Guest appearance at Freelance Writing Jobs

May 14, 2008 | 3 Comments

This week I’ve guest posted over at Freelance Writing Jobs - The Internet’s #1 Freelance Writer Jobs Board.

The topic won’t be new to regular Crucible readers, but I thought FWJ’s subscribers would appreciate a nudge towards promoting themselves as ‘added value writers’, educating their clients on content marketing and then demanding more money.

FWJ’s Deb Ng has linked regularly to The Copywriter’s Crucible, so I thought I’d return the gesture.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, blogging 

Time to charge for access to your content?

March 27, 2008 | 1 Comment

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Regular Crucible readers, and anyone who has read my eBook, will be familiar with my sermons on the need to provide informative, useful content in order to build trust and credibility with website visitors. Whilst giving away free content is a great way of making friends, it’s not going to pay any bills and it certainly doesn’t write itself.

Well, some web publishers have had enough of relying on ad clicks to keep them fed and have moved to paid membership models.

Subscriptions offer greater stability

Over on the Teaching Sells blog, Brian Clark has discussed why a popular eBook and an SEO consultancy have now switched to charging subscriptions for accessing their latest content.

The content they provide is so highly regarded and in such demand that they are now in a position where charging a monthly rate seems the only logical, and sensible, way of compensating themselves for the time they invest in sharing their expertise.

Whilst I can’t see The Copywriter’s Crucible charging an entrance fee anytime soon, I can understand why websites with such a large regular audience and reputation feel that the time is right to evolve from living off a drip feed of ad clicks.

Is there still money to be made from eBooks?

News of the first few sites to switch to subscriptions has arrived just when I’m looking at developing other revenue streams beyond straightforward copywriting.

Since I’ve started reading Skellie’s Anywired blog, about living the jetset remote worker lifestyle, my spare moments are now absorbed in trying to think up a passive business model which can generate income even when I’m not hammering away at my keyboard.

Of the internet business ideas suggested in a recent Anywired post the most feasible for me seems to be that of knocking out a few eBooks and mining some untapped niches.

The principle behind an eBook is the same as any online learning resource - information is freely available on the web and an eBook simply packages it into a coherent format that’s easier for readers to consume.

How can you add value to an eBook?

Perhaps the key to attracting buyers is not only repackaging information, but being able to offer value beyond an ordinary eBook.

This could be in the form of regular updates, personal support or a private forum for discussing the topic - all of which will require ongoing maintenance and support.

For which only a subscription based payment model will suffice.

This is going to need some thought.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Marketing, blogging 

Ten Steps for Changing Your Wordpress Domain

March 5, 2008 | 4 Comments

Minolta DSC

They often say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do, and I think moving domains isn’t a lot better and I hope I haven’t lost you all along the way.

Ever since Google started indexing my blog as my home page, I’ve been steadily heading towards re-branding my copywriting business with my blog name. To complete the transition I’ve now not only updated my stationary but also my domain.

‘The Write Words’ was a bit generic and I’d always wanted a name that was unique and had a story behind it for whenever I handed out business cards. Mine is simply about how I discovered blogging as a marketing tool and how it took over the branding of my business.

Although it has involved a little bit of pain (all my apostrophes have changed to ‘’’ ?!), I thought moving to a .com domain was also necessary for long-term growth and to try and establish more of a global presence, crucial for my plans/dreams of swapping my laptop bag for a suitcase.

I’m still breathing into a paper bag at the thought that I might have lost my 300 loyal subscribers in the process, but here’s a brief checklist for moving your blog to a new domain with hopefully the minimum of pain.

Ten steps for moving your Wordpress blog to a new domain

1. Backup your MySQL database, preferably using the phpMyAdmin panel in your web hosting account as I had no luck uploading using Wordpress database plugins.

2. Create a new MySql database and upload the copy of your old one. You might have to compress your database if it’s over 8 MB or (as in my case) contact your web hosting company to upload it for you if your browser keeps timing out due to the size.

2. Backup all your Wordpress plugins, theme files and anything else you’ve manually edited.

3. Download the latest version of Wordpress and upload to your new domain.

4. Upload the wp-config.php after editing the details to reflect your new database information along with your theme and plugin files to the relevant directories.

5. Go to yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/install.php to complete the installation and then yourdomainname.com/wp-login.php to access your Wordpress dashboard.

