Earning Customers Through Blogging

Tonights Entertainment -- Brian (BJ) McKay

BJ McKay and son

If you are looking for a serious, buttoned up, corporate blog, you should hit back right now. I'm Brian "BJ" McKay, and I'm intent on sharing my experience in Internet marketing and the power of blogging to earn customers.

It is my goal to not only share those ideas, strategies, and tactics to help you attack blogging with a purpose, but to practice what I preach.

Expect to hear stories about my family, my kids (that's Julian my son with me in the photo... I'm the one on the right), and examples of how blogging can serve as a pragmatic tool to win search for your business.

There are plenty of blogs to choose from on the topics of blogging, internet marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO). If you've chosen to stop here and engage in a conversation even once, thank you. If you've chosen to subscribe to my blog, I will work to make every read worthy of your time.

Now... On with tonights entertainment.

Blogging and Customer Service

Posted Saturday, January 3, 2009 by Brian McKay

Customer service and customer support of your company is vital to thrive in our economy. Blogging to earn customers makes a lot of sense in this vein. Here's a story to best illustrate what I'm talking about.

I needed an oil change, and I had my 7 month old daughter in tow. I thought running the car over to Jiffy Lube would be fine. When I lived in Muncie, the Jiffy Lube delivered consistent service and the staff was friendly. So, I pulled into Jiffy Lube and waited in line with my car. Then I waited, then I waited, and then a car pulled out and I watched for 5 minutes while the staff appeared to just hang out before pulling the next car in. (deep sigh) I was irritated. There was no communication, and an obvious lack of urgency to be "Jiffy" at all. So I pulled out in search of at least mediocre service for my car.

I ran a few more errands and remembered another Jiffy Lube closer to my home. Here comes your second chance Jiffy. I pulled up right away, the staff was friendly attentive and informative with the service they were going to provide me. They smiled at me, said hello to my little daughter, and got to work quickly. They were very "Jiffy," and that is what I wanted to pay for. I waited for mere moments and I was ready to go.

One franchise with two locations, and two entirely different experiences. If Jiffy Lube had a Blog to talk about customer dissatisfaction and satisfaction they would have a voice in the conversation I'm going to have with at least 20 people in my network about my experience. Let alone the thousands that read my Blog here. As it stands, they do not have a voice in this conversation. I'm going to speak the praises of the one location, and tell of the frustration experienced at the other. My voice is going to be far more powerful than any corporate speak they can drum up, because my voice is authentic.

Corporate Blogging is an answer to a customer like me. It provides a forum for the good and the bad to be discussed when it comes to your business. Don't be afraid of the negative feedback Jiffy Lube, embrace it. You'll become more human, and be able to vision cast for the future of the company with candid feedback from the very customers you are looking to serve month after month.

Your feedback forum does not address search, and provides me, the customer, with none of the feedback from fellow customers. A Blog will share the dialogue, and can provide real SEO value to your brand.

If your business prides itself on customer service, and works to respond appropriately to upset customers, make the decision to Blog for SEO, and Blog to earn customers in 2009.

The Truth exists whether you believe it or not

Posted Friday, January 2, 2009 by Brian McKay

The title above carries a lot of weight in marketing circles. It is the essence of both successful marketing initiatives, and ones that have failed. The truth rests in the measurable results gained from a campaign. Those results are the ultimate truth detector for your campaign.

So.... How did you fair last year? Was it a success based upon your bottom line goals, a middle of the road effort, or an abject failure?

All of us in marketing and sales are measured everyday. It makes sense to invest in vehicles for your message that are proven to generate qualified leads, paying customers, and offer a lower cost per customer acquired. Earning customers through Blogging and Blogging for business is the truth when it comes to those metrics. It challenges your core points of difference by elevating your business on the search engines to deliver your message. When someone finds you, and clicks on your Blog site, what do they do next?

The answer rests in how relevant your business was to the keywords you've chosen to target, as well as the strength of the competitive advantages that you promote.

There is our marketing truth serum. Is your message, your true point of difference, strong enough to fully take advantage of a first page result on Google? Only a few ways to find out, and Blogging is one of them.

