Corporate Blogging

Ali Sales, Co-founder and President

Do you know what corporate blogging is all about?

Hint: It doesn't have a whole lot to do with being a world-class writer. It has everything to do with driving marketing ROI, sharing your organization's human side, and generating demand.

Blogs are one of the most powerful tools ever available to marketers -- read on to learn how to put them to work for your company.

What Billy Mays can teach us about blogging

Monday, June 29, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

In very sad news, Billy Mays passed away over the weekend. I am not ashamed to admit that I have three bottles of OxyClean in my basement, and my ears couldn't help but perk up when hearing about most of the products linked to his name.

Even though Billy Mays didn't give me or anyone else personal advice about blogging best practices, his sales tactics can be applied to just about any sales and marketing activity, including your business blogging program.

There were three key components when it came to Billy Mays' pitches:

1. He made it obvious that he understood your problem
2. He made it clear that he had something that could help you
3. He made it clear that he was really excited about his product and how it could help you

I know, very deep stuff. It seems so obvious! As a marketer managing a corporate blogging strategy, why wouldn't you want to apply these tactics? After all, we know from the staggering sales of products like OxyClean that they work.

When it comes to blog marketing, you can make it easy on your visitors and make Mr. Mays proud at the same time - make it obvious that you understand your audience's problems, make it obvious that you have something that can help them, and deliver your message in the most human, optimistic way possible.

You don't have blog readers

Friday, June 19, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

Time to face the brutal facts: unless you're a publisher, you probably aren't going to have a high number of blog readers or RSS subscribers.

Let me share an interesting stat: Across our 400 customers, the average for new visitors to their blogs is over 90%.

What does this mean? It means that only 1 out of 10 people are coming back to read your content; everyone else is showing up for the first time.

What does this mean for marketers? And how does this impact blogging best practices? Well, a couple things:

1. You can repeat yourself.
And considering that one of the number one factors impacting whether your business blogging program will succeed or fail is content, and lots of it. The ability to repeat yourself is a beautiful thing -- you won't be "letting your readers down" by repeating yourself and making the same points over and over again, because this will be the first time they are digesting your blog content. Repetition is key.

2. You can take the pressure off.
Yes, the fuel of your corporate blogging program is content, but every piece of content that you write does not have to be perfect. You are not writing a whitepaper or a novel, you're simply writing something that will quickly capture the attention of someone showing up to your blog for the first time.

When you're considering how to start a business blog, I hope you keep in mind the stat of 90% new visitors. Realizing early on that your blogging program is about conversion and lead generation will free you from the fear of "What will my readers think?" You don't have readers, you have new visitors, and they are just waiting for you to provide them with some good, relevant info and then give them a chance to convert and learn more.

The Easiest way to Calculate / Estimate Blogging ROI

Thursday, May 14, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

I know that calculating ROI of any marketing initiative can seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be. If you know a few key pieces of data, it's easy to calculate or estimate the ROI of any marketing initiative, including your corporate blogging program.

Let's start with the key pieces of data that you will need:

1. Call-to-action (CTA) clicks - The number of people clicking on the conversion points that you are offering on your blogs. For example, on this blog, it would be anyone who is clicking on our "download" or "sign-up" buttons off to the right. You can find this in your analytics.

2. CTA click to lead rate - Of those who click, how many turn into leads? This is also known as click-to-form completion. You will need to use your CRM system for the lead piece. If it is difficult to figure this out for your business blogging program specifically, you can use other marketing activities as a benchmark - i.e. your PPC campaign or website are good places to start. This is simply CTA clicks / leads.

3. Lead to close rate - For leads that come into your CRM system, how many typically turn into won business. This could be customer count, order count, etc. This is simply won business / leads.

4. Avg. deal size - What does the average customer spend with you? Most marketers generally know what this amount is.

Okay, so Part 1 is to know what data you need to collect. Part 2 is to actually get it, and Part 3 is to apply it to come up with blogging ROI. It's your turn for Part 2, and my next post will include samples with ROI calculations.

Maybe the Most Important Blogging Question Yet...

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

I'm talking about the question of "who."

Who should own your business blogging program?

From where I sit, there's still a lot of uncertainty surrounding this very basic (yet critical) decision. Should it sit with a technology department? Should it sit with a sales department...or even account management? What about the corporate communications team?