6. Update information that relates to your old domain address e.g. email address.

Now here’s the clever bit:

7. Download the Moving Your Blog plugin and upload it to your old website and activate it. Go to the plugin’s options and enter your new domain address. Click Ok and now every visitor, link and search engine spider will be seamlessly redirected to the corresponding page on your new domain without any painful page reloading or alarming redirect screens.

Now here’s the tricky bit, which I don’t yet know if it has worked:

8. In Feedburner edit the feed URL with your new domains feed address. Then click on the option to delete it and select the 30 day redirect option. In theory this should automatically redirect all your subscribers from your old feed to your new one.

9. Update your blogs email subscription box and Feedburner button with your new feed’s HTML code. You’ll also have to update Technorati, which unfortunately means losing your old ranking.

10. Light a candle and pray to whoever you hope is listening that Google doesn’t banish you to the sandbox for duplicated content and that your subscribers can find their way to your new location.

So hopefully these ten steps should save you some of the time I spent hunting for answers and guidance for each stage of the process, and the comment section is now open for questions.

Depending on whether this post reaches you, hopefully I’ll soon be able to edit steps 8 and 10.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under About, Blog, blogging 

Top Ten Tips for Marketing Your Website

January 30, 2008 | 10 Comments

town_cryer

If you’ve started the New Year with a shiny new website, and invested in some copywriting for the landing page, you might be thinking that you can just sit back and wait for the sales to come flooding in.

Well, it’s not that easy I’m afraid. It takes a lot of effort to successfully market and manage an effective website.

You’ve got to find a way to signpost it so your customers can find you and then you’ve got to work out how you’re going to sell to them when they arrive. There are barriers to building trust online; people want to see more than some JPEGS and PayPal buttons before they’re ready to buy.

But fear not because (inspired by a similarly themed post from Junta42) I’ve scribbled down my top ten internet marketing tips for getting your website noticed and building credibility with customers (I’ll give you a hint: it all revolves around becoming a publisher and being generous with your content):

1. Regularly post useful articles that contain your keywords

Preferably articles should be posted onto a blog of some description so you can interact with customers and perpetuate the love affair between blogs and search engine optimisation. The key is to be offering insight and advice which will not only attract the search spiders, but will also help promote your expertise and answer the questions that might be blocking a sale.

2. Let everyone know the traditional way

Tell all your contacts about the new site. An emailed message is too easy to dismiss. So dust off your telephone and call them up to announce your new venture, or send them a concisely worded and designed postcard. Both methods are relatively inexpensive and will make more impact than email bombing as many people as you can.

3. Network online

Find out who the thought leaders are in your industry and then comment insightfully on their blogs to introduce yourself. Many industry news websites have now integrated comment sections, so you should be able to find somewhere to print your name. This will help attract attention to your own site, create valuable backlinks to boost your Google rank and build authority in your online marketplace.

4. Drive traffic with social bookmarking

It might still be regarded as a niche way of searching the web, but social bookmarking can send you a lot of traffic. If you can get enough people to vote for your articles, you can literally attract thousands of new visitors via sites like Stumble Upon, Digg or Del.icio.us, and a host of other services to choose from.

The trick is to integrate yourself into the social bookmarking community by tracking who votes for you and then returning the favour. Over time you can build a network of social bookmarking pals and assist each other in driving traffic.

5. Print your web address everywhere

Get your website address added to every email signature, letterhead and piece of marketing material you send out. Even if you manage to get a leaflet into someone’s pocket at a networking event, if they’re interested the first thing they’ll want to do is check out your website. So make sure they know the address.

Marketing should be an integrated approach with your offline activities linked into your website. You can only fit so many words onto a tri-fold brochure. But there’s no shortage of space to develop your offer online.

6. Promote with online press releases

You no longer need contacts in the traditional media to get exposure for your business. And you don’t need a new product launch to justify a press release. You can use online PR distribution services to publish useful articles offering insight to your target customers. This could be advice to schools on setting up a cycling policy to promote your bike sheds, or the healthiest way to cook chicken to promote your grease free grill.

Press releases push out links back to your website and cement your credibility if you’re providing useful information.

7. Publish on other people’s sites

If you’ve already been networking with bloggers in your field then why not approach them to write a guest post. This will help you attract more attention by showcasing your expertise as well as generating a backlink from a relevant website. If there aren’t enough bloggers around, try approaching your industry’s news sites to see if they’ll accept submissions. Everybody needs fresh content to keep eyeballs occupied.