Happy 2010!

Posted Wednesday, December 31, 2008 by Brian McKay

It's cliche to post your typical Happy New Year 2009 article on your Blog, so I've decided to take a look back at 2009 from 2010 when it comes to earning customers, and blogging.

I'm a Ball State grad, so I'll use a David Letterman style Top 10 List to make my point:

10. Small and mid sized businesses take over organic search by reallocating marketing budgets from weakened mediums and investing in search

9. Bottom line revenue impact from customers sourced through Google search accounts for 25% of Gross revenue for the year for SMB's.

8. Auto dealers sticking to traditional advertising experience the worst year of both used and new car sales in history

7. Business Blogging generates 200% more qualified leads on average than corporate websites optimized for search

6. Content experts in multiple industries take their knowledge to the web on search optimized Blogs, and hurdle their strongest competitors in 2009 sales

5. Marketing directors clinging to traditional business development tools lost their jobs in 2009, and where replaced with professionals who rely on firm measurement and accountability for the corporate business development investments.

4. Pay Per Click advertising spends increase substantially, while overall click through rate on paid ads decreases to less than 5%.

3. Companies of all sizes that delivered relevant messaging through Blogs realize a cash ROI of over 300% of their investment on average.

2. Blogging with the sole purpose of winning search on Google and online customer acquisition is the most profitable marketing endeavor of 2009

1. Business leaders throughout the United States who leveraged Blogging for SEO experienced a record year in new business sales.

We can write our own ending to the story for our company, or we can participate in group think and watch the ship sink. The fact remains that decisions to drive business development need to be made, and reverting to old school advertising tactics will produce diminishing returns.

Make the decision to Blog in 2009, and do so with advice from strategists who can provide references and a track record of success.

Happy New Year Blogosphere!

You work in a Reputation Economy

Posted Tuesday, December 16, 2008 by Brian McKay

When you Blog to earn customers, it's important to understand that you become a voice for your company on the search engines. When I work with clients, the question comes up, "Will anyone even read my Blog?" The answer is a simple "yes."

The chart below is from Fast Company magazine and really tells the story about how Blogging for SEO can power any business to qualified leads online. When implementing multi user Blog software you can add multiples to the amount of keyword rich content you can create.

Fast Company Graph

Note that TripAdvisor has 15 million reviews on it's site with 11 million or so visits, versus CitySearch that has only 600,000 reviews boasting over 30 milliion visits. Blogging for SEO using a multi user blog software amplifies how much search you can win with your Blog posts.

Blogging to earn customers doesn't have to be intimidating. It's a matter of doing what you do best working on a platform that organizes your content to win search.

Start a business Blog yesterday, and do it for the right reasons. This is a reputation economy where everyone has an opinion about their experiences. Shouldn't you have a voice in the conversation?

Royal Order of the Water Buffalo

Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2008 by Brian McKay

The fictional fraternity Royal Order of the Water Buffalo from The Flintstones is where Fred Flintstone does his networking. He gets to wear an official hat, and feel a sense of belonging to a secret organization made up of men just like him.

The Blogging fraternity can sometimes be as fictional as the Royal Order of the Water Buffalo. In pop culture, it is trendy and hip to Blog about your experiences, your likes and dislikes, and in a corporate sense your company and your products. This activity may be trendy, and have some social or community building aspirations attached to it, but it is doomed to mediocrity.

Fred Flintstone

During a recession, the Internet can provide an abundance of a scarce resource... Qualified leads. When you have any basic marketing or business development strategy, it is grounded in putting your company and your sales team in front of a qualified stream of opportunities to close business. The Royal Bloggers of the Water Buffalo are getting together every day and focusing on RSS, community building, and marketing to their Blog content as an extention of their web site presence.

Where does search fit in? Search shouldn't just fit, it should be the fundamental building block of a proactive and business development focused Blogging strategy. Blogging for SEO disqualifies you from Royal Order of the Water Buffalo.