Getting to the answer is really easy. Just ask yourself this question.

Who in my organization is primarily responsible for generating demand / leads?

For most companies, this is a marketing department.

It makes sense: marketing's job is to generate demand. The sales team's job is to close the demand that's generated. The customer support team's job is to support the customer after the close.

Given, a VP/CMO/ Director of Marketing role easily fits under the "owner" category, and these are typically the people who will evaluate the program's effectiveness.

In addition, Online Marketing Managers / Marketing Coordinators often manage the day-to-day aspects of a corporate blogging initiative. The great thing is that these tend to be the very people running the day-to-day aspects of email/website/other online tools, so all of these tools can work together to create the best conversion possible.

I will also mention that fr small businesses, oftentimes the President/Owner is carrying the demand generation torch, and perhaps even managing the day-to-day parts of the program.

If you're unsure how blogging software like Compendium can actually support lead generation / demand generation initiatives, here's a link to our most popular whitepaper, Blogging's Role in SEO and Social Networking.

Tired of the Social Media / Social Networking Buzz

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

I'm tired of the social media buzz, because that's all it is: Buzz.

The problem with buzz is that it doesn't produce anything. It's a lot of talk with little results. It's a great idea without any execution.

It seems like every business has a social media / networking strategy or is trying to figure one out. And the social media strategy goes something like this:

We should be on Twitter and Facebook and start blogging because we're going to get people to join our community and chat with us!

Agggggghhhhh! Along those lines, here I've compiled a few quick reasons why NOT to join the social media and social networking club:

1. Because everyone else is doing it
2. Because the word Twitter is fun to say
3. Because our customers want to hear all of our earth-shattering thoughts about <insert your industry here>

If you are going to put the time and effort into any new strategy (business blogging included):

1. Do it because you have a goal that you are working to fulfill.
2. Do it because you have a problem that you need to solve.

Pretty simple rules, right?

How to get 300% Blogging ROI

Thursday, March 26, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

There is nothing better than getting these kinds of notes from your customers:

I got a nice engagement from Fort Wayne today based on an SEO find from the blog. Probably $20k to $40k in fees over the next few months.

This customer has been running a corporate blogging program with Compendium for about a year. This one new client who found their business blogs through search will pay for their entire program and provide a great ROI between 300-400%. That's with just 1 client!

I think the results say enough here.

If you are focused on a customer acquisition strategy, then you should take 10 minutes to learn how this is possible with our simple blogging software.

Schedule a demo of our blogging tools here.

How Compendium Makes Blogging Fun for its Customers

Thursday, March 12, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

Are you sick and tired of boring marketing initiatives?

Does your customer acquisition strategy make you want to crawl under your desk with a pillow and sleep for awhile?

Here at Compendium, we're sick and tired of boring marketing programs.
Life and work are easier when you're having fun.

That's why we are really pushing the envelope when it comes to how we support and motivate our customers.

Sure, we provide ongoing blogging best practices, customized recommendations, tips, and online and offline support....

But they key for many of our customers comes down to fun!

Here is a note from customer who recently participated in one of our blogging programs.

Hi Sarah,

I wanted to thank you and Compendium for the gift cards and the cookies! It’s really fun participating in the contests and even more fun winning prizes! Please extend my thanks to the staff and to those at Compendium for creating the fun events and rewarding us with interesting goodies. It is much appreciated!

The only thing better than an engaged, happy customer who is having fun with us is an engaged, happy customer who is having fun and seeing great results.

Are you ready to have some fun with your blogging program and work with a partner who can help keep you motivated and seeing results?

Blogging ROI - Where to Start

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

If you're evaluating a blogging strategy, I hope the first thing you're thinking about is ROI.

Truth be told, most of us think about this only after the fact. It doesn't matter if we're purchasing blogging tools, ad placements, or conference space. Our thought process is like this:

"Oh yeah. I bought this really expensive, cool thing. It's going to be great! Now I just have to figure out how much I'm going to have to sell in order to cover the expense and then some."

Why not think about what it takes to get your ROI first?

How many bad marketing decisions would you be able to prevent if you first considered how much you need to sell of something and then acted once you felt good about the math?

As you think through your online marketing initiatives, including your corporate blogging plans, think about how much of your product/services need to be sold due to the program.

