A couple of weeks ago, I asked: Do Blogs Work? I was surprised to find that this topic took off like a rocket, and was picked up by several bloggers across the Internet:

• How Do You Feel About Marketing Your Writing Business?
• What is Your Writing Blog Doing for You?
• Inspiration Points: Abraham Lincoln’s Secret
• When Blogging Is Not Enough
• Do Blogs Really Earn Business?

In comments to my original post and in these follow-ups, some said blogs could improve your business, if done the right way and if part of a larger marketing plan (notably James from Men with Pens). Others said that the time and work involved could be better applied elsewhere, if you are looking at a purely marketing point of view. A third group said “Who cares?” since blogging for them is just for fun.

Tom Chandler of the Copywriter Underground also pointed out that some freelancers may use a blog as a way of avoiding less desirable but more active methods of marketing like cold calls.

(If you like, you can read all the comments here.)

But except for a select few, bloggers are not sure what impact — if any — their blog is having on their marketing efforts. I realized that I was in that group of people who couldn’t accurately measure my blogging results.

So, I decided to put my money (or at least my time) where my mouth was, and set out to devise a way to determine Blog ROI.

Why the ROI?

Should we measure any type ROI in the first place? I think so. I think it’s important to gauge how well our marketing efforts are working. But some marketing methods are definitely easier to measure than others.

For example, it is fairly easy to track your costs and your response rate (along with other important statistics) with Google Adwords. Ultimately, this allows you to track your Return On Investment or ROI. The idea of course is to measure how effective your marketing is in terms of dollars (pounds, drachma…) spent. The formulas are so simple even a writer can use them:

• Adwords costs/Number of New Contracts = Cost of Acquisition (of Each New Contract/Client)
• Income Generated/Adwords Costs = Income Generated Per Advertising Dollar

Now here’s the “tricky” one:

• (Income Generated-Adwords Costs)/Adwords Costs*100 = Return On Investment or ROI (represented as a percentage)

If I spend $1,000 on Adwords and get $5,000 in contracts, then my ROI is:

($5,000-$1,000)/$1,000*100 or 400%.

By trying different marketing methods and comparing the results, you can gauge which advertising method gets you the best bang for your buck. You can do this monthly, yearly, or during the life of a specific Adwords campaign.

The Difficulty in Calculating Blog ROI

So if we accept that we should measure ROI of our marketing, and we look at blogging — at least partially — as marketing, then it follows that we should examine our Blog ROI.

But how do you measure blog results?

First of all, the investment is in time, not money (except, perhaps, for any web or graphic design work you contracted out, etc.). And second, unless someone says: “Hey, I read your blog, and I want to hire you…” there is no obvious way to make a direct connection between your blog and a new client and/or contract.

I should point out that this question is not new in the corporate world, where the demand for demonstrated Blog ROI is likely much higher than the freelance world. I came across two articles (there are many) that became my reference points:

• http://www.rickwhittington.com/blog/calculating-business-blog-roi/
• http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2006/06/calculating_the.html
  

Now I think that it is important to point out that these posts are written with larger companies in mind. Charlene in the Forrester blog asks how corporate bloggers can justify their blogging time. As she says, blogging is part of her work as an analyst and (hopefully) gains goodwill for her corporation, among other things. But she cannot accurately gauge how her blog here will impact sales over at another part of the company.

And that is a big difference. Freelancers generally handle the front end and back end of marketing and client acquisition, so we do have that advantage. Whereas measuring impact is almost impossible at a larger company, there must be some way for us freelancers to see how many (if any) clients we attracted directly or indirectly through our blog.

I’m going to try to find out just how easy it is to measure, and share that with you in coming posts. In the meantime, let me know how you feel about Blog ROI. Is it important? Am I on the right track here? Am I off my rocker? Let me know!

~Graham

It nagged at me before I started this blog, it continued to tug at my sleeve as I wrote, and now it’s starting to whisper in my ear with increasing volume… If we are writing blogs to increase sales, are we going about this the right way?

James over at Men with Pens says that he and Harry generate business from their blog. That, for many of us, is a great end result. But I can’t help but feel that most of us are sort of huddled in these little dark alleys across the Internet, quietly talking about writing amongst ourselves. Although it is certainly social and helps us all develop our writing/business skills, I’m not sure it is useful for attracting new clients.

I think blogs have a lot of great potential, but for me anyway (I can’t speak for anyone else) there is room for tweaking.

What do you think? Are blogs about sharing writing tidbits and patting each other on the back? Should we expect to derive measurable business from blog writing? Or is it all just for fun anyway? I’d like to know!