If you are looking for a stream of qualified leads, and working to maximize the limited budget you've been given to work with, reach out to us at Compendium. We're eager to start a conversation, and shed light on a new fraternity that is open to all, the Blogging for SEO Society.

I love Seth (not the one your thinking of)

Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2008 by Brian McKay

Seth Godin is our hero at Compendium Blogware. His permission marketing ideals are played out in all corners of our company. However, my "Seth" is Seth McFarlane, creator of Family Guy. As a person passionate about entertainment, and putting clients where people are at rather than directing them to go somewhere else, I am die hard for the way Seth runs his business.

Seth McFarlane Family Guy Creator

Blogging for SEO leverages the Internet the same way McFarlane and his marketing team do. By putting their product where the audience is, rather than directing them somewhere else. Seth operates without a contract with FOX, and has side arrangements with Google to further the spread of his content. Check out Seth McFarlanes Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, this is one of those content channels outside of his work with FOX.

Seth is a visionary that has built a business around working for the people, getting fresh and original entertainment where people are gathering. That is the power Blogging for SEO can have for you. If I find you on a Blog and the next step I take is to directly reach out to you; you won. This strategy can be made real for an SMB as easily as it is for Seth and his team. The only thing that is variable is the scope of the audience you are looking to reach.

If you are looking to start a business blog, please reach out to me to start the conversation.

What your Paid Search Provider doesn't want you to know

Posted Monday, December 8, 2008 by Brian McKay

Earning customers through Blogging is the ROI for Blogging for SEO in the first place

What is a page one listing on Google if it doesn't return to your bottom line? SEO is grossly undervalued for the power it has. SEOmoz published an article by Richard Zwicky from Enquisite that references that data to support the power of SEO. The following is directly quoted from the SEOmoz article:

For every 1 click on a paid search result, the organic results generate 8.5 clicks (this is on a keyword parity basis, not counting those search results that have no paid ads)

Based on action/conversion tracking, paid search clicks convert, on average, at 1.5X the rate of organic clicks (no surprise, since that ad text and landing page is custom optimized by the advertiser)

From the numbers above, we can see that the opportunity from organic search is 5.66X that of paid search

(View original article here)

5.66 times the opportunity for winning SEO is huge. Think about 5.66 times your earnings from last year, or 5.66 times the profit per customer in your pipeline. The data is on your side when you Blog for SEO. By employing multi user Blog software, you put yourself at an even greater advantage by leveraging more content accross your Blog network.

Contact us for a Blogging consultation and we can get more of your PPC dollars back to your bottomline by winning organic search through Blogging.

Working the Web at Work

Posted Monday, December 8, 2008 by Brian McKay

The American workforce is more connected than ever, and more time that most of us realize is spent on the internet. That time is segmented for both work and recreation during the average workday. How can we best capitalize on that time, not internally at our office for effective use of our employees time, but earning the eyes of decision makers working for prospective clients?

Browsing the Internet while at work

Employing multi user Blog software is a great start to put your company, and your sales people in front of the target. To effectively start a business Blog you'll want to ground it in concrete ROI terms. Blogging is not for thought leadership, it's for lead generation, customer acquisition, and maximizing SEO. Having as many people in your company as possible Blogging is a vital part of maximizing the medium.

Every salesperson in your company should be Blogging. Recently, in a conversation with Bryan Neale of Caskey Training, he referenced that Blogging is an effective way to warm prospects to the professionals on your sales team. Think about it, you go to a Blog of a sales person who wants to earn an hour of your time. You see her likes, and dislikes, her personality, her views on the world, and her business IQ. The relationship has begun. Blogging worked.

December is an absurdly busy time for everyone, which means more time will be "wasted" on the Internet at work than any time throughout the year. Reach out to us at Compendium for a free Blogging consultation, and we can get our relationship started.

What are we waiting for?

Posted Friday, December 5, 2008 by Brian McKay

Earning customers through Blogging starts with a Blog built for the work.

The question that should be asked is, "How soon do I want qualified leads?" By implementing a business Blog optimized for search with Compendium, you will be earning qualified leads with a lower cost per lead than traditional methods.