We've had prospects go down this path and realize that they only have to sell 1 or 2 pieces of inventory to cover their investment and then some, which then makes them realize they have more room than they'd thought to do a larger investment in their blogging program.

We have customers selling thousands of products/services through their business blogging programs, and others selling only a handful. Both are good as long as they make you money.

Step 1: Email needs Subscribers, Blogging needs Content

Friday, February 27, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

The other day a customer mentioned that they couldn't believe they hadn't seen any SEO benefit from their blogging strategy.

We knew that this customer had not been creating content (they had about 3 posts to-date, which isn't nearly enough to get the meter to move for any corporate blogging program.

It got me thinking about email...would we ever expect an email program to generate any results if we didn't have a subscriber list to go with it?

Of course not! In order to have an audience that will take action from an email campaign, we need to have a subscriber list.

Well, it's the same thing with a business blogging program. You can't put the cart before the horse.

In order to see measurable results from your blogging strategy, you have to produce the content.

The difference between email and blogging is that with blogging, your audience comes from content production rather than from a list. And I repeat: results come only after your audience has been built to a certain degree.

If you're an email marketing guru and want to find out other ways the two mediums compare (and how they can work together), Chris Baggott has written an entire whitepaper about blogging and email and how they work together.

You can get the blogging and email whitepaper here. Enjoy!

2 Simple, Straightforward Ways to Build Blogging Success

Thursday, February 26, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

In my mind, there are 2 primary ways to build the success of your blogging program.

1. Target more keywords that are relevant to your business.
2. Write more content.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with RSS feeds. I'm not trying to downplay the value that links from other credible sources might have.

It's just that by and large, these two factors are the driving forces behind most of Compendium Blogware's most successful customers. Those with the most content and the most keyword targeted blogs are the most successful.

Some customers might have 100 more links, some of them quite credible, but at the end of the day, the customers whose corporate blogging programs really succeed are not the ones with the most links. In fact, some of them may have as few as 15 inbound links but these customers still see thousands of qualified visits to their blogs and great conversion rates.

Traditional SEO techniques include keyword targeting and content, but such techniques also take a variety of other factors into consideration.

All I'm saying is let's keep it simple. Experience and data here at Compendium Blogware shows us that lots of content and lots of keywords are the two best ways to build your blogging reach. The other stuff is nice to have, but it's harder to control.

Every business, regardless of size, has the ability to write frequent, good content and the ability to determine keywords that are relevant to their business. This is a winning combo.

Your Prospects Don't Want Blogs

Thursday, February 19, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

The simple truth is that they don't care about blogs. They don't care whether or not you have a corporate blogging program or a Facebook strategy. By and large, they don't care what your CEO has to say.

Okay, so what do your prospects want?

1. They want any easy way to solve their problem.
2. They want information that is relevant to their problem.
2. They want a relationship with you when they are ready.

Your prospects don't care whether you accomplish this through your website, a landing page, or a blog.

Did it dawn on you that they don't know the difference between them?

Per eMarketer:

“-it is not always clear or relevant to the end user whether a particular destination is a blog….”

So again, they don't care about your business blogs.

But it just so happens that a corporate blogging strategy is one of the most effective ways to deliver on the 3 above needs of your prospects.

Maybe you've even reached this blog because you searched for something like "best blog software" to help solve your acquisition problems. Maybe you found a blog titled exactly this through the search engines, and have found some good, relevant info on it. If so, then I invite you to contact me.

I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't make starting a relationship as easy as possible on you...

Blogging Dilemma: I'm Writing Lots of Content but See No Results

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

We have a specific customer who is doing a great job generating content. The trend we see with nearly every customer is that an increase in content generation coincides to an increase in visitors and leads.

However, this customer was generating a ton of content and seeing no benefit to the blogging program. A few months into the program, search traffic was almost non-existent and they were not being found on any of their keyword terms.

After some investigation into their business blogs, we found the following:

1. Their content was pithy (good!) but the content did not appear to be very original. Their keywords were worked into the content without much natural flow, which made the content appear "spammy."

2. Their bounce rate was about 90% and their click-rates were less than 1%. This comes back to the point of "how good does your content need to be?" The answer is: compelling enough that people are engaged and take action.

Based on these results, we made immediate suggestions as to how to improve the quality of their content by naturally integrating keywords, and enticing the visitor with photos of the products that they sell.

