Client Shout Out
Posted Sunday, November 9, 2008 by Jess Wehner
I wanted to highlight a couple of our newer clients to give an example of the variety of business's that use Compendium's Blogging Software and to congratulate these companies on writing lots and lots of content.

  • Luxury Index-  is an online marketplace where affluent internet users worldwide can buy, sell, rent, or list luxury goods and services.  I always enjoy reading their blog to read about the latest habits and styles of the "rich and famous".
  • US Watches- is a division of Specialty Retail Shops.  They sell watches online to people who are passionate about their timepieces.  They have a huge selection of watches on their website and lots of watch information on their blog.
  • Dr. Clue- provides team building solutions for corporations around the nation.  Specifically, they are experts at creating scavengar hunts that immerse teams in challenging, clue-solving adventures.

These companies do a great job of posting frequently.  They all get more than 2 posts up per week and I'm pretty sure if you asked- they'd tell you it's a pretty easy task to do.



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Congratulations Megan Glover on your 50th blog post
Posted Friday, November 7, 2008 by mikey mioduski
Working in Compendium's prestigious marketing department, I get to be "in" on the latest in the world of web and interactive marketing. Well guess what. I also get to be in on the latest internal news as well, and I got a meaty one, this literally just happened.

I was informed just minutes ago that Megan Glover, director of our marketing department, just posted her 50th blog post on this glorious friday afternoon. Lately we've been seeing trends indicating that blog content is directly related to traffic coming to your site. Because of our unique Compending feature, her 50 posts really count for much more than that.

Now having said that MG, will you please remove that awful green border from your profile picture!


HAPPY 50th BLOG POST Megan!





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A Belated Happy Halloween!
Posted Friday, November 7, 2008 by Lindsey Young
Halloween is my favorite holiday.  What's not to love?  The leaves turning, the air turning crisp, the feel of the holiday season approaching!  It's my favorite time of year.  And who can resist the dressing up!  And...being the animal lover that I am...dressing up my pets (see inserted photo).  I know, I know, a fine line between cute and cruel, right?

A blog can be so many different things, and today instead of being informational about blogging for business, I'm adding that "human" side to our marketing and making it personal!  I have started reading all of my clients blogs on a pretty regular basis.  I find that the ones I enjoy reading the most are the ones they add a personal touch to.  I know that I can learn about their business, but I enjoy learning about them as well.  Behind these company blogs are what really matter...the employees who write them. 

So on that note, I hope everyone had a great Halloween - from everyone who stayed home and handed out candy to the trick-or-treaters, to people like me who go all out, dress up and still act like I'm a kid!  Have a great autumn everyone!



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Politics and Marketing: Motivating the committed
Posted Wednesday, November 5, 2008 by Eric Romer
Is it more effective to persuade the uncommitted, or motivate the committed?

This question came to mind while reading Seth Godin's insightful post "Marketing lessons from the US election".  He approached the election from a marketer's point of view, not from a partisan perspective.  There were lessons learned, and new techniques used in this year's election that will be studied for years to come.  However, I just want to focus on his concept of "motivating the committed" as a marketing strategy.

It reminds me of an exercise that marketing consultant Gerry Tabio took me through while I was working in radio advertising sales.  His point was that traditional "demographics", in which most agencies and big national advertisers base their buying decisions (Adults 18-34, Women 25-54, etc.), are too broad.  An 18-year-old and 35-year-old are two very different people, with different behaviors and buying patterns.  You can't talk to them like the same person, which is why niche marketing and permission-based marketing are more effective.

He also pointed out, similar to Seth, that you can't persuade the uncommitted.  And if you can, it's a much harder battle than motivating those that are interested.  One of my favorite examples of this is sushi.  We broke a group of 18-34 year olds into three groups:
  1. Eat sushi at least once a month
  2. Eat sushi rarely
  3. Never have, never will
If you ask someone in group #3 who does not like sushi, or never intends to try it, what would motivate them to eat it regularly?  The answer would be "nothing".  No promotion, or pricing, or special offer could resonate with them because they have an inherent disposition for eating sushi.

