environment in which to establish a closer and/or less formal relationship with your customers and prospects.

Many organisations under-use the inside knowledge of their staff, which can be both extensive and interesting to others.

Customers (and prospects) tend to react well to more 'human' and informal communication methods.

Given due consideration, your blog could become a great vehicle in communicating the latest product you have introduced for example, and to request honest feedback from customers on whether the 'new, improved' version really does clean better than its predecessor.

The obvious benefit of using insiders to generate the content is that of easy editorial control - you get to choose the subjects, frequency, and length.

The downside of this is the risk of appearing too formal or stilted.

At its heart, blogging is intended to provide a simple publishing forum for all, and it's important not to lose sight of this.

External contributors: this is where you provide an environment where your customers can blog about you, and your products etc.

Is anyone scared yet? It's understandable that businesses are nervous about opening up to this kind of feedback, but fortune favours the brave and this is a good way to create a community feel, by soliciting and encouraging contributions directly.

The benefits here include free content and publicity, and a genuine platform for the discussion of your brand.

You can also get rapid feedback on everything from new campaigns, services and products, to the state of your website - and all straight from the customer's mouth (well, keyboard).

The downside comes with the considerable time and effort required to monitor and control the content.

Do you allow anyone to post, then edit or delete posts after the fact, or does everything get approved before it gets uploaded? So having taken the decision to create and update a blog, you need to consider one of the most obvious, but often overlooked, points which is "What response do you want from your readers?" In this respect, blogging is like any other form of marketing communication and in many ways should be treated as such.

Most campaigns (and I use the term very loosely here) are designed to drive a call to action.

These may be very varied, and some may be considerably softer than others, but the best of them should be measurable, and blogging is no exception.

One of the challenges with blogging is that depending on what subjects are covered, the call to action may change with every post, or even in the post.

Are you trying to drive visitors to your main website? A product microsite? A site that has just posted a favourable review? Or are you just trying to drive overall brand awareness? All of these things are measurable, to a greater or lesser extent, but the key here is the same as for any other type of marketing campaign.

When planning the initial campaign, you should consider HOW it will be measured and what the success criteria will be.

For example, a blog post regarding a new product or service may be expected to drive additional visitors to the section or microsite, with a (hopefully) subsequent increase in conversions, conversions being anything from sales of products, or sign-ups to your newsletter.

As the site owner, only you can really decide how much more (or less) likely a conversion will be compared to, for example, the headline in your weekly customer email, a standard internet banner ad, or a paid search keyword.

And of course the length, content and quality of the blog posting, will affect how well it resonates with readers and, of course, how many readers you have in total.

If you're using the right web analytics application at this point of course, you should be able to compare the results of all of the above and test whether your hypothesis was correct.

This can then be used as the basis for what should be an ever-evolving acquisition and conversion strategy, designed to find the most cost-effective combination of marketing methods for your business.

If you're doing it correctly, hopefully blogging should be in that mix.

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