Stay tuned on how these changes improve their blogging program.

Blogging Contests Work - The Proof?

Thursday, January 29, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

Right now Compendium is running a blogging contest against a customer (another software company) who is just across the street.

Here's how the blogging competition works: Whoever produces the most content over the course of January has to buy the other company pizza.

Here's what's happened at Compendium so far:

Lots of fun promotions and daily / weekly goals have been set by marketing to keep us motivated and crush the competition
For example, we reached a target of 30 posts in a day and won breakfast bought by marketing!
We've been getting daily reports showing these graphs below to keep us apprised of how our competition is performing

Oh yeah, and did I mention that all of that content is giving us?

Results of the blogging contest so far:

The biggest corporate blogging lead month ever! With 100s of leads generated solely by our business blogs
The biggest blog traffic month ever
The best blog SEO performance ever

There are 2 days left, and we are going to be tough to catch...however, the game isn't over yet.

As you look at your own corporate blogging strategy, don't underestimate the power of contests and promotions. They are a blast and produce results.

Are Search Engine Rankings the Best Way to Measure Blogging?

Thursday, January 22, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

I had a conversation with a customer late last week who has had a blogging program going for over a year now.

During that year, this customer has been watching their search engine rankings weekly and evaluating success based on what is happening with those rankings - i.e. has a rank of 100 on page 10 turned into a ranking of 1 or 2?

The customer was frustrated that they had not seen any real traction with those rankings during the past 2 or 3 months. The rankings had reached a stagnant spot, with around 25% of the keyword terms showing up as the #1 result, 25% on the first page, and the other 50% page 2 and beyond.

On the surface level, their corporate blogging program was falling flat of their original goal: To have every keyword they targeted to show up on page 1.

However, below the surface, here is what happened: their blog traffic had more than doubled in the past 3 months. Their conversion numbers had nearly tripled. They were generating real interest and actions from blog visitors. Not only were more prospects finding them -- the prospects were interacting with them!

So back to the original question - are search engine rankings the best way to evaluate your blogging efforts? Not really. They are a helpful gage that will give you an indication of how visible your organization is on the web, but what happens on the traffic and conversion side is most important when evaluating blogging success.

Blogging Perfectionists Need Not Apply

Sunday, January 18, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

A League of Their Own is one of my favorite movies of all time. (Cheesy, I know). I love the teamwork, the bus rides, the cast and especially the part where a half-inebriated Tom Hanks says, "Their's no crying in baseball." Simple as that.

Along those lines, there's no perfectionism in blogging. It just won't work, and it's a real shift from what we are trained when it comes to most other marketing means (whether online or offline).

If you're new to business blogging, you are probably very confused -- "What do you mean my post shouldn't be perfect?"

Well, unlike an email campaign that goes out once and then is stuck in your subscribers' inbox forever, or a magazine ad printed for all eternity, blogs are a lot more fluid. The content gets pushed to the bottom, and the newest content goes on top.

One of the most critical factors of blogging success is Quantity of Content.

Blogging, as strange as it sounds, is a lot less about Quality of Content. Business blogging is largely a volume-based strategy.

Now that doesn't mean that you can get away with writing about something completely senseless, with no point at all. It can't be a bunch of gibberish that no one can understand.

The rule of thumb for a blog post is simply: Is it good enough?

Is it good enough to compel the blog visitor to take the next step with you and click on your call-to-action.

The problem with perfect posts is that they are very difficult to create with consistency. A much better corporate blogging strategy is to create several posts that convey a meaningful thought to your visitors, rather than one post that is absolutely perfect.

So remember this as you are trying to come up with content for your next blog post -- there's no room for perfectionism in blogging. And if you're stuck on a topic and need some inspiration, I can loan you my copy of A League of Their Own.

Blogging for search acquisition

Sunday, January 18, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

What does blogging for search acquisition mean, exactly?

The term came up a few days ago during an internal product discussion.

Let me start by saying that Compendium is not an SEO firm. Yes, blogging for SEO is an important part of our value proposition, but there is a difference between professional SEO services and Compendium.

Professional SEO services are about content, but also very much about, linking, tagging, and tweaking. This work is done manually and does not scale. Now, I'm not putting professional services down, just trying to clarify the difference between SEO services and a software as a services (SaaS) like Compendium. Most professional SEO services company place their emphasis on keyword rankings.