So, stop wasting time on persuading the uncommitted's. You'll work twice as hard, and have a lower return.  Strategic business blogging allows you to target niched groups based on the way they are seeking information.  You have the ability to work smarter, not harder.  By giving humanized, relevant content to people that are interested in specific information, businesses and organizations can drive tangible actions at a higher success rate.



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Blogging... What is it?
Posted Monday, November 3, 2008 by Jason Gergely
In my opinion, I think that blogging is similar to that of a diary (yet it is visible by others). You can simply climb online and blog about anything you wish. Blogging gives the opportunity to people to talk about their experiences and it allows people to read about it. After I started working at Compendium, I realized what kind of world there is out there for blogging. I realized that you if you are looking for "inside" information other than reviews (which sometimes you can't really believe), you can look for a blog about it and read up on the first hand experience of an individual who had already done it. For instance, if you are looking for some independent restaurants in downtown Indianapolis, you can look on the Indy Restaurants blog, where people post about the highlights of places in Indy.



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Internet Marketing
Posted Friday, October 31, 2008 by Jason Gergely
Internet Marketing is a new way that marketers use to reach different target markets. Issues today with advertising on TV commercials and billboards have arisen and marketers have moved to the internet. Internet marketing can include just a simple ad on a site, or a blog in their main web page, or via e-mail. Basically, a company needs to get a buzz about their product or service and the internet is an efficient way to get the word out. Business blogs can be placed on the company website to help inform viewers of the product from a employee's perspective. Marketers need to be careful as to where they put their ads when dealing with internet marketing. They cannot simply put their ads on random pages or search engines. There has to be more strategy and thought to it. Just like any other ad prior to the internet, they had to make sure it will reach their target market.



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Routine Blogging
Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by Kaila Woodside
Trying to get into a routine is always tough - and I didn't realize how tough incorporating something new was until Monday night. On Monday I adopted a 9 week old black lab.Willow Ophelia After much consideration (and a borderline identity crisis from the pup) I finally named her Willow Ophelia Woodside-Garrison. A mouthful, huh? More than a mouthful - this little sweet face has stirred up my routine like nothing else. Change of sleeping patterns,how long I can stay out after work, where/when I eat, etc etc etc!! But we are slowing getting into a consistent routine.

Okay okay okay.. I am trying REALLY hard to incorporate my excitement of my new pup into a blog post... so I will get to the point: have to create a routine for blogging. Especially when you are blogging for SEO!

Here are a few quick tips:
1) set a time for blogging - mornings are better for most
2) turn off distractions - IM, email, phones - just concentrate on blogging!
3) incorporate your passions - make the blog post fun and personal!
4) check your feeds/google alerts - get some fodder for those blogs with up to date industry information.
5) set a time limit - if you cant create the blog in 15 minutes.. its probably too long and too verbose. cut it off and stick with something simple!

Cheers!



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What is this CMS thingy?
Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by Jason Gergely
CMS stands for Content Management System. A Content Management System simply put is used to manage content in a collaborative manner. It is used to create, manage, edit, and publish content while making it easy to manage and organize. High schools use it so that each department is able to design its own specific web page under the umbrella of the school website. What it does it gives the specific departments a free range of adding information, while maintaining a similar look across the entire website. It makes it easier in the long run for designing websites. If the website has a small error or something that needs to be changed, you don't have to go back to the web designer because you can do it yourself.



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What is This I Hear About Blogs???
Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by Jason Gergely
Blogs? Ten years ago (when I was in middle school) if someone said the word blogs, I would have thought it was some dirty word that my mom would be ashamed if she heard me say. However, in the age of the Internet, Web Logs, or more commonly known as Blogs, have become more prominent in the way that people communicate. Stereotypically speaking, they are a way for people to get their frustration out about any topic they want to talk about, or to just talk about how their dog has twelve puppies and they are just soooooo cute. BUT, a blog can be used for much more than just an online diary. It can be used to humanize marketing for companies both large and small. As an intern, I have learned how blogging can reach to people on the Internet by adding that human element to the company website.

Blogs can really help out any company, and they aren't hard to write and aren't time consuming. If you want more information about I would suggest checking out Compendium Blogware by clicking here!