~Graham

Came across this neat little web app called “Scribble Live” featured, apparently, at the Toronto Mesh web design conference last week. Its tagline “Fast/Easy/Live Blogging” certainly says it all. It may be neat, but is it useful? Is this just a re-packaged online IM system?

I remember hooking up with friends through IRC chat rooms about 10 or 15 years ago. Someone would open a room, we’d all meet there and chat. It was great for hockey pools!

Now, 15 years later, the technology is different but the result seems to be the same. Mind you it is a bit easier to log in (though you do need a Hotmail or Facebook account to create your live blog).

Blog This Conference

In Scribble Live’s product description, they illustrate some of the uses, including “blogging” at a conference that someone is attending so that everyone back at the office gets a play-by-play of what is going on. In fact, some delegates did a live blog of the Mesh conference. However if conference blogging really did break, then wouldn’t the “best delegate” be the one with the fastest fingers? And how much could you actually participate if you are acting as its stenographer?

I think the greatest value of Scribble Live is to show how far Web 2.0 is progressing — and how it’s pushing against its own limitations. I don’t think “live blogging” will catch on in a huge way (though Anne at the Golden Pencil may have found a use for it last Thursday…!)

Next Killer Google App?

But as a group chat app, it might be one of the easier ones out there, especially considering that you can share images, YouTube videos, etc. It might foreshadow what is to come for real-time, cyber meeting rooms. Sort of an easier “Go To Meeting” but without the go-to cost. Wouldn’t be surprised if Google swooped in and snapped this up for their ever-growing library of online applications (and maybe that’s the point.)

At any rate, I know what I’ll be using for next year’s hockey pool…

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think: Scribble Live

~Graham

or “Zen and the Art of Social Media”

At the beginning of “Contact” (the movie, not the book) there is a brilliant sequence where the camera pulls out from Mother Earth and all the TV and radio waves aurally pull out with it. You hear snippets from the soaps, ’60s shows to finally the first radio recordings. The further from Earth you get, the less chatter there is until finally silence.

Besides the great way it sets up the movie to follow, I really have an affinity for that scene.

There’s a lot of talk on the blogosphere right now about time-sucking things on the Internet like blog reading, Twitter, and the like. (Funny, no one’s mentioned Bejeweled yet…) Social media is showing its downside. Yes, it is great to connect, but have you ever tried to write in the middle of a convention or a cocktail party? Not conducive to great work.

Yesterday I tried an experiment. I shut down my email and my IM and focused on a couple of projects I needed to work on. I did cheat — I opened my email a couple of times in the day and I did answer the phone. But even in the semi-silence, I found I was a lot more focused.

I must admit it was also eerie in a way. Part of the draw of all these techno-gadgets is that we don’t feel like we are working in a void. It’s like we all have these little cubicles that Coupland so derided in “Generation X”, except that instead of listening to the chatter in the same room, our cubicles are thousands of miles apart. I’ve never worked in a cubicle, but I would imagine that if I did and suddenly everyone left, it would be a bit unnerving, despite the opportunity to really get down to work.

Ultimately, I think we need to balance connection and me-time, social media and work time, being readily available and putting out the “Quiet — writer at work” sign.

How about you? Have you tried cutting out the noise? And how did that work for you?

Any tips you have to creating a zen-like balance between the two, let me know!

~Graham

There are seemingly millions of gadgets out there to make our lives easier. Surprisingly, some actually work.

One that came in handy for me the other day is actually a web service called YouSendIt (www.yousendit.com). Now I have no shares in the company, and in fact I have never actually sent anything with it. But I have received files from clients with it, including my most recent one — 468 MB of photos for an article I’m writing. Beats sending a CD by express mail!

Best of all, they have a Lite Account that is free up to 100 MB per file, and 1 GB per month. Paid services offer bigger file sizes and other features.

So what’s your favourite gadget or web service? Let us know!

I’m a very deadline-oriented person. And like many writers, I suspect, I work better under other people’s deadlines. Too often I have put a new project on my to-do list, but because it there is no deadline attached, it usually gets pushed back another day…

If a new or long-time client sends you a project without a return date, always email them to get a firm deadline. The reason I say email and not phone is because sometimes one or both parties get their dates confused. As I mentioned in a previous post, it is good to document all important details of a project including the deadline for future reference.

It is certainly okay to decide on your own deadline, especially if you are the project manager and in charge of creating timelines. But still, tell your clients when you will have the content back to them– that will relieve the (totally natural) temptation to let the project slide…

~Graham

There is a direct-mail letter that generated an estimated $1 billion in sales over an 18-year span. It was written by Marty Conroy for The Wall Street Journal, a simple two-page letter that told the life stories of two college graduates who went on to the same company. However 25 years on, one was a manager while the other was its president. The implication (never explicitly expressed) was that the president read The Wall Street Journal, helping him gain success in the business world.

