A study on blog marketing the case of baamboo com

Objectives and Aims The objectives of this thesis is to study  The basic concept of blogs and business blogs  The use of blogs in marketing  The use of blog as a marketing tool at Ba

Nguyen Van An

A STUDY ON BLOG MARKETING

THE CASE OF BAAMBOO.COM

Major: Business Administration

Code: 60 34 05

Master of business administration thesis

Supervisors: dr nguyen viet anh

Hanoi – 2007

Table of content

INTRODUCTION 6

1 The problems 6

2 Objectives and Aims 6

3 Research questions 7

4 Scope of work 7

5 Data sources 8

6 Methods 8

7 Significance 8

8 Limitation 8

9 Expected results 9

10 Outline 9

CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL FOUNDATION 10

1 Blogging basic 10

1.1 Blog definitions 10

1.2 Types of blog 11

1.3 Common blog elements 14

2 Business blog 15

2.1 Power of blog to business 16

2.2 Types of business blog 17

2.3 Business blog format 19

3 Steps in business blogging 19

3.1 Step 1: Choosing to blog or not 19

3.2 Step 2: How many blogs needed and how often to maintain them 20

3.3 Step 3: Selecting a Software System or Service 20

3.4 Step 4: Design for readers 21

3.5 Step 5: Publishing Blog 21

3.6 Step 6: Launching Blog and Getting Noticed 21

3.7 Step 7: Monitoring and Managing Blog 22

4 Marketing with blog 22

4.1 Talking with customers 23

4.2 Raising awareness and visibility 24

4.3 Closing sales 26

4.4 Dealing with disasters 28

4.5 Building reputation and recognition 29

5 Blog marketing performance 29

5.1 Key performance indicators 29

5.2 Common KPI of blog 30

5.3 Analysis method 35

CHAPTER TWO: THE CASE OF BAAMBOO BLOG 37

1 Introduction to Baamboo 37

2 Baamboo blog structures 37

2.1 Baamboo blog 38

2.2 Baamboo blog design 38

2.3 Main features 40

2.4 Additional features 43

3 The use of blog as a marketing tool 45

3.1 Interacting with users 45

3.2 Analyze comments and react 47

3.3 The Baamboo mp3 example 49

3.4 Findings 53

4 Baamboo blog performance analysis 54

4.1 Analysis objectives 54

4.2 The data source 55

4.3 Performance results 55

4.4 Findings 67

5 Conclusion 68

CHAPTER THREE: SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE BAAMBOO BLOG 69

