Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Online Marketing Summit in Houston, Texas and then attending a panel discussion in Austin, Texas. This was my first visit to Texas outside of an airport so I was excited to meet the local businesses.
Both summits were fantastic! There's a "no selling" rule and any company speaking is kept on its toes because attendees are encouraged to begin booing the speakers if they break the rule. Since every company has compelling strengths and weaknesses, its very difficult to avoid promoting your own tool... but it's for the greater good!
Aaron Kahlow, OMS Chair, spoke quite a bit about the challenges of the economy and its impact on Online Marketing. My favorite analogy that Aaron brought up was how most companies spend more money decorating their lobby than they do on online marketing... followed by the obvious question, "Where are you getting the most visitors?"
Trips like these are also a fantastic time to get to know the regional sales directors. In Texas, we have a seasoned online marketing and advertising professional in Tracy Donaldson. Tracy has close ties with a ton of companies throughout Houston, Austin and Dallas... many of whom were at the event. On Wednesday night we met one of our clients, Jarrod Vrazel - who runs a couple of blogs - including a Country Music blog, ACountry.
Jarrod is an engaged client, attending our weekly webinars and always putting our business blogging advice in action. Simply put, he said, "When I blog, I get traffic... when I don't, I see it slow down."
Jarrod runs some affiliate marketing on his blog and told us that the blogging return on investment is much better than any of the other online marketing programs that he's running. That's what we love to hear from our clients! He's a huge fan of Compendium and said that the education and training he's received were worth the cost of his package with us.
Tracy drove us from Houston to Austin so we had a 3 and a half hour drive to discuss Compendium getting a foothold in the region. Since a Software as a Service blogging platform is a new concept, there's one argument that companies bring up:
Why wouldn't I do this using a free blogging platform?
Plain and simple - free is not FREE. If free worked, than 75% of corporate blogs wouldn't fail. If free worked, than we wouldn't hire graphic artists... we'd make our own logos in Microsoft Paint. We wouldn't hire web designers, we'd download a free HTML editor and build our website. We wouldn't hire SEO experts, we'd just rely on search engines to find us.
Going it alone is difficult with blogging. There's a TON of complexity to maximizing your blogging for measurable results, especially for a business. Moderation, security, performance, scalability, theme design, theme SEO, plugins, widgets, gadgets, maintenance, back-ups, upgrades, enhancements, features, layout, calls-to-action, hosting, copywriting, keyword usage, keyword targeting, analytics integration, reporting... these are all factors that can kill a corporate blogging strategy or maximize its impact. These are also all issues that cost time and money to ensure your human investment in blogging pays off.
Last analogy... I could go buy a grill and a bag of charcoal and have a decent meal, but it won't ever live up to the drive out to Driftwood Texas to The Salt Lick (that's the Bar-b-que pit above). As soon as I met Tracy, she told me she was going to take me... and it did not disappoint. I'm going to have to admit that my family style meal of beef brisket, pork ribs, and sausage was the best bar-b-que I have ever had in my life.
That's not an understatement.
I'd like to think of Compendium's platform as The Salt Lick of Corporate Blogging, but it wouldn't do it justice if you've never eaten at The Salt Lick. Of course, if you're in Texas and looking to capture organic search traffic, Tracy would love an excuse to head out to Driftwood again! Give her a call at 713.520.1697 or email tdonaldson@compendiumblogware.com.
Both summits were fantastic! There's a "no selling" rule and any company speaking is kept on its toes because attendees are encouraged to begin booing the speakers if they break the rule. Since every company has compelling strengths and weaknesses, its very difficult to avoid promoting your own tool... but it's for the greater good!Aaron Kahlow, OMS Chair, spoke quite a bit about the challenges of the economy and its impact on Online Marketing. My favorite analogy that Aaron brought up was how most companies spend more money decorating their lobby than they do on online marketing... followed by the obvious question, "Where are you getting the most visitors?"
Trips like these are also a fantastic time to get to know the regional sales directors. In Texas, we have a seasoned online marketing and advertising professional in Tracy Donaldson. Tracy has close ties with a ton of companies throughout Houston, Austin and Dallas... many of whom were at the event. On Wednesday night we met one of our clients, Jarrod Vrazel - who runs a couple of blogs - including a Country Music blog, ACountry.
Jarrod is an engaged client, attending our weekly webinars and always putting our business blogging advice in action. Simply put, he said, "When I blog, I get traffic... when I don't, I see it slow down."
Jarrod runs some affiliate marketing on his blog and told us that the blogging return on investment is much better than any of the other online marketing programs that he's running. That's what we love to hear from our clients! He's a huge fan of Compendium and said that the education and training he's received were worth the cost of his package with us.
Tracy drove us from Houston to Austin so we had a 3 and a half hour drive to discuss Compendium getting a foothold in the region. Since a Software as a Service blogging platform is a new concept, there's one argument that companies bring up:Why wouldn't I do this using a free blogging platform?
Plain and simple - free is not FREE. If free worked, than 75% of corporate blogs wouldn't fail. If free worked, than we wouldn't hire graphic artists... we'd make our own logos in Microsoft Paint. We wouldn't hire web designers, we'd download a free HTML editor and build our website. We wouldn't hire SEO experts, we'd just rely on search engines to find us.
Going it alone is difficult with blogging. There's a TON of complexity to maximizing your blogging for measurable results, especially for a business. Moderation, security, performance, scalability, theme design, theme SEO, plugins, widgets, gadgets, maintenance, back-ups, upgrades, enhancements, features, layout, calls-to-action, hosting, copywriting, keyword usage, keyword targeting, analytics integration, reporting... these are all factors that can kill a corporate blogging strategy or maximize its impact. These are also all issues that cost time and money to ensure your human investment in blogging pays off.
Last analogy... I could go buy a grill and a bag of charcoal and have a decent meal, but it won't ever live up to the drive out to Driftwood Texas to The Salt Lick (that's the Bar-b-que pit above). As soon as I met Tracy, she told me she was going to take me... and it did not disappoint. I'm going to have to admit that my family style meal of beef brisket, pork ribs, and sausage was the best bar-b-que I have ever had in my life.
That's not an understatement.
I'd like to think of Compendium's platform as The Salt Lick of Corporate Blogging, but it wouldn't do it justice if you've never eaten at The Salt Lick. Of course, if you're in Texas and looking to capture organic search traffic, Tracy would love an excuse to head out to Driftwood again! Give her a call at 713.520.1697 or email tdonaldson@compendiumblogware.com.
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