Roughly Right in Business Blogging

“It’s better to be roughly right than precisely wrong,” observed English economist John Maynard Keynes almost a hundred years ago.  I think that saying holds true when it comes to measuring the effects of SEO marketing blogs.

As a corporate blogging trainer and ghost blogger, I find business owners’ overriding concern is realizing a Return on Investment from their blog content writing efforts. Just the other day I attended a workshop presented by business development consultant Charlie Larson, who explored this very topic (measuring marketing ROI) with our American Marketing Association group.

Since “finance is the international language of business,” (was the message of the meeting), “business owners must understand the financial ramifications of all their marketing initiatives.”

As I look back upon my experiences with the different Say It For You corporations, small businesses, and professional practices, I tell Indianapolis blog writers that ROI is more than “analytics” and charts.

It’s not always possible, for example, to associate a specific ROI measurement to blogging for business without regard to all the other initiatives the client is using to find and relate to customers.  All the parts have to mesh – social media, traditional advertising, events, word of mouth marketing, and sales.  Every effort that “makes the cash register ring” contributes to “marketing ROI”.

Blogging for business carries benefits in addition to helping increase sales, I’ve found. Continuously producing and making available quality content, I teach business owners, helps demonstrate that you care about quality in all dimensions of your business. As they blog, they are constantly providing themselves with training about how to effectively express to customers and colleagues their unique “slant” on their industry.

From an ROI standpoint, getting it “roughly right” when it comes to corporate blogging for business means checking with everyone involved in providing the service or product – those who work in sales, advertising, accounting, production, and distribution.

And, while total precision in isolating blogging ROI may not be possible, the blog’s general bottom line must be clearly in the benefit column.