Just make sure you’re providing useful articles, and not a blatant sales pitch, if you don’t want your submission dumped in the recycle bin.

8. Give away a free eBook

What questions do your customers have before they make a purchase or how can your product make their lives easier? Both can be answered in a free downloadable eBook that demonstrates your credibility, expertise and builds a closer affinity with your customers.

If you’re being useful by giving away free information then you’ll be rewarded with the customer’s increased trust and confidence.

9. Start a monthly newsletter

In this age where everybody expects to get content for free, it might be getting harder to charge customers for words but it has never been easier to publish. So why not take advantage and produce a newsletter to maintain contact with your latest news, articles and product guides long after prospects have left the site.

10. Stick to the plan and don’t expect instant results

Even if you follow steps 1-9 it can still take a number of months to build your Google ranking, attract a steady flow of traffic and build your customer base. However, if you don’t invest in building your web presence then your shiny new website will simply remain hidden away and ignored. So put a strategy in place for regularly generating and promoting your content, be persistent and if you build it they will come.

In this age of niche products reaching global marketplaces, sending a town crier around your local shopping district didn’t make my list. It won’t hurt if you want to attract local business, but it wont be enough to find you customers further a field.

Investing in good quality copywriting for all your pages (including the ‘About Us’ page), and not just the landing page, is the first step. The next stage is to become a publisher and be generous with your content.

Becoming a publisher will boost your Google rank, attract traffic and develop credibility with your customers, who will have more trust in you because you’ve invested time in making their buying decisions easier.

Enjoy this post? Vote for it at Digg. Thanks!

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting, Marketing, Online-PR, blogging 

Content Marketing. Who’s on board?

January 23, 2008 | 5 Comments

train

Whilst the economic outlook might be doom and gloom, the content marketing bandwagon is rolling at full speed. It’s filling up with enthusiastic new supporters at every stop, and gathering pace towards its destination in marketing boardrooms.

The ideas I first encountered when researching business blogging have been picked up, dusted off and given a new set of clothes in the form of content marketing. People are ignoring advertising, so the future is to barter for their attention with content of value.

Add to the equation that the costs of becoming a publisher have plummeted along with the price at which you can sell content. Content itself is now a promotional, marketing tool for building a closer affinity, rather than a way of generating income in itself.

I think content marketing has a bright future and is a future field for copywriters. In my own experience I’m finding more people who not only want words for the search engines, but also words that can provide ammunition to their sales teams and educate visitors.

This week I thought I’d share some of the blogs I regularly read on the evolving demand for high quality, useful content. I’d recommend adding them all to your reading list if you’re interested in where marketing and copywriting is heading:

Copyblogger - what initial started as a blog about copywriting techniques has now evolved into a speakers platform for sharing advice on writing for the web and the need to invest in quality content, rather than hammering out posts as though your PC is about to explode.

Web Ink Now - blog of viral marketing evangelist David Meerman Scott who shares his views on offering content of value and throwing overtly sales tactics in the bin.

Junta42 - a blog dedicated to content marketing. Whose doing it well? Who needs to start doing it? And how can you do it better? All questions dealt with using real life examples. They’ve recently announced their own list of content marketing blogs - so much to read, so little time.

Engagement Principles - blog of veteran copywriter Tom Chandler of Copywriter Underground fame focusing on engaging with content that appeals to people’s desires and interests, rather than blandly bores.

Seth Godin - Seth is constantly preaching on the need to tell authentic stories and to be more remarkable in a world filled with mediocrity. His massive fan base of disciples will be the ones pushing content marketing when Seth gives them the nod.

Chris Anderson - the editor-in-chief of Wired will soon be releasing a new book on the internet’s economics of giving away for free so you can profit in other ways. If it has the same impact as ‘The Long Tail’ then expect to see it referenced in the national media sometime soon. Here’s a link to a speech he recently gave on the subject to whet your appetite.

So there you have it. It’s not just be banging my drum but a whole orchestra of bloggers playing the content marketing tune. We write about it every week knowing that eventually our combined noise will be loud enough to penetrate corporate marketing boardrooms everywhere.

Hopefully this will then lead to a bright new world in which freelance copywriters and article writers are called upon to drive their content marketing campaigns, and not just think up their next ad’s tag line.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting, Marketing, blogging 

Copywriting and Blogging Dead? Bar Humbug.