Compendium, on the other hand, offers software that enables companies to get found in the search engines by leveraging keyword phrases and content. It just so happens that blogging is one of the best ways to do this. Also, many of our prospects and customers say that keyword ranking is their top priority, but that is really the tip of the iceberg.

Getting found in the search engines is the first step - but then an acquisition (i.e. the blog visitor should be able to take an action and fill in their info in doing so) is really what we are all about. That's why the term "search acquisition" fits so perfectly. Yes, you have to get found in the search engines, but what good is getting found if nothing happens afterward?

If you want to see how this works in a real life scenario, just sign up for a demo and we'll be happy to show you.

Your First Blog Post is Right Here

Sunday, January 18, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

So I'm actually stealing this idea from Doug Karr, who posed the question:
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a template to use for your first blog post?"

Yes, it would, and the reason is because the very first post can often be the hardest one to do. Once you've gotten that first post out of the way, you're no longer a Blogging Newbie, and every post thereafter is going to get easier and easier, until you get to the point that you can write a post in about 10 minutes that makes the points you want (that's how much time I've allotted for this one).

So back to that conversation -- Here is an idea for your very first business blog post. Just plug and play and consider it a gift from the Compendium team!

==========================

My First Blog Post About ______

Today is a big day -- I'm writing my first blog post. For starters, here's a little bit about what I do for <Company Name>. In my job, I'm responsible for _______, _______, and _____. This pertains to you because I'm going to be sharing all sorts of insight into <Company Name> and my position.

On that note, you're probably curious about what <Company Name> is all about, how we help people, and how we might work with you. <Company Name> helps people by _______, and if you want to be able to _______ or have the problem of ________, we're the right people to talk to.

I'm really excited to use this blog as a way to share <resources>, <tips>, <common questions>, <best practices>, <customer stories>, <special programs>, and more.

My picture is available in this post because I want you to know the person who's providing all of these great things to you! You'll also notice that on my company blogs, there are several ways that you can contact us. I'm sure you'll be compelled to take a step furthering in getting to know <Company Name>.

=======================

Measuring the Impact of Blogging

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

I blogged on this topic a few weeks ago and couldn't resist expanding on measurement...

"How do you know whether or not your corporate blogging program is working?"

We get this question all the time. The answer is simple:

Business blogging can be measured the same way that all other marketing is measured.

The top line measurements are: Total traffic, quality of traffic, and clicks on your call-to-action.

Yes, that means that your blog template MUST incorporate something for your visitors to do. They need something to click on. That's no different than how you treat your website and email marketing campaigns (and if you're not treating them this way, now is the time to start).

The bottom line metrics are: Leads and dollars. That could be dollars generated or dollars saved.

My next few posts are going to feature Compendium's own blogging program and I'll also feature metrics/stats from some customers.

I'll also cover the key aspects of success in order to get the top line and bottom line metrics headed in the direction you want.

What do airports and blogging have in common?

Monday, December 29, 2008 by Ali Sales Roach

So I'm in the Atlanta airport right now, with a 3 hour lay over...

I'm getting caught up on some work but can hardly think because of the BLARING overhead speaker notifying passenger Davis that he should report to the front desk. Oh, and passenger Walker, too. And now guess what? The flight to La Guardia is delayed. And passenger Walker, could you PLEASE report to the front desk?

The volume on the speaker is entirely too loud, the voice is nasal, and every single message that has been announced since I arrived has been completely irrelevant to me. I'm flying to Kansas, my name isn't Walker or Davis, and I'm being interrupted while trying to work.

In the world of marketing, interruptions are no less obnoxious and frustrating, and that includes online marketing.

The more that we are interrupted in marketing and life, the more we try to tune out the message. I now have my headphones on because I don't want to be bothered.

You should think about this as you are gearing up for your 2009 marketing initiatives. Starting business blogs should be part of your plan because a corporate blogging program will enable you to intercept prospects and customers online and with a relevant message.

The beauty of a corporate blogging strategy is that you will know exactly what is relevant to your audience because of the keywords that they plug into Google and other search engines.

Interruption marketing is becoming a thing of the past...now if I could just get the Atlanta airport to change their ways, too!