1 Content solutions 69

1.1 Building comment policy 69

1.2 Improve entries content quality 73

1.3 Improve Blog design, layout 75

2 Marketing solutions 76

2.1 Continuous interactions 76

2.2 Attracting new visitors 78

REFERENCES 82

List of figures

Figure 3-2 Baamblog interface 39

Figure 3-3 Place to comment on Baamblog entry 42

Figure 3-4 Baaamblog comments example 42

Figure 3-5 Comment form 43

Figure 3-6 Poll example 44

Figure 3.7 Five steps of analyzing comments 47

Figure 3.8 Baamboo Mp3 light version interface 52

Figure 3.9 Source stability measurement function 53

Figure 3.10 Traffic sources 57

Figure 3.11: Percent of Unique Visitors Growth this Period 58

Figure 3.12 Percent of Traffic Growth this Period 58

Figure 3.13 Percentage of New visitors 58

Figure 3.14 New vs Returning visitors 59

Figure 3.15 Page Bounce Rate 60

Figure 3.16 Percentage of Returning Visitors 61

Figure 3.17 Growth of returning visit 61

Figure 3.18 Percentage of loyal visitors 62

Figure 3.19 Number of commnents 63

Figure 3.20 Average pageview for all visitors 63

Figure 3.21 Average Time Spent on Site 64

Figure 3.22 Percent of Visits Greater than 180 Seconds 65

Figure 3.23 Percent of Committed Visits (> 2 page views per visit) 66

List of table

Table 3.1 Baamboo blog entries contents 41

Table 3.2 Numbers of comments by entries on Baamboo blog 42

Table 3.3 Baamboo Mp3 comments categories and subcategories 51

Table 3.4: Part of Baamboo Mp3 comments list after categoried 51

Table 3.5 Baamblog key performance indicators from June to September 56

Table 3.6 Percentage of bounce rate for new and returning visitors 60

INTRODUCTION

1 The problems

Nowadays, blog or weblog has become a phenomenon In recent years, millions of blogs have appeared and the growth of blog seems not to slowdown Many companies have used blogs for their marketing activities and many of them have obtained successes Microsoft, General Motors, Disney are typical examples Besides, thousands of small and medium companies also succeeded in using blog marketing

In Vietnam, this trend has just been raised for one or two years However, the effectiveness of using blog as a marketing tool is still problematic Vietnam Communication Corporation is one of the leading companies who first use blog for their service – baamboo.com Although, some results have been gained, this company is getting stuck of finding ways use blog marketing professionally

The thesis ―A study on blog marketing – the case of Baamboo.com‖

aimed to study blog marketing and propose solutions to improve the use of blog for the Baamboo.com service of Vietnam Communication Corporation

2 Objectives and Aims

The objectives of this thesis is to study

 The basic concept of blogs and business blogs

 The use of blogs in marketing

 The use of blog as a marketing tool at Baamboo.com

 Problems of Baamboo in using blog marketing and solutions to improve these

With these above objectives, this thesis aims at giving a basic theoretical foundation for other companies in general, and internet companies in particular to implement blog marketing for their business activities

3 Research questions

The complete list of research questions is as follows:

 What are definition, type, common features of blog and business blog?

 Why is blog important to business?

 What are steps in blogging?

 How blog is used in marketing?

 How to measure blog marketing performances?

 What has the Baamboo blog done so far?

 What are Baamboo blog‘s results?

 What are Baamboo blog‘s problems?

 What are solutions to improve Baamboo blog performances?

4 Scope of work

For the theoretical foundation, this thesis will study the blog theory in the world of internet companies since 2005 when blog became a worldwide phenomenon

For the case study, this thesis will choose the first area of blog marketing – taking with customers – to study because this is the most popular area that exists in Vietnamese internet services industry now Baamboo blog case currently applies in that area thus is picked up All of its activities from establishment on 8th June, 2007 until now are put into study

5 Data sources

For the theoretical part, data sources are textbooks, articles from internet since 2005 As for the case study, data is obtained from interview with Baamboo team and internal data, which are being tracked by Google Analytics

8 Limitation

The biggest limitation of this thesis is due to the freshness of internet services industry in Vietnam in general, and blog in particular, therefore few academicals reviews have been applied and proved In case of the Baamboo blog, it has just run for four months, so it may be early to measure and judge its marketing performance

The other limit is from case study method This method cannot cover all the theoretical issues of blog marketing Thus, later this case, this thesis only studies one out of five areas in blog marketing and applies some related key performance indicators to analyze performance for the Baamboo blog

9 Expected results

The thesis expects to give the systematical theory in blog marketing, find out Baamboo blog performance shortcomings and proposes solutions to improve it

10 Outline

Excluding introduction, conclusion and reference part, this thesis includes three parts as follows:

Chapter 1: Theoretical Foundation

Chapter 2: The case of Baamboo blog

Chapter 3: Solutions to improve Baamboo blog

of blogs:

 Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size approximately every 230 days

 About 100,000 new weblogs were created each day

Businesses also begin to appreciate the power of blogs, a trend reflected

in the business press In its January 2005 issue, Fortune put blogs at number

one in its '10 Tech Trends to Watch for', arguing that blogs are changing working practices in the areas of advertising, marketing and PR (Kirkpatrick