When it comes to SEO, waiting is not winning strategy. Especially when the engines are still respecting age of content as a key criteria for winning search. Getting lost in the details of Blogging for SEO is usually a stall tactic that is not focused on results.

Results are the only reason businesses invest in lead generation tools. They should be efficient, measurable, and affordable vs. the size of your average contract when you convert a lead into a sale. The waiting period for making the move to earn qualified leads at a low cost per acquisition should be zero.

Warren Buffet once said, "When people are afraid be greedy, when they are greedy be afraid." Now is the time to take action on converting search into cash for your business. Blogging is a measurable and tested mechanism to make that result real.

Cut your entire marketing budget and pray

Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 by Brian McKay

Change is the one stronghold for the intelligent marketing professional. Change is the fuel for innovation, and insurance that you will have every opportunity to win customers away from your competitors.

Change in the economy, and change in the way consumers choose to respond to your messages is ripe with opportunity. Taking command of your marketing spend, and holding every single dollar accountable is not only possible, it is becoming the standard.

Change equals a far lower average customer acquisition cost for all businesses, and it evens the playing field for SMB's. The large companies are unable to turn their ship fast enough to keep up with nimble start-ups and well capitalized small businesses poised to take their enterprise level crown.

Change doesn't pick who will earn customers, it takes the game to a whole new plane. A place where the innovative decision makers can hurdle larger competitors because they chose to act.

When you Blog for SEO you take advantage of a lower average customer acqusition cost while increasing the amount of qualified search volume your company can capture.

The question I have is now that change is hitting us hard, what do you have to lose by considering blogging to earn customers?

Luxury Brands with Less Ad $ to Spend -- Blog

Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 by Brian McKay

Misplaced priorities, and a misinterpretation of what advertising is supposed to be. That is my take on the New York Times article titled:

For Luxury Brands, Less Money to Spend on Ads

An excerpt from this article reads as follows:

Graff Diamonds, the London-based retailer, is also cutting its budget. “We’re definitely not taking on any new advertising, and we’re cutting back on all our current advertising,” a Graff spokeswoman said. She declined to specify a figure, but said the cuts were higher in the United States than in Britain.

Advertising as an expense should be cut, and that is a wise decision for just about any business interested in realizing a profitable average customer acquisition cost. Print should be recommending to all of the major luxury brands to stay the course. To play upon fear that decreasing an already hefty spend will completely turnoff the remaining drip of customers that come from their publications.

This being said, luxury brands need, now more than ever, to invest in driving highly qualified customers to their brands. They need to be more strategic in supporting their dealers who are in the trenches working to earn customer wallet share. Blogging for SEO is a strategy that plays in this market. Google has the luxury brand customers every day. Search is stronger than ever, and PPC is 15% of the value.

Luxury brands can be using Blogs to cast a wide net over search to significantly decrease the average customer acquisition cost, while capturing highly qualified consumers. It is a win win when you cooperate with Google and structure your content in a manner that serves the searcher.

When planning what's left of your 2008 budget to drive sales, consider blogging to increase SEO in organic search, and realize 100% accountability for your investment.

Average Customer Acquisition Cost

Posted Saturday, November 15, 2008 by Brian McKay

Earning customers through blogging is an easy decision. The challenge is putting your marketing budget to the test, and calling out all of the media outlets you've invested in to grow your business. Marketing channels for your business should be held to full circle accountability.

Acountability old school poster

Blogging for SEO provides you a channel that can be held fully accountable for it's results. If you choose the right partner for your business blogging, winning customers through search engines can be realized in weeks.

Let's just focus on average customer acquisition cost for your business. Trade shows, networking, print, television, sponsorships, and outdoors advertising get pricey fast. Blogging is a tool that can drive absolute unique traffic through search engines day after day.

As an interactive marketing professional a big mistake small market businesses make is playing a round robin with their marketing dollars, and not systematizing their approach. It is much more simple now than it ever has been to keep your marketing expenses down, and realize much more buying power with your marketing dollar. Tracking is a must, and when you choose a partner for you business blogging platform this should be provided to you in your terms and measured against your average customer acquisition cost.

