To Blog or not to Blog

Today it seems that no self-respecting analyst will be seen without his blog. I presume that us analysts, being self-publicising types who like the sound of our own opinions, see this as a good thing that will improve the world.

Increasingly, software suppliers produce blogs. How effective are these blogs in reaching existing and prospective customers? Are the messages in the blogs believed? Do they influence the audience?

In a very short period, other channels of marketing communication have changed. Today, there are hardly any trade shows where users can go to compare the offer of their current supplier against others. All suppliers hold well attended user conferences - but these are consistently "on-message". The print trade press has shrunk alarmingly. Yes, there are plenty of web information sources, but how often do customers have the time to pro-actively visit these? Bulk emails often find their way blocked by spam filters.

Nearly all suppliers employ real experts in their applications who know the industries they target. Sometimes they are in sales support, sometimes in marketing, sometimes they are called evangelists. They are few in number compared with the whole sales and marketing team and their effectiveness has always been questioned.

In an ideal world, experts encapsulate their know how in literature and presentations. They support and educate sales staff to be more expert themselves. This has limited success - after all, if it takes 10 years to become an expert, reading the PowerPoint the night before a sales call is not going to work.

Historically, the experts would go on a world tour accompanying sales staff to selected prospects and customers as the "specialist warm body" - evidence that the supplier really does want to solve the user's problems. We've been critical of this approach as it tends to stall the sales process until the warm body arrives.

In summary, the utilisation and effectiveness of these experts has been poor. In addition to customer-facing work, they probably did have some input to the development plan but, in my experience, no matter what you say to developers they will do their own thing. The experts often get frustrated and return to doing "a real job in industry".

If suppliers change tack and sponsor these experts to write a blog, this could be a method to deploy them effectively.

The experts could use the blog to communicate directly with the target audience. Another positive effect would be that blogs encourage interaction and discussion - albeit much of it anonymous.

If you examine the blogs about software applications it is easy to get depressed. It is necessary to read, at least briefly, the thoughts of ten introverted scribblers before you get to a worthwhile blog. It does make you wonder who has the time to research, find the good ones, and read them.

I confess that the best independent blogs, often from maverick individuals, do get my attention. Whilst they do contain unreliable gossip and rumour, provided one remains a true sceptic, they are amusing and occasionally revealing. It is important to remember that not every scandal is 'Watergate revealed' and it is easy to be fooled, particularly when you want it to be true. After all, Hugh Trevor-Roper, the pre-eminent historian of Nazism, was fooled by the fake Hitler Diaries.

Supplier sponsored blogs have to compete for attention with these amusing and independent blogs. To do so, they have to build a community where that community can continuously find something new and interesting.

The most obvious community is existing customers. A blog would supplement annual user conferences.

This could work at the user or implementer hints and tips level. Self-improvement is a driver for nearly everyone. However, I can't see how this could carry marketing messages that influence spending.

For a blog to carry marketing messages it would have to tackle the issue of focus. What may be interesting for one group of customers would not be relevant for others. I could see how a blog for users in say the pulp and paper business might work. To address users in other industries implies a lot of separate blogs and therefore high cost.

Blogs could also be a double edged sword as they attract negative comment. A lot of this comment will be uninformed. It may even be malicious, perhaps from competitors' agents! The discussion threads will have to be pro-actively moderated to deal with this problem - again more cost.

We believe that blogs need to supplement and extend some kind of pre-existing human relationship. This may be as light a touch as hearing the VP of Research and Development at the annual user conference. If a user meets a supplier's expert, and understands what he says, he will want to read that expert's blog. The content has to be relevant. For example, reacting to the news agenda, or supplying new information about the direction of research and development.

Despite these problems, we do see a future role for supplier blogs - but it will not be a cheap option. We want to start a discussion about the place of such blogs in the marketing mix. Please, let us know what you think (email Mike Evans with your view and we might even start our own blog!).

Mike Evans

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