The ROI of business blogging

Oct 08, 2006

Traversing through various blogs (today being Saturday) I reached this interesting post that talks about calculating the ROI of blogging. Although when it comes to blogging a tangible ROI (return on investment) figure is hard to arrive at, it sometimes becomes necessary to talk jargons while selling blogging projects to your clients.

It’s been proven beyond doubt that if done properly, business blogging pays back more than it is apparent to data-obsessed analysts. Even when it comes to data, some facts are so hard-hitting that you have to be brain-dead not to perceive them. Here are some facts that can make business blogging irresistible to your business clients:

You business blog brings you hordes of traffic

First thing first. There are very few businesses (unless they deal with the underworld and have their own shady modes of reaching their prospects) that don’t need decent amount of relevant web traffic. And what sort of traffic could be more relevant than your business blog readers? You don’t even have to SPAM them. They either come to your blog on their own, or they subscribe to your RSS feed on their own. Individual blog posts can be tweaked to get lots of relevant traffic from search engines. Your business blog also gets lots traffic when other bloggers link to your blog in general and posts in particular.

Your business blog lets you directly talk to your customers and clients

Your business blog becomes a communication channel that lets you talk to your customers and clients in a more relaxed, interactive manner. If your customers can leave comments on your business blog, you get direct response from them and you immediately know what they think of your product or service, and if some corrective steps need to be taken, you can take them before it is too late.

Your business blog gets you new customers and clients

If they visit your blog, they already show some interest in what you have to offer. Even if they have no interest in your business and they still visit your business blog they can spread the word around about your business and hence help you promote your business indirectly.

Your business blog lets you respond to other blogs

Every kid in the neighborhood is blogging these days and he or she can voice the opinion like it was never possible before. News and views in the blogsphere spread like wildfire. Remember the Kryptonite story? The lock company had to withdraw locks worth millions of dollars when someone demonstrated on his blog how you could open a Kryptonite bicycle lock with a ballpoint pen. And then there was Jeff Jarvis’ blogging about Dell’s terrible after-sale service. Although both these companies earned what they got from the bloggers, the story would have been slightly different had these companies been running their own business blogs through which they could have done some PR damage control.

Your business blog lets you introduce new products and services quickly

Your business blog can help you save lots of advertising money if you write about your new offerings on your business blog. Assuming you’ve been maintaining a regular business blog full of interesting posts and readers visit your blog regularly, you have a ready audience for your frequent or infrequent announcements.

Your business blog gives you a human face

Businesses are generally viewed as dry, money-hungry, unresponsive entities. There is always this feeling of “them” and “us” amidst consumers. Your business blog presents to you a perfect opportunity to let people know that your company is run by regular, normal, real world human beings who are concerned about the real world issues. People will love to know you care about the environment, you worry about the law and order situation like everybody, that you too worry about the social conditions under which our kids are growing. Just think what an impact this can have on your readers. Once they realize you are just like them, they easily trust you, and readily do business with you as and when they need to.

These are but, a few ROI benefits, tangible or tangible. Please use the comments section if you can come up with more points.

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2 Responses to “The ROI of business blogging”

Craig McGinty
October 8th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Agree with everything you say but one thing I’ve noticed is that a blog allows you to spot trends and needs of customers, allowing you to develope either websites or products to fill this need.

Which naturally links in nicely with your point about using your blog to introduce new products and services easily.
Amrit
October 9th, 2006 at 5:37 am
Hi Craig. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. You are absolutely right! The visitors of your business blog can surely give you new ideas and help you come up with new products and services.