& Roth, 2005) Similarly, The Harvard Business Review named blogs as one

of its ―Breakthrough Ideas for 2005‖, commenting that ―blogs are the most conversational of all the forms of media, and marketers can't afford to be left out of the talk‖ (Sawhney, 2005)

3 Jeremy Wright (2006), Blog Marketing, the revolutionary new way to increase sales, build your brand, and

get exceptional results, McGraw Hill , page 7

 Blog A website comprising blog posts or content written by the blogger,

which are typically organized into categories and sorted in reverse

chronological order Most blogs allow readers to comment on individual blog posts

 Blog posts or blog entry Individual items posted to the blog (using

blogware) by the blogger

 Blogger The individual who maintains the blog and/or writes blog posts

using the blogware

 Blogosphere The community of blogs, bloggers, and blog posts

 Blogware Software used to create blog posts and manage blogs

 The conversation What happens when bloggers, especially millions of

them, blog

 Permalinks Permanent links attached to a particular blog post that

remains unchanged

 Trackbacks URLs that other bloggers use to cite posts or parts of posts;

for example, when you, Blogger A, write about something Blogger B posted on in her blog, it is best to let Blogger B know she has been

mentioned in your blog Trackbacks send Blogger B an e-mail with a

notation that her blog has been cited

1.2 Types of blog

Blog have many types depending on how we categories Here are five common types of blogs

1.2.1 General Blogs

This kind of blog is general when people say ―blog‖ These blogs are generally text-based, but contain a lot of images and other media like for their simplicity

1.2.2 Photo Blogs

Photoblogs, also called Phlogs are special kind of blogs where a group of people or individuals share their photos collected from various sources In photoblogs, images are the main content; we all know that a picture speaks a thousand words The usual subjects of photoblogs are films, wars, herbs, natural beauty, or even weird images, and so forth; it is impossible to specify all of them

These blogs are generally dedicated towards a specific audience such as photographers, artistes, etc Most photoblogs are free And most of photo-bloggers use popular image-sharing service to share their photos We can list out many popular images sharing service such as Flickr (www.flickr.com), SmugMug (http://www.smugmug.com), or Zoomr (www.zoomr.com), PicasaWeb (http://picasaweb.google.com)

1.2.3 Mobile Blogs

Mobile blogs are often known as Moblogs In this type of blogs, people access the contents and modify them for their mobile phones or portable devices like PDAs Mobile blogs are very popular these days due to the availability of portable devices Moblogs are usually developed in Japan where people have a huge number and variety of portable devices with cameras Mobile blogs are often known as gLogs (pronounced as glogs), when they are especially used as photoblogs

1.2.4 Audio Blogs

Audio blog are blog, whose contents are downloadable in audio format4

In this kind of blog people usually use mp3 format due to the popularity of this type Beside most audio blogs are devoted to a special genre of music like rock, classic, or jazz

According to Wikipedia, many music bloggers publish content that may violate copyright laws However, sometimes they manage to avoid it, since most of their contents are either old or not reissued recently and so may not cause monetary damage for the copyright older Many audio bloggers also place a notice in their blogs like "If the owner objects about this post, I will immediately remove it from my blog" Many commercial music companies also maintain audio blogs and publish their music files as an advertisement to gain popularity

4

Audio format include mp3 (the most popular format), wma, aac, ogg, etc

1.3 Common blog elements

Blog differs in structure depending on what blog service used However, they still have common elements in structures Each blog has not only

chronological entries and archives but also the following5:

Author byline - A byline above (or below) each entry is less important in

personal blog than in-group blogs Still, many blogs carry that byline as a default setting in the blog software