December 12, 2007 | 8 Comments

The run up to Christmas is a time to reflect on the past year. It’s a time to think about which areas of your business are working, and which need an overhaul in the New Year. Some people are taking this reflection seriously, with copywriting legend Bob Bly and blogging supremo Brian Clark both being forced to question the future of the well written word in 2008.

The rise of social networking sites, such as YouTube and Facebook, swallowing time and attention has raised questions over the marketing value of carefully written sales pages and well thought out blog posts. Some are saying that the plethora of new tools at a marketer’s disposal has diminished the need to keep copywriting and blogging in their arsenal.

chop shop

Cheap copy and Facebook

Bob Bly questions whether the decline of print ads and abundance of badly written websites suggests the art of copywriting is dying.

The internet’s literary form is still struggling to evolve from its keyword obsessed past. An entire industry of content writing chop shops has grown to feed the demand for words, shipping out articles wielded together from parts scavenged throughout the web. These articles might not be pretty, but they’re cheap. And they’re availability from low paid writers, both home and abroad, has damaged the valuation of writing amongst some businesses.

Brian Clark comments on a similar lack of faith in the value of well written words, in response to a post by Stormhoek’s marketing mastermind Hugh Macleod. It would appear that some marketers have abandoned blogging altogether, hoping that the billions (supposedly) on the verge of being thrown at Facebook will turn it into the dominant marketing platform. When there’s so much buzz about user generated content, many fail to recognize the value of useful, informative blog posts.

Brian is too savvy to get flustered by those without the foresight to see where marketing is going: the ease with which you can publish online means that every business is now a media company, and need to be telling their story if they want to build credibility. Blogs are not, after all, just online diaries but a web 2.0 powered content management system.

consumer magazines

Content marketing is not just about magazines

When I first abandoned my corporate ladder to live by my wits and word processor, I realised that I had to find a way to differentiate myself. I had to be able to offer value to clients beyond merely stringing sentences together.

So I jumped upon the business blogging bandwagon, hoping to join the anticipated revolution in corporate communication. Learning that blogging can get you to the top of Google and build relationships with customers was just too enticing to not absorb and share with potential clients.

By the end of last year, I saw blogging grow into the engagement philosophy, which in turn was enveloped by content marketing. The shared ethos is that of providing useful content which appeals to customers’ interests, rather than dictates with one way sales spiel.

With the movement being driven by smart marketing brains, such as those of Joe Pulizzi and David Meerman Scott, it should only be a matter of time for the philosophy to start penetrating mindsets, and websites, on both sides of the pond.

An effective content marketing strategy demands good writers. Writers who can engage with informative, valuable content that sells by building trust in a business’ expertise. You’re not going to pickup this quality of writing from the content chop shops found via Craigslist or Elance.

goodcontent

B2B buyers use the internet as well

Ecommerce has hit the headlines yet again this Christmas because of the frenzied online spending spree. The same movement has occurred, but with less fanfare, for B2B buyers, the people marketing agencies are desperate to reach.

It’s not enough just to chat at your exhibition stand and get a brochure into the B2B buyer’s jacket pocket. The first thing they’ll do when they get back to the office will be to visit your website, which means it needs to be well written and offer insight that differentiates your business. Yet more demand for writers who can take your news and convert it into engaging copy that entices and sells through education.

So is the marketing demand for copywriting and blogging dying? Far from it. It’s still evolving.

Enjoy this post? Vote for it at Digg. Thanks!

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting, Marketing, blogging 

UK Businesses Start Taking Business Blogging Seriously

September 19, 2007 | 8 Comments

conversation

Last year, I attended a small business exhibition in my home city of Milton Keynes to distribute leaflets on the benefits of blogging for businesses. I’d hoped it would be a new area in which I could differentiate myself and ride the crest of the wave of the revolution in business communication.

Unfortunately, my attempts to extol the virtues of posting articles once a week were met with glazed eyes and furrowed brows, before I’d even mentioned RSS. Suffice to say, I left the exhibition with few new leads and a hundred or so leaflets that are still gathering dust in a drawer.

Well, a year on it would appear that UK businesses have now started taking blogging seriously, and it’s growing on a rapid scale.

This week, Inferno PR released the results of a survey of 300 businesses with 250+ employees, which even reached the national news [links found via The Marketing Blog].

50% had undertaken blogging in some form and of those nearly 90% said it had generated new business.