The beauty of blogging is the full circle accountability for every dollar you spend, not to mention the power it gives you in winning search. If you haven't done so yet, find out your average cost per customer acquired and then let's talk about how Blogging can match or beat any other channel you have set up.

Gen Y and Blogging for Search

Posted Friday, November 14, 2008 by Brian McKay

Richard H. Levey, of DIRECT, wrote a strong article on direct marketing to Millennials. I thought it was a well researched peice that hit's home how different the game is when it comes to connecting with this viable group of consumers.

As great as Richard's article was, I found one of the comments on his article to be even more insightful, and if whoever posted this comment would be interested in talking, please reach out. This was an excerpt from their post:

1) Yes, we'll approach you, but when I do, how are you going to compete for (and win) my 15 seconds of attention before I move on? This right now is a perfect example. I was researching new sites to tag and bookmark for DM information. I performed my google search (always, like many of "us" do, ignoring the sponsored links to the right), opened a new tab for each link I thought might have what I was looking for and, after opening about 10 or 12 tabs, I quickly went through each, scanned the homepage for article titles and headlines, determined if the site was relevant to my needs, and moved on to the next. If it wasn't, I closed it. If it was, I left the tab open and went on to the next. Of those 10 or 12 sites that made the first cut (from the search results), only three remained. I went back, performed a more detailed review and decided to bookmark 2 of the 3 - this being one of them.

The identity of the post author was not revealed, but the message is viable. Gen Y'ers are not going to wait around for you, or adapt to a model that is easily trackable.

By adopting a Blogging for SEO mindset, you can reach people that mere $ will not reach, and on a medium that they use relentlessly.

Blog Content Influences Consumers

Posted Friday, November 14, 2008 by Brian McKay

Greg Jarboe at SearchEngineWatch.com posted a great article on the influential nature of Blog content. The quote below is one I'd like to comment on as it pertains to earning customers through Blogging:

Now, blogs certainly aren’t considered the “newbies” of the social media scene – “granddaddies” is probably a more appropriate term. But that gives them an advantage from a marketing perspective – the medium has matured and moved from early adopter phase to the mainstream.

Greg makes a salient point here. With our economy in dire straits according to the pop media, small market businesses are looking backwards oftentimes to find a relaible lead generation source to drive new business. This yearning for the status quo is the perfect opportunity to capture market share.

Think about this, you know your competitors game plan in this market. Pull back on all marketing expenditures and cut budgets. Focus all spending on methods that last drove in some leads. With a sound business blogging strategy you can be positioning your company to win search now.

Blogging is viable in the mainstream market, and should not be relegated to only the early adopters. Great article Greg. You can read the entire article at:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/081114-124722

Less HULK... More Bruce Lee

Posted Tuesday, November 4, 2008 by Brian McKay

Small Business Blog

I read the quote, "Less Hulk, more Bruce Lee," in a Fast Company article about Micheal Jager of JDK. The message was that marketing smart means thinking less like the Hulk (ie. Television, radio, print, and mass media in general), and more like Bruce Lee (ie. Internet marketing, viral marketing, Blogging, and non-traditional low cost creative outlets)

Incredible HULK

Hulk Brands and Businesses

Coca Cola, Nike, NFL, "Frank TV," Oprah, and P&G are all brands that leverage mass media effectively. They understand that with strong creative and a ton of volume they can earn your attention with non-permission marketing. They invest millions in television, movies, radio, billboards, and print media of all varieties to reach you everywhere they can. They will also gain significant sports sponsorships and celebrity product endorsers to further sway you toward their brand. This is a phenomenally successful method... If you have the means.

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee Brands and Businesses

Facebook, UnderArmour, Ben and Jerry's, and Wikipedia are all brands that have leveraged fan support and non-traditional media to grow their businesses. They gain your permission and acceptance even before you find them. Your friend heard about them or you found them on search. The word organic is used all the time now, but these brands have fully embraced the idea of growing from the people and trusting them to share their brand. These brands make a little, go a long way. They don't look intimidating but BAM! The next thing you know they are everywhere!