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Marketing When You're on Vacation?
Posted Wednesday, October 29, 2008 by Doug Karr
One of our Client Success Managers, Sarah Sedberry, received an out of office notification the other day from one of her clients, Cantaloupe.  It wasn't just any normal out of office notice, though:

I'm currently out of the office and won't be returning until Monday, November 3rd. If your matter is urgent please contact Jon DiGregory.

If it's not urgent and you have a moment to learn about internet video marketing, you can check out my Cantaloupe blog:
http://blog.cantaloupe.tv/blog/marketing-with-internet-video

What a fantastic opportunity that Jon captured!  Think about every touch point in your office today where you could have pointed someone to your blog for additional information!



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Determining Blog ROI Using CTAs
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Chantelle Flannery
The conversion of a blog visitor to a prospect is possible through a clear Call-to-Action (CTA). A CTA is asking your visitor to do something that is actionable to/with the blog site owner.   For example, a CTA that invites a reader to download a white paper, after giving their contact information, is an action that a reader takes.  Once the reader has converted based on a CTA, the responsibility for the nurturing of that reader, who is now a prospect, falls on the shoulders of the blog owner.

Cardinal Rule(s) of Conversion
  • Offer a Call-to-Action (CTA)
  • Set a goal
  • Track results&measure success
  • Adjust and test

Increase your conversions with an effective Call-to-Action

Techniques for an effective Call-to-Action:
  • Give a deadline for ordering
  • Advise of a price increase
  • Establish a trial/introductory period
  • Free gift
  • Demo
  • Offer an upgrade
  • Online offer only

Example Call-to-Action:
  • Join newsletter list
  • Obtain a white paper
  • Request contact by a representation

Increase engagement by:
  • Use action language to incite momentum
  • Always tell the reader exactly what you want them to do
  • Use more than just a simple hyperlink to bring attention to the conversion point
  • Use a pleasing design and images when possible
  • A maximum of two Calls-to-Action should be used at one time on the blog
  • Rotate the CTA, experiment with messaging and offerings to find the right fit for the blog readers

A CTA is step #1 of the conversion process. Step #2 is to track conversions

Tracking your conversions:
  • Create a unique landing page for the call to action
  • Ingrate tracking tools such as analytic programs and CRM tools
  • Ask clients how they found about you and if they have visited the blog

Information Flow

 Decision Path for Reader:

  1. Find Blog
  2. Click Call-to-Action
  3. Taken to landing page
  4. Fill in form - submit
  5. Sent to a thank you page
  6. Receive follow up email/call

 Information flow for Blog Owner:

  1. Find blog
  2. Click CTA
  3. Taken to landing page
  4. Filled in content on landing page submitted
  5. Form information received via email or CRM
  6. Follow up steps taken based on lead qualification process



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Getting Straight To Your Answers!
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Jim Hyslop



As I was on my way into work this morning I happened across a new radio spot promoting Yahoo Search....the final tag at the end of the spot stated "Switch to Yahoo! Search and get straight to your ANSWERS".....Finally, that is what I am talking about....get them to the answers not to your website!

On a daily basis I discuss the goals of the search engines and how they strive to deliver the most relevant information to the searcher. This is the platform of thought on which Compendium was built. If you are a business that can deliver relevant information to those who are looking for you then the engines WANT to put you at the top of the organic search rankings. It isn't magic, it is relevance. As the engines crawl the internet they are asking one question to every page they come across and that question is "does this page contain relevant information to the searchers inquiry?" If the answer is yes you get ranked. So as an organization how can you continually provide this relevant information? Blog about it!!!

By using business blogging software you can allow your organization to provide answers and solutions without spending a lot of business time to do so. The search engines love blogs because they are so easy to update and they can contain lots of relevant information on many specific topics. The thing is, to use a blog effectively, you need to make sure the solutions you are providing can be found through search by topic NOT by author. Organize your content correctly and you will have very happy searchers who now understand exactly how your company can help them.

Anybody can blog but the key for an organization is to leverage the proper blog tools to blog effectively.

Get your customers straight to the answers they are looking for...put them in a blog!



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Top 3 things NOT to do in a blog post
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Sarah Sedberry
Black Hat - The Wrong WayCompendium's platform is engineered to help a company with search engine optimization, and we all know that the driving factor behind a blogs rankings/success is content development. 