Other findings included:

  • 64% of UK corporate blogs have been launched in the last 6 months
  • 66% of managers in the survey have visited blogs in the last 12 months
  • 80% of blog users visit blogs during working hours
  • 33% of blog visitors will access a blog on a daily basis
  • Amongst purchase decision makers, blogs were second best source for influencing buying decisions, after industry reports

Inferno MD Grant Currie commented:

“The research shows that blogging in the UK is fast becoming a serious business tool…UK companies are now beginning to adopt blogging as part of their business strategy and those that have done so are pointing to specific business success and opportunity being created. It seems the hype is over and the real business of blogging is on its way.”

Whilst the findings are very positive, many businesses still need to learn that they need to be providing useful content of value, and not using blogs as a direct sales tool. The survey found that any business creation was because of greater engagement and relationship building, not one way marketing messages.

Grant Currie said:

“Businesses shouldn?t view a blog as another billboard from which to shout their corporate messages. Starting a blog is essentially starting a conversation and as in verbal communication, conversations have conventions, rules and boundaries. Those businesses in our survey who have derived new business opportunities from their blogs, will have found that these successes came indirectly from the blog, rather than directly. A blog is not the place to sell and businesses should get suitable advice before embarking on their blogs.”

One person who could give such advice is Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council in California.

In an interview on this week’s B2B Marketing Podcast (which I’d recommend anybody interested in the changing rules of marketing subscribes to) he discussed how there’s a sea change occurring in how marketing promotes products and services.

No longer is it just about peddling the feature, benefit story. But about building authority leadership and trust in how your products solve a customer’s particular need. You achieve this through your content, syndicated to third party sites as well as your own, and developing an ‘advocacy agenda’ for your products:

“Leadership starts off with creating an advocacy position that you know will help drive adoption and use of your solution. So before you get out there with the product sell, you’ve first got to paint a mural. You’ve got to provide a scenario situation.”

Donovan assessed that an effective, cohesive approach to marketing should be about:

“The whole notion of setup. The whole notion of enabling your channel and your sales organization to be provisioned with value selling content.”

Marketing officers now have a greater responsibility to push content publishing as a major part of their marketing mix, and not just pouring more funds into advertising and direct sales.

Marketing is about building trust and confidence through thought leadership and the provision of content of value. Exactly what an intelligent business blogging strategy should be all about.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Marketing, blogging 

The Power of a Tailor’s Tale

September 4, 2007 | 5 Comments

englishcut

Once upon a time, there was a young tailor who was struggling to make a living selling his handmade suits. Every month he would scramble around to find the money to pay the rent, hoping he would eventually be able to find enough wealthy customers to keep his business alive.

But as time went on, his dreams of becoming Saville Row’s youngest successful tailor continued to fade.

One evening, he was drowning his sorrows in a London tavern when he decided to share his plight with a friend. After listening to the tailor’s woes, the friend, who happened to be a marketing wiz, devised a plan to help the tailor attract more customers and sell more suits without requiring a king’s ransom.

The plan was simple. Under his friend’s guidance, the tailor would start writing stories about his business: on the training involved, choosing the right materials, the techniques used to craft every suit and to offer a window on the life of a traditional old world artisan.

From sharing insight into his profession and expertise, the tailor was able to build an audience very quickly, attract new customers and build a phenomenal level of online exposure. His blog, English Cut, is now recognized as a casebook example of effective internet marketing in action, and was featured in Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book Naked Conversations.

The tailor’s sales have now trebled, he has recruited apprentices and started selling a new line of £150 shirts. His client base has now spread across the pond to the US, where he now pays regular visits to Manhattan, Chicago and anywhere else his services are requested.

The tailor drives his marketing simply by sharing stories about his profession and insight into the care and attention that goes into every suit.

People have been telling stories longer than recorded history.

Stories are powerful.

Stories swoop under the reader’s radar scanning for advertising. They can enable you to develop an emotional connection stronger than any sales chart or cleverly worded marketing message.

In the online world, you can’t talk to customers as you would in a shop. Therefore, you have to find other ways of introducing yourself and letting people know what you’re all about. What better way than in an ongoing discussion about your business and expertise?

Whether it’s in the form of a blog or newsletter, it has never been easier or cheaper to build relationships through the power of storytelling.

Every business has plenty of stories to tell, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • How was the company founded? Where does the name come from?
  • How have you overcome a challenge? What did you learn from it?
  • What stories do your customers have to tell about your business?
  • What insight and opinions can you offer on the latest industry news?
  • Who are the people that came the company going? Who is the person on the other end of the phone?

