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Effective Strategic Digital Marketing

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Is a Blog the Best Marketing Tool for Your Business?

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There is an adage in advertising that says, “I know that half my advertising dollars are wasted – I just don’t know which half!” Several authors claim credit for this quote, but no matter what the origin, I can assure you the saying is wishful thinking.

Not only is it possible that more half of your advertising dollars are wasted, on the flip side, it’s also possible that your marketing efforts are working very hard – against your business!

One every popular “advertising” avenue being touted is using blogs to promote your business. With all the hype surrounding blogs, you may be wondering if a blog could help your business.

The answer is easier than you might imagine. But in order to answer this question, you must first recognize that there are two different types of sales your business can be making.

Neil Rackham is the founder of The Huthwaite Corporation, which launched a 12-year, $1 million research study into effective sales performance. Rackham is not your typical “sales guy” but rather he’s a psychologist who studies the sales process. The study results are available in the book, Spin Selling, where Rackham differentiates sales into two categories… the Minor Sale and the Major Sale.

While Rackham applies this theory to sales people who make sales calls, I have taken this theory and applied it to advertising and marketing, because these activities are “selling” activities.

If your business is making Minor Sales, then a blog probably won’t be a really effective marketing tool for your business. However; if you’re making a Major Sale, then a blog can be a GREAT marketing tool for your business.

Are you making a Major Sale?

The elements that make up the Major Sale extend beyond the financial investment required. Asking a customer to spend a lot of money is one way you know you’re making a Major Sale… however, it’s not the only factor in play. To determine how much of a Major Sale you’re making, ask yourself the following questions:

QUESTION 1: How much risk is there in purchasing your product or service for your customers?

In other words, how much trust do they need to have to become your client or customer? How “high” is the risk if your customers make a wrong choice? Most businesses doing business on the internet need to establish a level of trust, but some require more trust to be built than others.

For example, if you’re selling office supplies, the consequences fof your customer of making a mistake and purchasing the wrong kind of copy paper is very, very low. If your customer orders the wrong kind of paper and then finds out that he/she made a mistake… the consequences aren’t very high. If the customer has children, then he or she merely brings home the reams of paper and the kids will take care of it in short order.

On the other hand, the choice of a financial planner is a VERY high risk decision for most consumers.

Several years ago, a financial planning firm in my home town made BIG news when it was discovered that the “investments” offered by the “financial planners” were not investments at all but actually a complex Ponzi scheme. As a result, several thousand of the firm’s clients in the area lost their retirement savings.

If you need to establish TRUST with your potential clients… then a blog is a GREAT marketing tool for your business.

If you’re selling baseball gloves to Little Leaguers… well, then trust isn’t quite as important as it may be if you’re a CPA or a financial planner. On the other hand, if you’re selling copy paper, trust may be downright irrelevant!

QUESTION 2: How much TIME will customers invest in researching their purchasing options?

The higher the “risk” is for your client or customer in purchasing your products or services, the more time he or shee will spend researching providers and searching for alternatives.

It’s important to note that devoting a lot of TIME to making a decision about buying changes the buying process significantly. Just because someone is spending time researching a purchase, it doesn’t mean that the decision will be made based ENTIRELY upon which provider has the lowest price.

If your customers are spending a lot of time researching options, then a blog is a great marketing tool because, via regular posts, you can illustrate time and time again why they should make an investment and build a relationship with you. You can use those blog posts to clearly illustrate WHY the lowest PRICE provider may not be the BEST provider.

If your potential clients spend a lot of time researching their options… then a blog is a GREAT marketing tool for your business.

Blogs are MAGNIFICENT COMMUNICATION TOOLS!! If you’ve got a good “handle” on the information you want to communicate to potential customers and your customers are SEEKING more information to make an informed choice.

QUESTION 3: How much TIME will your customers be spending with you after the sale?

Yet another factor that moves a sale from Minor Sale status to Major Sale status is the RELATIONSHIP that you’ll have with your customers or clients once the sale is completed.

The more interaction you expect to have with customers or clients, the more information those clients or customers need BEFORE they make the final decision. If you expect to have a lot of interaction with clients or customers AFTER the sale, then even if customers aren’t making a major financial investment, they still treat the transaction as a major sale. After all, breaking up with a service provider is hard to do!

So while the investment in choosing a baby sitter for a Saturday Night out on the town may not require taking out a loan, it still falls into the Major Sale category.

If your potential clients will develop a relationship with you after the sale… then a blog is a GREAT marketing tool for your business.

