Revenue Journal®

New marketing vehicles rise up, get overused, and fall out of favor faster than ever. Email has been through all those phases. Pay-per-click is currently in the falling-out-of-favor phase. Blogging is still on the rise.

Blogging is being touted as a way to avoid the problems with email (it's being filtered like crazy, there's too much of it, and it's been corrupted by spam) and the problems with pay-per-click (click fraud, rising prices, and low conversion). Blogging gives you a way to communicate directly with your customers, get their feedback, improve your search engine rankings, establish yourself as a thought leader, and increase your popularity with the media. In short, blogging is cool.

Now entrepreneurs and CEOs are calling me and asking, "Should I blog?" Well, that depends...

Let's look at the realities of blogging.

1) You have to be passionate and committed. To be a successful blogger, you have to be passionate enough to continuously generate relevant, interesting, and somewhat controversial content. You have to be the kind of person who gets up in the morning burning with a fresh idea that must be communicated, one that will actually help your customers, regardless of whether it helps you. Sure, you can post trivial tidbits, and keep it light, but that won't put you in the category of a "thought leader."

2) It has to be the right thing for you to do. Your decision to blog or not should depend completely on what your customers want and need from you--and what you're trying to accomplish. The fastest, most reliable way to find out what your customers would like your blog to cover is to ask them! Call them on the phone, and ask, "If we were to start a blog, what kind of content would you want to see?" They'll probably start talking about the things that matter to them. However, if they draw a blank, ask them more directly, "What kinds of questions do you have about our type of product? What are your biggest challenges right now in this area?" Their answers will help you sell, even if you never do a blog. Listen to them...and then make sure your blog focuses on their issues.

3) To be relevant and "safe," think EDUCATION. It's one thing for an individual to write a controversial blog. But it's not advisable for a corporate CEO to take a controversial stand on a subject. To write a blog that customers and your lawyer will love, be educational. If you want anyone to read it, be conversationally educational. If your product or service is complex, a good educational blog could propel you relatively quickly into the thought-leader category. Potential customers will come to trust you and rely on you, which will make it easier for them to buy from you. In fact, they may look for opportunities to do so, after your articles have helped them. This is the best and most compelling argument for creating a blog. But, expect that it will take time to build that trust. It never happens overnight.

4) If you can't be educational, feature your customers. Jones Soda is the best example of a company that features its customers. They run customer photos on their soda labels. They show commercials their customers have made for their soda, such as this one.

5) It can't sound like a letter to the stockholders. A blog is, above all else, a personal form of communication. If it has that "corporate ring" to it, it won't work. It may even backfire. Here's an example of Pixar's too-corporate blog, which takes a tone that you wouldn't expect from an animation company. This blog makes you think they don't understand how their customers perceive them.

6) It can't be a sales pitch. A pitch is a pitch. A blog is a blog. Readers immediately know the difference. It's easy to slip into a sales pitch, and when you do, you'll lose readers.

7) Even if you hire a writer, you still have to check every post. Freelance writers are jumping on the blogging bandwagon, seeing it as a revenue opportunity. Fine. You may decide to hire a writer to save yourself some time. But it takes a special touch to write a blog that is readable, educational, and conversational. And I'm not sure it's wise to have someone ghost-write a blog that you're supposedly writing. Better to write the drafts yourself and then ask the professional writer to "clean them up" a bit. Whichever way you decide to do it, make sure the person writes at least 5 articles before you take the blog public. Run the 5 articles by customers and other trusted advisors, and make adjustments as needed.

8) You have to have a thick skin and a willingness to make changes. This is the most personal-yet-public conversation you'll ever have with your customers. To put it in perspective, let's look back a bit.

We can trace the origins of blogs to the introduction of the PC in the mid-80's. This was the beginning of the systematic removal of the layers of protection that had always surrounded the CEO. With PCs came word processing. CEOs started typing their own memos. Then came email; CEOs started typing their own emails. And, of course, as the Web evolved, people started typing memos to CEOs, publicly, in the form of online company-specific hate groups. Customers started talking to each other about how companies were treating them.

A blog creates a direct link between the customer and the CEO. Another layer of protection has been peeled away, setting up the expectation that the CEO or company owner will now reveal his thoughts to - and accept comments from - his various audiences. What this really means is there is no place to hide anymore. You really will have to interact with customers. You really will have to listen to them and respond to their concerns, both in the blog and by actually making changes in the way you do business. Of course, you can hire someone to write the company blog, and they can put their name on it. However, that person will become the "voice" of the company.

9) Blogs are already being corrupted with spam. There is such a thing as "blog spam"; spam bots insert comments, and the comments include links to the spammer's site. For preventive measures, Google "blog spam." There are a number of tools and techniques you can use to fight back.

10) Understand the basics before jumping in. Blogging requires a "composition" tool and a "subscription" or "reader" tool. The "composition" tool is what you use to create the blog, post articles, and set up comments and tracking. Two popular composition tools are Blogware and MovableType. Your ISP will probably have a preference; ask before you commit. Both products are relatively easy to use, once you get used to them. Windows-based "subscription" or "reader" tools include SharpReader (free), SauceReader (also free), and FeedDemon ($29.95). Web-based readers include Newsgator, Bloglines, MyYahoo! and the Firefox Live Bookmarks feature.

11) Make sure you have an easy way to see which of your blog articles are the most popular. Blogware has this function built in. For options to use with Movable Type, just Google "blog site stats." Your readership stats may surprise you, and they will certainly help you improve the relevancy of your content over time.

12) Don't even think about creating a blog if you're not prepared to commit resources to it. All online marketing methods are "cheaper" than traditional advertising, PR, and direct mail, in terms of dollars expended. But they do require more of your personal time. You can create a print ad, place it in a trade journal, and forget about it for a year. You can't do that with a website, email campaign, pay per click ads, or a blog. You need to post useful content to your blog, at the very least, every couple of weeks.

13) Don't depend exclusively on RSS. If your blog is good, people will subscribe to it using an RSS reader. But also offer them the option of subscribing via email, as we do with the Revenue Journal. Everyone has email and knows how to subscribe via email; we're nowhere near that kind of saturation when it comes to RSS readers. And people who have been reading blogs for a while are starting to admit that they're simply not reading half of what they've subscribed to. If you want to grow your readership, publish on a regular schedule so non-subscribers know how often to check in.

14) Whole websites are being based on blog software. One of our clients has built his entire website on Movable Type. Ditto for a site created by Andrew Benkard for HealthpointCapital.

This last observation is an important one for you trend-watchers out there. There really hasn't been an easy way to create and modify websites, until the blogging fad resulted in tools such as Blogware and MovableType. Sure, the blog format is a little restrictive. But not enough to stop you from basing your website on blogging software. It's much easier to make changes, manage your content, and invite reader feedback. Not to mention making your site more attractive to search engines - because more people will link to your articles (if they're good), and because your content will be relevant and changing constantly.

Blogging is here to stay. How well it helps you increase your sales depends completely on what you do with it. Start by asking your customers what they'd want you to cover; that may get your juices flowing, because you'll know how your copy can help them. Or, it may make you realize that a blog wouldn't be worth the effort.

Don't jump on board just because everyone else is doing it. "Everyone else" is not your customer base. Only your customers can raise your revenues.

Resources:
CEO Blogging Guide

Business Blog Consulting

BlogWrite for CEOS

CorporateBlogging.info

DuctTapeMarketing - blog channel

All About RSS

Business Blogs: A Practical Guide

Blogging Legalities
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