As internet marketers understand more about the challenges of selling online it’s becoming ever clearer that customers want to know more about you than what they can find on your profile page.

People like to trade with those they know and trust. You can build this trust by sharing your knowledge, expertise and history in a friendly, transparent manner.

So what’s your story?

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Marketing, blogging 

‘Why You Must Invest in Content to Build Trust and Succeed Online’ report

August 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Whilst I was experiencing the summer lull, I thought I’d take advantage of the free time to compile a summary of my posts from the last year. After all, with the dreadful weather we’ve had in the UK I couldn’t really spend it lazing in the garden.

As every week has passed and the stats and studies have piled up, I’ve developed a clearer view on the need for businesses to be investing more in their content.

Regular readers of The Copywriter’s Crucible will be familiar with most the research. But I’m hoping it will give new visitors an opportunity to get up to speed with what I preach, and hopefully provoke a few into reconsidering how they allocate their marketing budget.

The study is a downloadable pdf designed to just run free and to try and attract a few new blog subscribers on its travels:

http://thewritewords.me.uk/Invest%20in%20content.pdf

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Copywriting, Marketing, blogging 

What’s Holding Back Businesses From Blogging?

July 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment

If you spend any time reading internet marketing and copywriting blogs it’s very easy to get caught up in all the excitement on how blogs, and other web 2.0 tools, could transform a business’ fortunes. Although the benefits might seem obvious, persuading IT decision makers is another matter. Studies released in the last week continue to reflect how it’s the same old barriers holding back the engagement movement.

Mark White at Better Business Blogging alerted me to a recent trends survey by the Chartered Institute of Marketing. The survey suggests that change might be occurring, but it’s at a very slow pace.

This year, marketing spend on advertising is expected to fall slightly from its dominance of 15%. Online is to increase by a healthy 3.6%, customer relationship management by 2% year and PR by 1.5%, as marketers seek new avenues of communication.

Technology was identified as the main driving factor for the adjustments, with changing consumer attitudes being recognized by two thirds.

Geoff Hurst, the Institute’s Director, hailed the findings, “Playing by yesterday’s rules is not an option for the modern marketer. Keeping up to date with current thinking and maintaining skills have never been more important.”

Whilst the results might seem encouraging for those who believe in greater consumer engagement, there’s still a long way to go.

Although blogs were deemed as a popular digital marketing tool, only 1 in 12 claimed to be using them a ‘fair amount’. The fact is that new technology is still not being used by anywhere near the levels anticipated in previous years.

Marketers might be aware that consumer mindsets are changing, but are still apparently paralysed from being able to respond.

Insight into why many marketers’ hands might be tied was provided by a Forrester Research survey, released last Friday.

Forrester assessed that it was the old traditional metrics of return on investment, backed up by an acute lack of faith in web 2.0 technology, that was holding back new initiatives. Only a measly 11% of the 275 IT professionals interviewed had much faith in blogging’s effectiveness as a marketing tool.

As one commented, “If you can’t put together a good business case that has some cost benefit justification, it’s difficult to get those types of efforts launched.”

Two thirds of the IT decision makers interviewed identified ROI as the benchmark for evaluating success. This puts tactics such as blogging, and engaging with a steady flow of useful content, at a distinct disadvantage in getting funding.

Forrester analyst F G. Oliver Young commented, “Many business users still associate blogs with personal diaries, and some firms use blogs simply as a way to surface existing content, muting the effect.”

It’s not all doom and gloom though for the engagement marketer.

Rob Andrews at Blogging 4 Business last week highlighted ‘The B2B Web 2.0 Tools Report’. Commissioned by Direct Impact Marketing, the report discovered that of the businesses using blogs three quarters were smaller than 10,000 people.

Large monolithic organizations might be struggling to reach a decision that is not based on ROI, but brave smaller enterprises are not so restrained.

Paul Dunay from Bearing Point, one of the study’s sponsors, said, “If there’s one piece of advice for marketers I’d give it’s this: “Lather, rinse, repeat.” Get in there, mess it up, get comfortable. It’s all about trying and experimenting.”

The problem is that for many organizations experimenting and risking failure is not an option. So whilst they continue to watch from the sidelines, there’s plenty of room for those prepared to invest and pursue greater consumer engagement to reap the rewards.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Marketing, blogging 

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