Web Development on a Stick
W.MI Business Blogger In Entrepreneur Magazine
Create a Blog to Boost Your Business
If you’re still not quite sure what blogs are or how they can benefit your business, this blogging veteran offers some words of wisdom. Link >>
Moosetracks.
Yes, the ice cream. Have you had it?
Moosetracks originated here in West Michigan - Wayland, MI to be exact - by Denali Flavors, Inc.
Since April of this year, Executive VP of Marketing John Nardini has created 3 blogs for Denali Flavors, in addition to a Flash-based site just for Moosetracks
- http://www.denaliflavors.com
- http://www.moosetracks.com
- http://www.teammoosetracks.com
- http://www.moosetracks.com
John has also recently published an article in Entrepreneur Magazine, where he discusses business blogging and his experiences doing so.
I’ve talked briefly on the phone with John, and had hoped to run an interview here on Boyink.com as well, but have yet to hear back from him. Maybe he’ll come play in the comments section now…;)
The questions I have, after reading his article, are around measurements - specifically the true costs of a business blog, and also the bottom-line ROI value of a blog to the business.
On the Value side - John says they measure the value by looking at traffic to the MoosetTracks site, saying:
- Site visits are up 25.7 percent.
- Hits to the site are up 21 percent.
- Total time on the site is up 23.4 percent.
My questions are - does an increase in site traffic really indicate success? Or does it just indicate more traffic? Have the sales of Moosetracks gone up since starting the blog? Are the “hits” being filtered correctly to get rid of any increases in search engine spidering? I know you’ve taken a bit of heat over having the Moose blog, do you see the increased traffic from these more negative reviews as still being a positive thing?
On the costs of a business blog, in the article John says:
Other than our blogger’s time, the company has spent less than $700 on these four blogs.
What would that number be if we factored in the blogger’s time? Obviously a blog can be more time-consuming site for a business than a more traditional marketing site, and as with anything there are opportunity costs involved. Have the blogs been as successful as other types of marketing you could have done?
I also note that the original 3 blogs mentioned in the article are now being merged back into one blog. Is this a response to some market confusion, or just a move to simplify?
Visit Train-ee.com for the latest in ExpressionEngine training designed with one goal in mind - to get you up to speed on ExpressionEngine® as quickly as possible.
The latest Train-ee Products:
- Classroom : Southern Fried ExpressionEngine
- Screencasts : Prepping an EE Site for Client Access
- Screencasts : Members-Only Content and Workflow
Latest Free Tutorials:
October 04, 2005
Hey, John’s my assistant coach for our boy’s soccer team. Small world…and I never knew he was a blogger!
October 06, 2005
I worked with John about 1,000 years ago when we were both at other companies. Thanks for the tip on his article. Top quality person. Can’t wait to read the piece he wrote. The moosetracks blog is captivating.
October 07, 2005
Michael—
Was I supposed to get back to you? I apologize if I dropped the ball. I truly don’t remember having that as a to-do. Anyway, email me and we’ll link up.
Jim—
Thanks for the comment. ;-)
Dave—
You’re a blogger too??!!! Where’s your site???
John
October 07, 2005
Hi John - thanks for stopping by.
Most of the questions I emailed you earlier you answered in the article I linked to. The questions remaining are the ones in this post - around measuring success and cost to the business.
Any thoughts?
October 14, 2005
The article covers those as well. Success is the traffic increase to our main site (as given in the numbers) and costs are listed too. You highlight these in your post, so you must mean something else, but I’m not sure what.
If you have more questions, please email me.
Thanks.
October 14, 2005
No..I’m looking for success past traffic. IMHO…more traffic doesn’t automatically mean a success - it just means more traffic.
It’s not qualified - it could be positive or negative. Can you make the connection between increased traffic and increased sales, for example?
Cost-wise, you didn’t include the cost of your time spend blogging. Since blogs are much more labor intensive than a traditional static website, just looking at the hosting fees or development costs doesn’t paint the whole picture - very important to other businesses considering going the blogging route.