With the right Blogging Platform you can apply the Bruce Lee mentality and cast a wide net over the search engines to have a Hulk like impact on your brand. The goal of search is getting found for the right reasons more than your competitors. Blogging can be that mechanism for your business.

Click to the right and let's get a real conversation started.

Stop Hiding Start Blogging

Posted Saturday, November 1, 2008 by Brian McKay

Create a Business Blog

Marketing your business in a tough economy is vital to earning customers. Many business owners make the decision to cut marketing expenses when times get tough. The truth is that marketing is more critical to your success than ever. The focus needs to be getting more out of each dollar you and invest.

By creating a business Blog with Compendium Blogware you are able to humanize your marketing and organize your content for SEO. Now when a qualified customer Googles a keyword phrase that is tied to your business, you can earn a first page position. Not pay for page one on Google... Earn it.

As we head into November and the holiday season, there is no better time than now to take advantage of the power of business blogging with Compendium. It doesn't matter what stage you are in your search for a more effective solution to drive customer aquisition and lead generation. We are here to provide consultation and get you a step ahead of your competitors who consider cutting back as a strategy.

Click to the right and let's get the conversation started about creating a business blog, Blogging for SEO, and winning search through Blogging.

Blogging from the Road

Posted Thursday, October 30, 2008 by Brian McKay

Let's humanize our marketing today, and start telling stories that show that there are actually real human beings that add significant value to our business.

The photo to the left is me at The Bubble Room on Captiva Island. This destination is one of the most unique places I've ever been. The entire theme is cheesy old school Christmas decor, at a restaurant in a sunny and warm vacation spot.

On another trip through Cumberland Valley Pennsylvania I ran into McKay's Cave. This bar had an extremely unique logo, and it had the same last name as me so I will never forget it.

When you choose to Blog for SEO and tell your story, use pictures and anecdotes from your life that tell the human side of your business. We can share spreadsheets and hard core business principles anytime. When do we have the opportunity to show that real, fun, and intelligent people fuel the success of our businesss.

When you choose to earn customers through Blogging you are taking action, and taking control of how people will find you on search engines, and how they will view your business. I've had the opportunity to travel and experience some very unique places, and by sharing those stories with you it reinforces that my experience has relevance to you and your business far beyond business Blogging and earning customers through Blogging.

Meet the Blogging Evangelist

Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Brian McKay

Doug Karr is a Blogging Evangelist. I'm serious, he's actually our Vice President of Blogging Evangelism. As you work to earn customers through Blogging, we continually work with clients on best practices for content creation.

It is way easier than you think, and Doug has provided a list of over 200 Blog post ideas for your business. Check out his powerful post here:

200 Blog Post Ideas for your Company Blog!

When you Blog for SEO, having a Blogging platform that is built to be found on search engines is key. Once you've read Doug's post, click to the right to begin a conversation with Compendium and begin realizing the SEO and customer aquisition value of Blogging.

"You Want Lunch McKay?!"

Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 by Brian McKay

Coach Sanford: "Lunch... You want lunch McKay!?"

Me: "I'm hungry coach, I need energy to compete."

Coach Sanford: "McKay... If you're hungry you'll compete hungry. Stop making excuses and get out there and win!"

That was some of the greatest advice I've ever received. It completely relates to earning customers through Blogging. Why are we always looking to be fed, without earning the food? Blogging for business enables you to be assertive in the organic search area of major search engines. By being "Blue Collar," like me, rolling up your sleeves and engaging consumers in relevant stories about your business, you win.

The dialogue above is close to verbatim from my high school track coach. You know what... He was totally right! I was hungry (really hungry) and I took it out on the competition that day. That philosophy continues to pay dividends for me in the business world. If I stay hungrier than my competitors, I will never lose an opportunity because of lack of effort. Wanting it more really matters, especially when it comes to successful business Blogging.

When you're ready to get after the search engines, and get lead generation from the Internet kick started at your business, click to the right and let's start a conversation.

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