As a Client Success Manager at Compendium, it is my responsibility to inform our clients of best practices when it comes to content development so that they can start seeing results as quickly as possible.  On the same hand, it is also my responsibility to make sure they aren't practicing what search engines call "Black Hat Techniques" to try and "trick" them, thinking they are helping their chances of their corporate blog rank higher.

"Black Hat Techniques" are designed to trick search engines and are extremely bad in blogging etiquette as well as, they can have disastrous results on your blog site. The search engine can deem you a spam site and remove your indexing from their system - ultimately meaning, that they will never list your site in the organic results, regardless of your efforts.

I have listed some of the worst "Black Hat Techniques" currently out there below.

  • Link Farms: A group of Web sites is created for the primary purpose of delivering a high number of links to a given Web site.
  • Automated Content Generation/Duplication: To get search engine spiders to index more pages from them, some sites auto-generate content or scrape Web content from other sites.
  • Keyword Stuffing: This involves over-populating certain portions of a Web page with repeated occurrences of a given keyword.



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Is Corporate Blogging in it for the Long Haul?
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by PJ Hinton

A week or so ago, I had a chance to meet up with some personal bloggers, and one of the questions that arose from that gathering was whether blogging as we know it would be around in five years. The basis for the question was the rise of simplified rich media creation and the development of semantic technology that makes locating the media more feasible.

I thought about this for a while. I've been reading blogs for around eight years. I've contributed content both as an author and as a commenter for about six of them. I've read a lot of blogs... personal, professional, and corporate. Rich media has a seductive lure, but I don't think it's for everyone.

Creation of video and audio content is certainly easier and cheaper to do than it was four or five years ago. Free or inexpensive video editing software, Adobe Flash's support for streaming video, and the ease of uploading content on sites like YouTube have created a boom in this area. Indeed, just about anyone with enough desire to be seen has put a clip or two on that site.

The downside to rich media is that if you want to stand out, the quality bar gets raised several notches higher. In the business world, minimally edited output from a camcorder or a webcam won't do it. You're going to have to look good, or at least have good presentation graphics, for people to not only push the Play button, but also stick with the clip all the way through. You're probably going to have to have an expert at the helm.

Contrast this with how corporate blogging works with Compendium's hosted service. Employees across your organization contribute, so you can harness the creative energies of many, not just a few. You get to retain content control through an approval process. And you can always add rich media, when it makes sense, by embedding an object in the post's HTML.

Blogs are also search engine friendly. Even with semantic aids that are becoming increasingly available for rich media, the added overhead of tagging and annotating media imposes an added burden that may not always be met consistently by your organization. Compendium's blog pages use a structure that is rich in semantic detail, aiding search engines in focusing upon the most relevant parts of your content.

Finally, blogs are reader friendly. Information overload is an undisputed problem we all have to deal with. To deal with it effectively, people have to train themselves to filter through the deluge for relevant bits and pieces. You can do this easily with a blog post. It is less possible with podcasts and video. When someone is in a hurry to find something, which do you think will help the prospective customer not only find you, but also learn whether you are going to meet their needs?

Compendium is helping to shape the future of corporate blogging, both on the consumption side, with people and search engine friendly content presentation, and on the creation side, with tools that make the blogging experience more enjoyable to the author and accountable toward ROI.

When you take all of this into account, corporate blogging is definitely in it for the long haul.  We'll be glad to help you along the way.




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Signal to Noise
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Aaron Stanton
You've had this happen, I'm sure:

You're standing in a crowded room, carrying on a conversation with three other people, blotting out the background static of a dozen other conversations when, across the room, someone says your name.  It's clear as a bell.  Now you can suddenly hear everything that person's saying, and you want to know what they said about you, and why.

The human brain is an amazing filter of information.  Our subconscious minds are constantly rejecting massive amounts of utterly irrelevant inputs.  If they didn't, there's simply no way we could even function.  (Incidentally, one of the theories as to why autistic people are paralyzed by human interaction is that they are unable to filter properly - everything is relevant to them.)