If your business is involved with making Major Sales, then establishing communication with customers BEFORE they make a purchasing decision is essential. When communication is key, a blog is a GREAT way to communicate with customers and clients.

This article was published at BizNik
Biznik - Business Networking

Why and For Whom Do you Blog?

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Darren Rowse has an interesting article about a “new” breed of blogger,  who doesn’t blog for money but rather earns income as a SIDE effect of blogging.  His post was inspired by a post written by Seth Godin (the MASTER of earning income as a side effect of his blogging) called “The Wealthy Gardener” in which Seth writes:

Blogging is much the same way. The best bloggers make money, but mostly as a side effect, not as a direct result of setting out to use a blog to make a profit. It’s just too long a ramp up time, too frustrating and too uncertain to be the best path to make a living.

AMEN!!

Which is why I encourage my clients to embrace the “new breed of blogging” with a passion.  See, in my practice, my clients are engaged in making what Neil Rackham classifies as the Major Sale.  According to Rackham, a major sale is one in which the seller needs to establish a trusting relationship with the buyer in order to complete the sale.

If you’re an independent service professional, chances are good that YOU are engaged in making a “Major Sale.”  If that’s the case, then a BLOG is a great way to communicate with potential clients and begin building the TRUST needed for them to eventually hire you so you can perform your services for them.

With that in mind, when I have a client who expresses desire to “monetize” his or her blog, I encourage them to think FIRST of why they’re blogging and then WHO their target audience is when they blog?  A consultant whose monthly retainer is four or five figures should probably focus more on building a relationship with potential clients rather than focus on the nickels and dimes a “monetized” blog will generate.

Even blogging superstar Micheal Arrington of Techcrunch began blogging not with a “monetized” blog in mind, but rather as a way to get up to speed quickly on the emerging technologies of Web 2.0.  It wasn’t until after he had built a MASSIVE audience that he parlayed his blogging “success” into a successfully “monetized” blog.

Mark Butler writes about the things Courtney Tuttle did right when he launched his blog and the first item Mark identifies is Court “began with the end in mind”.

Figure out what the ‘Why’ behind your blogging is, and remind yourself of it every day. Hint: “To make money” isn’t specific enough. Your blog should have a clear place in your business plans and goals. Define it, and stick to it.

I recently wrote about a GREAT contest being launched by the Search Engine Journal blog where they’re inviting guest writers to create dynamic posts to their blog.  It’s a great contest, but one I won’t be entering.  Why?  Because my blog is a promotion tool for my business and my clients are NOT RSS subscribers nor readers of the Search Engine Journal.

A conversation I had this morning with a client illustrated this point well for me.  I found myself creating a word picture for a client to help her to understand the difference between her domain name based email account and her beloved Hotmail email account.  (The word picture involved an RV, a mail box, and two dogs named Outlook Express and Hotmail.)   Trust me when I tell you that the readers at Search Engine Journal do NOT need that word picture to understand the concept of having two separate email account.

It’s easy to get distracted by shiny objects and small furry creatures as you build your blog.  However, when you keep in mind WHY you’re blogging and FOR WHOM…. it makes it MUCH easier to decide where to invest your most precious commodity…. TIME.

Why Your Blog Isn’t Getting As Many Comments As You’d Like …

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One of the most common “laments” I hear from my clients (the ones who are actually adding content regularly) is “HELP!!! Very few people are commenting on my blog posts!!!”

My standard response to them is as follows:

It’s been my experience that most people who leave comments on blogs are other bloggers. With a blog of their own to promote, these people are trying to build a “bread crumb trail” to their own blog via their comments. “Regular” people will have to be moved to great extremes of either passion or anger (usually the latter) to be motivated to actually post a comment.

It’s interesting to note that I have a few clients who have NO DESIRE to allow people to comment on their blogs! As I was researching a blog post for another blog, I came across a post from Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion titled The Participation Ladder and Its Impact on Marketing and PR.

Forrester segmented the online audience into several different stratas – what they call a ladder of participation. They found that “Inactives” are by far the dominant group (52%). They’re followed by spectators, joiners, critics, collectors and last but not least creators. This last cluster, according to the analyst firm, dabbles in lots of different activities but few do all of them. See the chart for more.

The numbers on the graphic pan out as follows:

Creators: 13 %
Critics: 19 %
Collectors: 15 %
Joiners: 19 %
Spectators: 33 %
Inactives: 52 %

Keep in mind, according to the report, people enter at the bottom of the ladder and move UPWARDS. Inactives don’t usually jump into blogging at the “creators” level. They move slowly up the ladder… becoming spectators… then joiners.. then collectors… then critics.

