New ROI of blogging report from Forrester.
This morning I was reading from Groundswell about the the return on investment (ROI) of corporate blogging. The report was troublesome from a public relations POV.
Particularly bothersome were the answers to commonly asked questions that Charlene Li answered poorly. Here's my take:
Q: Is there a standard ROI for blogs?
A: Yes. The standard should come from the larger goals of your organization, more precisely the goals of a communications campaign. Remember a blog or blogging is a tactic -- something we do -- and without a set objective by which to measure its effectiveness, you have no accurate way of determining whether your blogging is generating the results you want. So the standard is something you create from the objectives of a communication plan. Which leads us to the next question.
Q: What is the best way to measure the effectiveness of a blog?
A: It really starts with an objective. What do you want to do with your blog. There's a great little story of how to measure a blog's effectiveness that comes from a liquor store in Greenfield, Indiana. According to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware the liquor store's owner measures her blog's worth by the number of cases of rare liqueur she sells. Before she started blogging about different drinks one could make from these expensive liqueurs, she rarely sold such luxury beverages. Now she can gauge how many cases to buy of certain liqueurs before she posts a recipe blog. After the owner mixed blogging into her marketing mix, she sells cases, not just the occasional bottle.
There are more ways to measure a blog's effectiveness. Charlene Li suggests advertising equivalence value (measuring the mention of a blog in mainstream media in comparison to what advertising space would cost for the same space). That's like comparing apples to orangutans. There are better yardsticks to measure with, but that's for another blog post.
Q: But aren't blogs risky? How do you take that into account?
A: Isn't driving to work in morning rush hour riskier? Aren't lawsuits filed against your company risky? There is more benefit to blogs than risk. But that, too, is for another post. Suffice to say, if your organization starts a blog today, Armageddon isn't going to happen tomorrow.
Q: Our CMO/CEO/CFO won't let us have a blog until we show him/her the definitive ROI of a blog.
A: Call me. I'll find a case study.
Q: Communicating blog ROI on a spreadsheet is heresy, isn't it?
A: It's fine to use a spreadsheet to document blogging ROI. But once you've crunched the numbers, use a graph to explain the data. We are visual people, even C-suite execs. Add a case study and a heart-felt testimonial to the presentation and you strengthen your persuasiveness.
In a recent panel discuss I participated in, other C-suite execs who get social media came to a consensus about blogging and e-mail. We were discussing which business or organizations, for that matter, benefit from blogging. We agreed that if you're using e-mail, then you should be blogging.