One of the biggest concerns about blogging is that it brings journalism to the common person.  Now everyone has a voice.  That's great, because every human should have the right to speak their mind.  That said, I'm not going to find everything that everyone says to be interesting.  Sorry, but I'm just not.  With everyone speaking at once, I'm going to be just drowning in static, with no way at all to hear what I'm interested in.

Unless there's a filter.  With a proper filter, I'm going to find the things I'm interested in.  That's what search engines are for, and SEO.  I don't believe in "gaming the system", which causes spammy results to bubble to the top.  That renders the whole thing useless.  What I do believe is what's been said many times - "Content is king."  A properly designed system can bring the attention of search engines to relevant content.

Your brain is a search engine.  Your name is one of the keywords it's constantly searching for.



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Blogs & Business Do Mix!
Posted Monday, October 27, 2008 by meghan peters
For many the old saying may go, "blogs and business don't mix!" Fortunately for us this simply isn't true anymore. Business blogging has become more and more prevalent in the workplace today. 

There are many benefits of blogging from the marketing stand point, but what about from an internal stand point.  A recent article in Business Week titled "The Inside Story of Company Blogs" outlines just this point.  There are many companies that blog to gain SEO, improve their marketing efforts and possibly advance lead generation, but blogs can also be a great tool for internal information sharing as well. 

According to Dave Weick CIO at McDonald's, "COO Michael Roberts, launched his internal blog last fall. He used it to spread information through the company's global operations and receive feedback. Now McDonald's is distributing blog access to thousands of employees, who will use them to report on operations at restaurants worldwide".

The main point to take away from this article is that blogging and business do go hand in hand no matter how a company is using it.  So if you're blogging from an internal standpoint and gaining better communication from your employees or blogging externally to gain more customers and business, isn't every aspect a positive one?  Just another thing to add to your list of reasons to love blogging!





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Email To Blog Content - Part Two
Posted Monday, October 27, 2008 by Jenni Edwards
To continue the case for old emails making great blog content, let's dive back into this recent Compendium Newsletter and show another example of how this one newsletter can easily be turned into multiple business blog posts.

Here is the original content section with our "employee profile", our Agency Client Success Manager, Sarah Sedberry.

Sarah graduated from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 2004 where she played collegiate softball and was a member of the Greek community. As a Client Success Manager at Compendium, Sarah works with clients to help them understand the value of blogging and the application of Compendium's platform, while keeping track and analyzing their blog in order to ensure they are seeing the ROI results they desire.

 

The most enjoyable moments of Sarah's work include creating and designing a client's blog network and the "eureka"  moments with clients when they see how successful blogging can be for their marketing efforts. In addition to being a day to day resource for clients, Sarah blogs about the Compendium platform, tips and tricks to writing blogs and blogging best practices.  


Read Sarah's blog here.

And --- I quickly can turn this into my own blog post!

Title:  Getting To Know My Company

Content:  Wow!  Our company newsletter just came out and while there was a lot of information about business blogging and our upcoming events at Compendium Blogware, however,  one of the articles that really caught my eye was that of our "Employee Spotlight".  We have grown really quickly the last few months so it's hard to really get to know everyone!  Sarah Sedberry was featured this week and while we interact quite a bit in the office as she is our Agency Specialist, I learned a lot about her in a brief article within our newsletter.  First, I had no idea she went to Rollins College, a beautiful school in Florida.  Also, I knew she was athletic, but collegiate softball?  Impressive!

It's always fun to learn tidbits about our team at Compendium which is quite the interesting bunch of business blogging experts!  I know we continue to grow so keep an eye out as we post all of our jobs on LinkedIn and it really is a great place to work!

In under 5 minutes I was able to create this above post --- completely inspired by the newsletter!




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business blog? Give the searcher what they want!
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2008 by Brian Millis
So our office started a blog club where we each follow a blog and report back some interesting information.  In the process, I ran across this great blog by Guy Kawasaki.  He not only offers great tips on how to blog, but he gives solid information about how to please the blogging community.  In his most recent post: "How to Suck up to a Blogger" his #7 tip reads:

"7. Use a rifle, not a shotgun. Any company that carpet bombs bloggers should be shot. The effect is the same as sending two dozen people the same email requesting help. Not only will this approach fail, bloggers will conclude that you're a bozo to boot. Your job is to find out exactly who you are relevant to. It is not the blogging community's job to sort through your bull secretion."
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/how_to_suck_up_.html

This is excellent advice!  Not only is this a good idea for sucking up to bloggers, it's a great business blogging tip as well.  If I'm a searcher on Google and I type the exact phrase relating to a problem I have, I don't want to be carpet bombed by useless advice from unrelated areas.  Give me my answer in a relevant, specific, and frequently updated blog.  I might just take the next step and become a cusomer. 