Now, take a look at YOUR blog’s audience. Where do THEY fall on this ladder?

My clients are definitely fall on the lower spectrum of the ladder. Most of them are trying to soar to the top and as a result, they need my services to guide them. That’s what I do. As a result, my clients (and potential clients) don’t comment on my blog posts, my colleagues do.

While my clients and potential client’s won’t post a comment, they will email me if they feel particularly moved by a post. For example, when I was complaining about my cat and his OCD issues in the post “Are Google Adwords the Answer?” I got several emails from concerned clients who wanted to help my demented self mutilating kitty.

Niche Blog Marketing also offers great advice regarding playing the comments game with your blog:

Focus on building your lists while building rapport with your visitors. Track your progress and study your numbers. Treat social networking like attending your local Chamber of Commerce meeting. Be approachable……..

In other words, ASK for participation if you want comments.

There’s no one who does this better than Liz Strauss over at Successful Blog.com. Notice how she ends her post “Wendy Wouldn’t Wait. Will you?”

What are you doing to build the business of your dreams now?

She got 23 comments on this blog post just by ending it by asking a question. She does that a lot and as a result, her blog is an active hub.

By the way, Liz leads that post with the most brilliant insight I’ve seen on the web:

A blog isn’t a business any more than a building is a company.

BRILLIANT!

Does the Blog Skinny widget do to more harm than good?

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Blogs are hot… there’s no doubt about it. I’m such a fan of blogs, that I’m actually a “blog pusher and dealer.” They are a GREAT communication tool for independent service professionals who need to build trust with potential clients.

However, in response to the popularity of blogs, several services have emerged which claim to offering help driving to your blog. Some of these resources, like Technorati, MyBlog Log, Blog Catalog are legitimate blog traffic building tools. Others like Blog Rush are of questionable value, but I don’t think it HARMS your blog to include their widget…. unlike a service I stumbled upon the other day.

It’s called “Blog Skinny”and I decided to test the service with one of my “experimental” blogs.

Step 1: Fill in the form and submit your blog to the database.

I fill in the required information. No red flags yet… so I use a REAL email address that I actually check because some tools, like Blog Catalog, have social networking type features, participation in which helps to improve the tool’s effectiveness at driving blog traffic.

Step 2: Authenticate your blog by displaying not one but 2 widgets. Once the widgets are displaying on your blog, you then hit the “submit” button to authenticate.

TWO WIDGETS?!?! I mean, the rest is standard operating procedure, but requiring 2 widgets is asing a lot. (The fact that they offer another 8-10 “optional” widgets should have sent up a red flag, but it didn’t alarm me enough to stop.)

I don’t have a problem with the display preview that they show for each button. The first one is shown as displaying a tiny button and the second is a larger button. I notice as I copy the code that these the kind of URLs that would warrant a quick in person visit before approving a trackback or comment…. that red flag is starting to wave faster and closer in front of me.

Yet, I blaze on and add the code to the test blog. I click “view site” and am HORRIFIED by what I see. I’m not seeing the discreet image displayed in the display but rather a “word at home” text link in place of the discreet first button. Following the link confirms my worst fears: that Blog Skinny widget is going to link my blog with one that apparently lives in a “bad” neighborhood!

WHOA!!! A quick delete of the text widget and I take pleasure in the admonition from Blog Skinny that failure to complete the process will mean my information will be deleted from the database. I’m hating the fact that I used a real email address with them at this point and will have to wait and see if I’ve opened up a pandora’s box of email there.

I frequently tell my clients, “I’m covered with the scars from my experimentation so you don’t have to get burned.” While I initially hoped that I dropped the match before it burned my flesh… using my real email has already resulted in spam emails coming in to me pristine and well protected account.

Why blogging in the dark can be a good thing….

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The email was short and sweet….

” Kathy!  It’s me again.  I am wondering if you can tell how much activity my blog gets.  I looked at the stats sheet, but couldn’t tell.  Am I writing about the right kind of stuff?”

My reply:

This is a COMMON problem.

It’s been my experience that you can’t judge which posts are the most “powerful” by the comments because often, the only people who leave comments are other bloggers who want to leave a breadcrumb trail from your blog to their blog.

With that said, I peeked at your stats …[snip] I also saw that you’re getting lots of love from the Google bot.   That’s good.