Permalink - Short for ―permanent link,‖ this link takes the visitor from

the index page to the entry‘s unique page

Blogroll - The blogroll is not a requirement, but it is a tradition to list the

blogger‘s favorite blogs in a sidebar The blogroll is usually common to every page of the blog, so visitors can see favorite blog destinations no matter where they enter that blog Blogrolls make the blogosphere somewhat incestuous, with many topical blogs all linking to each other Having one‘s blog included

in a high-profile blogroll is an honor and can deliver lots of traffic to a

previously little-known blog

Categories - Some blog programs allow the blogger to assign categories

to blog entries These categories are listed in a sidebar, so that visitors can restrict their reading to a category of interest It is not unusual for one entry to

be tagged in multiple categories

Comments - Comments are written by visitors to blog and are presented

below blog entry On the index page, a Comments link sends visitors to that unique page, scrolled down to the first comment Many blog programs allow the comments function to be turned off, so visitors cannot talk back Some blog experts believe that the presence of comments is a defining feature of a

5

Source: Brad Hill (2006), Blogging for Dummies Blogging For Dummies , Wiley Publishing, pages 20 - 23

Weblog Comments are a crucial part of what is called the macrologue — flung group discussions across many blogs

far-TrackBacks - far-TrackBacks are related to comments but are trickier to

understand For now, know that TrackBacks offer a way to put a link to blog entry on someone else‘s blog TrackBacks link blogs together in the macrologue

Syndication link - A final element common to most blogs is the

syndication link, which can take several forms and is worthy of a thorough discussion The take-away point for now is that many people read blogs in newsreaders, not by visiting the blog sites Newsreaders pull the content of many blogs into one window Within a newsreader, each blog is called a feed These newsreaders are mostly free and can be standalone programs that can

be downloaded to computers or Web-based services

Making blog‘s content available as a feed is crucial Fortunately, this fairly technical method of distributing blog entries is effortlessly handled by nearly all blog software Using RSS and other syndication formats has become so simple that this book does not spend any space explaining how to create syndication links from scratch

2 Business blog

From the beginning of blog history, many people know how to used blog for their business The business blog, or corporate blog, is a relatively new experience A business blog will contain the more ―human‖ side of what is happening in the business, to show that rather than just being an entity with a sole purpose of making money there is a more "responsible" side to the business Business blogs are all about opening up companies‘ knowledge, expertise, processes, and goals to their customers

2.1 Power of blog to business

Though the history of blog is rather short, many companies have tried to use blog in their business Blog seems to be a power tool The core needs of blog for any business are as follows:

2.1.1 Create ideas:

Every company has great ideas waiting to come to the surface However, from ideas to activities is still a big gap Many ideas can be harmful to companies if they are not carefully evaluated Moreover, it cost lot of human resource for any ideas Even a great idea is generate by one person, it still need 100 or more people to support and implement So blogging can help so that problem A truly open and internally viewable idea blog, or even individual employee blogs that allow people to float new ideas for peer review, should allow the best ideas to rise to the surface for selection and review

readership, which are probably connected to and/or reading other blogs from all over the planet Once companies have insight into what a large community

of readers wants, they can begin delivering it

2.1.3 Visibility

Marketing is all about visibility—making the right people aware of the right product at the right time Companies often use campaigns to attract to mass of customer They assume that millions of people will be contacted, but only a small percentage of these people will respond This method of marketing has its upside, but it does not do anything to create relationships with customers, create positive experiences, or create customer evangelists This is where blog can be useful to companies

Blog create new methods of effective marketing include creating ―viral‖ campaigns, customer-centric events, and otherwise helping customers spread the word through incentive programs and contests Readers can decide how and when to interact with companies Not only do companies give them control over the relationship, but also companies encourage them to continue

to engage over time, thus providing a multitude of experiences they can subsequently share with friends and associates Customers are encouraged to become participants and participants to become evangelists Then, they encourage everyone to come together as a community

2.2 Types of business blog

Companies can choose of many type of blog to create Let us explore each type one by one

2.2.1 Company Blogs

A company blog is about its business in general; it works like a brochure site, but with a blog for news, announcements, and other fresh content It is typically limited to content about the company itself Normally, it is an official blog, in which updates information of company, products, activities