Wouldn't it be nice to have a blog platform that could help you accomplish this?



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What Are Your Bloggin Plans?
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2008 by Jim Hyslop
Well, I would imagine that most of you reading this post are currently in the middle of figuring out how a corporate blog is going to help your company in 2009 with all of your new social media initiatives. Search no further, as the answers are all around you.

I daily talk to Marketing Directors who are researching corporate blogging software to gather more information on how the blog can help them create community to drive business. If you take anything from this post remember this. People can only JOIN your community if they can GET to your community. As a company you should let your blog work for both. You must be found for people to participate in interacting with you. So, your first order of priority with your blog is making sure to blog for search engine optimization. If you can leverage a blog to allow you to live at the top of the organic search rankings the community aspect will follow.

The benefits of blogging can trump many other types of on-line strategies because of their ability to aid a company with all of their main initiatives at once. We need to win search...done. We need to relate to customers on a personal level....done. We need to create community....done. We need to grow our search traffic.....done. We need to drive our bottom line...done. We need an affordable on-line marketing solution...DONE. All can be accomplished if the blogging architecture is correct.

Don't fear the blog, embrace it. Stop researching, stop worrying, stop thinking about "I hope this works". Embrace a blogging strategy and the desired results will follow. It is time to get to work on your business, it is time to concentrate on return..it is time to blog.




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Business Blogging Made Simple
Posted Thursday, October 23, 2008 by Doug Karr
Compendium has not simply designed our user administration interface with simplicity, we've extended that simplicity out to our standard template.  During the sales and implementation cycles, we're often asked to mimic a complex web design, or customize the interface with lots of 'stuff' per other Blog CMS platforms.

We push back... hard.

The templating system we utilize is open and 100% CSS driven so that anything is possible.  The problem is that anything is not the thing that will drive results to your business.

The value of blogging is simple from an SEO standpoint:
  1. People search.
  2. Search engines provide the relevant answer.
  3. People read the answer.
  4. Some people engage further.
There are quite a few articles and a couple of books on maximizing conversion rates and landing page optimization.  All of them agree:
  • Show the relevant content that people were looking for.
  • Provide a compelling call to action for the person to engage your business future.
Sidebar widgets and gadgets and other information are diversions from the task at hand.  They clog the interface, divert attention from the answer, and confuse the person's next step.

Here's an example from fellow blogger, John Chow:
John Chow
John's page has no less than 50 calls to action (text and image ads) on it.  Why?  John's page is not a corporate blog, it's a blog to make money off of corporate sponsorships and advertising revenue.  Other than to buy ad space, the purpose of the site is to make money from folks hitting ads. 

The way to ensure this happens is to place ads everywhere you can find real estate.  It's a great blog and it works at driving advertising revenue to John.  John also does NOT rely on search engine traffic for acquisition.  In fact, I believe Google dropped him from the index a while ago.

Here's an example from Compendium Blogware's Business Blog:
Compendium Blogware Call to Action
Our focus is not that of a content management system nor of the off the shelf blogging software.  We designed our system + our standard template + our call to action strategy to drive business results from search back to your company.  It’s a proven force already in the industry.  Extraneous features are a diversion and will significantly reduce the conversion rates of those people who land on your blog.

We absolutely want to cross-promote your site – where you can have all of the gadgets and widgets you'd like (and hopefully information in a neatly organized, easy to find, and attractive interface).  However, on your blog, it’s going to hurt your investment. 

A minimalist approach is the best approach – with distinctive call to action(s) that leave nothing to the imagination for organic searchers who land there.  I would add that we’ve proven this methodology by drinking our own Kool Aid!

Additional Resources on Optimized Landing Pages and Maximizing Conversions:
Books on the Topic:



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