However, aside from the dry information readily available in your log files, ….for right now, you’re blogging in the dark so to speak.   It’s true that your stats can tell you what page people entered on and how many left after reading that page.  I can also see how many pages each “visitor” consumed “on average”.    Log file analysis doesn’t always tell the story.  We know your average page view is 2.32 pages…. was that the result of each and every visitor visiting 2.32 pages or was it hundreds of single page views combined with three or four visitors consuming 10-20 blog posts on their visit?  Because of the high traffic, analysis is difficult at best!  It’s easier in this case to see 10 visitors with an average page view of 8 pages per viewer.   Then we know SOMEONE is very interested in what you have to say!   It’s very common for high traffic blogs to have a low number page views because an interested reader who consumes 10-20 blog posts won’t drive up the average number of page views over thousands of visitors.

Then the question is…. did those visitors who consumed a single page on their visit… were they “regular” readers (who subscribed via RSS feed).  An RSS feed subscriber may visit every time you post an entry… or they may only visit when you have an interesting headline that catches their eye.  The blogs I subscribe to via RSS will only see me visiting a single page if I was just there the day before, reading the previous day’s entry.

In a word, you could drive yourself NUTSO worrying about this.  Or, you can continue to blog from your heart.  Write as if you were speaking directly to a potential client.  What would she need to know about you before signing up for your services?  How can you build TRUST with this stranger?  The goal is to build up trust to the point where the reader will take a chance and contact you.

The more you post, the more trust opportunities you’ll have.   As you post, you’ll be revealing MUCH more than you should even focus on.  For example, today’s post is EXCELLENT!  It tells me a lot… I read this one and the one before it and if I didn’t know before, I do now that you’re a Christian.

Now, that may be a HUGE turn off to some people.  That might be enough to “cross” your name off their list.  But those people weren’t really even in the running to be your client.  On the contrary.  Once they had a conversation with you, they would have seen that and never contacted you again.  This way, they learned it from your blog BEFORE they wasted your time by calling.

Again, you’ll drive yourself CRAZY trying to define the single post that was the “tipping point” and caused the potential client to fill in the contact form or pick up the phone.  You can ask, but they probably weren’t aware of the process.  Was it the last post they read or the first?  Which straw broke the camel’s back?

I am aware when I reach that tipping point… but only because I’m ACUTELY aware of the process.  I don’t ask “regular, normal, functional” people the question of “when did you decide to pick up the phone” because it’s not that they WON’T answer it, it’s that they can’t answer it.

On the one hand, you don’t want to “ruin” the intake process by grilling them on what made them decide to call.  On the other hand, if you WERE to grill them, you need to be aware that psychologists estimate that 85% of the buying decision is made at an unconscious level.  All your potential client could answer would be what the last post was that they read before they called or contacted you.  The probably can’t tell you when they made the decision.

The moral to the story…. many of us are “blogging in the dark”.  I remember one potential client contact a few months back.  A woman called late on a Friday afternoon and she opened the conversation with me with an unforgettable phrase,

“I don’t know why, but for some reason… I think you might be able to help me.”

She’s normal… she’s functional… and she’s not obsessed with this stuff…. of course she can’t pin point WHY she called.   However, her comments and questions clearly referenced a few blog posts I had made a few months earlier.  Looking back, she hadn’t posted a question or a comment on the post…. no one did!  It wasn’t a “powerful” post by anyone’s definition except hers!!!

On the other hand, my serious introspection of my bellybutton lint when it comes to making major sale decisions is BOUND to affect my decision making process as well.  By trying to see past the veil… the one the hides the 85% of the buying decision making process from view… am I skewing the results?

As I try to measure, I find myself entering aCatch 22 world similar to that in Quantum Mechanics… “when a quantum system interacts with a measuring apparatus, their respective wavefunctions become entangled, so that the original quantum system ceases to exist as an independent entity.”  In other words, by trying to MEASURE  the quantum state one will actually ALTER the quantum state rendering the measurement useless.

In other words… tis far better to blog naked, in the dark.  That way, when you think no one is reading… you can really speak your mind and blog from the heart.

Spend too much time “blogging” from your head makes blogging scary… difficult…. and not fun.  When you’re blogging “from your head” you end up viewing posting to your blog in a similar vein to working up the courage to go streaking across the field of the Super Bowl during the first quarter.  Turn off the television cameras and all the lights and it’s a MUCH easier proposition!

Instead… just post to your blog.  The more you blog, the sooner you’ll find your “blog’s voice“.