You can read the whole letter here.

As you see, it is a fairly unassuming piece. But because of its enormous success at generating subscriptions, it is considered by many to be the best direct mail letter of all time.

So what can we learn from this piece? In fact, quite a lot. Just as fiction writers are encouraged to read the classics, copywriters and other types of marketing writers should study what has come before.

I have a collection of various pieces that I’ve collected over the years. Direct mail pieces that worked, brochures, magazine ads — you name it. I even kept a napkin from a restaurant once that had a witty saying. I also save banner ads and web pages I come across on the Internet.

I’ve since found that this is a common practice among many professional creative types. But the key is not just to stuff them into a folder and forget about them. Refer to them from time to time, decide why you like it and what works with it, see what you can apply to your own current projects.

I wouldn’t recommend using these pieces verbatim — apparently the world’s greatest sales letter is also the world’s most ripped off piece of marketing writing. Instead, use them as a source of inspiration to take your own copywriting to the next level.

Do you have any copywriting examples that you think are especially unique? Hit the “Comment” button and let us know!

~Graham

Every copywriter at some point encounters an unhappy client. Despite your best efforts, your client will tell you that he or she hates what you have written. Some will tell you in a nicer way than others – and it is definitely the not-so-nice ones that hurt most.

Typical symptoms after receiving this news may include: anxiety, depression, pangs of self-doubt, fear, anger, and/or a sudden urge to work at the 7-11 on the corner.

But hold on, don’t fill out that application quite yet. Here are three things to do that I found help the situation.

Don’t Panic. If you received the news via email, take a few minutes to re-read the email and absorb the words. If you are talking with the client on the phone, take a few seconds to let the nausea pass. This is likely not a personal attack on you, just an indication that the client was looking for something different that what you wrote. Remember, in the end these are not your words but your client’s so ultimately he or she needs to be comfortable with the copy.

Ask for Specifics. Don’t just accept a blanket rejection. Ask your clients to be specific about what they didn’t like. Keep in mind that this might be difficult for them – quite often they’ll say: “I don’t know what it is – I just don’t like it!” Start with the initial premise, discuss key sentences and sections, and try to find out exactly where you took the wrong turn.

You also want to find out what your client did like about the piece. This will certainly help you get back on track – and restore some of that self-esteem.

Ask for Examples. This is actually a good idea to do before you start a project with a new client. Often, clients can’t describe exactly what they want (which is a big part of why you were hired in the first place…), but they do know what they like. Ask them to send you samples of or links to similar pieces they like, and follow the tone and style in the your own copy.

Almost all creative types take rejection badly. But if you distance yourself from the work, find out what is wrong, and fix it, both you and the client will feel better in the end!

Have a horror story of your own? How did you handle it? Comment below and let us know!

~Graham

In previous articles in this series we talked about how to survive editing by committee (click on the “editing by committee” tag at the bottom to see all posts in this series). In this segment the message is simple: document everything.

This doesn’t just mean writing up work orders or project timelines, but summaries of meetings. For example, usually when I take a phone call about the project at hand, I’ll send an email summarizing our discussion. This can be presented as a clarification (e.g. “as we discussed, I will be researching the XX company and providing a short, 250 word backgrounder…”) or a question (e.g. “I know we briefly discussed the XX company backgrounder, but we never confirmed whether I should go ahead with that…)

The reason to send this email is simple: to document all discussions. Phone conversations can be forgotten, especially if you are working on a large, long-term project. This way, should a problem arise out of a miscommunication, you have your email(s) to back you up.

If there are multiple contacts on a project, you may want to cc others with this documentation as well. However, be careful with this. You don’t want to step on toes, and you don’t want to cc people who hate those “Reply All” messages. Usually I confirm up front with my main contact who needs to be cc’d on everything and who doesn’t. Then I stick to that plan unless there is a special need to cc someone to bring them into the loop.

It doesn’t take much to jot down the highlights of your conversations into an email. And as I have learned over the years, keeping a documented chain of events during can really help streamline the project process — and even cover your butt on occasion…

~Graham

Although I already said thanks to James and Harry for their review of my blog, I’d like to formally thank them here for the drive-by. It may take a day (or week!) or two to implement James’s suggestions, but plans are already in the works.

Despite being a little nervous  about the process (does anyone really like being shot at?), it was a great experience. I’m not sure what their Drive-By Sundays are like right now, but they do offer a $25 drive-by done within five days.

If you have a blog (or any website for that matter), I highly recommend getting in contact with them. It always help to have a second set of eyes give you an objective viewpoint of your website (especially if it’s a professional set of eyes!) 

Thanks again guys!

~Graham