2.2.2 Product Blogs

A product blog specifically promotes an item or service Product blogs may overlap with brand blogs, but their primary purpose is to promote and sell These blogs also give readers the most up-to-date information of product, the prospect of development, new features, etc

2.2.4 Staff blog

Many encourage their staff to write blog about company, cultures, products, etc Staffs are let free to talk whatever they want about companies‘ products and services but companies always keep close eyes on their member‘s activities in order to prevent scandals or bad effects from that

2.3 Business blog format

Since the use of blog is different, business blog also differ in its format Normally, a good blog format contains a combination of these elements6:

 Name: short, catchy, and humorous phase expresses the blog name

 The latest post: The date, and occasionally the time, display so that reader

know which entry is the latest one Unlike the front page of most business Web sites, a blog home page is usually quite long, because older entries

also display on the home page

 Comment link: After each entry, most bloggers invite the reader to add a comment

 A collection of related info: This element is often on the right- or

left-hand side of the browser window This info may consist of e-mail subscription opportunities, explanatory or biographical information, archived entries, and links to other blogs that the blogger reads regularly and recommends

3 Steps in business blogging

3.1 Step 1: Choosing to blog or not

In this early stage, companies should answer the question whether they create blog or not Blog is not a relax game but a part of business To success

in blogging, the companies have to pay time, efforts and human resources If the answer is positive, companies should define goal and plan a strategy for blogging

6

Susannah Gardner (2005), Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies, Wiley Publishing, page 13

3.2 Step 2: How many blogs needed and how often to maintain them

There are some levels of using blogs as a tool for bussiness marketing They are basic blogs, full-time blogs, and companywide blogs The higher levels, the more resources the company have to use

At the basic blogs level, a minimal presence with a free or inexpensive blog account on a hosted service like Blogger, TypePad, or Blog Harbor is needed to set up and have someone post as little as three to four times a week For a full-time blog, one dedicated person involved, or a team of people contributing to the site

At this highest level, companies have taken the ultimate plunge and are empowering all employees to blog

Therefore, in this step, companies must decide the resource needed for business bloggers Depending on the size of companies and their strategy in using blogs, they can decide whether they need just one blog (for small companies) or many blog (usually for big companies) They also have to consider putting a fulltime team or person on it or just assigning one part-time staff to manage blog Lastly, they should consider to post on blog regularly or occasionally

3.3 Step 3: Selecting a Software System or Service

In this step, companies have to decide they should use blog services provided by other companies, i.e Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, etc., or set

up their own blog site Using a blog service has many advantages: Blogging quickly, easily, and free from a lot of technical hassles However, it also brings many inconveniences, for examples – customization, statistics, and sub domain that are benefits of installing a system for blogging Besides,

requirement of installation, configuration, administration, customization, and support may prevent companies from blog

3.4 Step 4: Design for readers

In this step, companies have to decide which features should be used, what structural and visual design to choose in order to allow them to develop

a richer conversation with their readers They also consider how to make good design choices by concentrating on simplicity and ease of use

For the features, they should choose among essential features (meta information, entries, categories, tag, RSS, email notification) and advance ones (comments, track back, search, calendar, survey, etc) Each feature brings not only certain benefits but also drawbacks

For the design, depend on the blog focus, they should answer such questions as: What page layout to use? What goes where? How do they change the layout and how much time for each change? Etc

3.5 Step 5: Publishing Blog

In this step, companies have to decide how to publish their blog It is not only the problems of service or system used Companies have to choose whether use a blog-posting program or do it manually Other decision to make

is how to post audio, video and photo on their blog

3.6 Step 6: Launching Blog and Getting Noticed

In this step, companies have to decide how to promote blog, how to make it interesting to attract new readers, visitors After that, they should know how to make conversations going, how to make blog easily found by search engines, how to make blog spread out widely

3.7 Step 7: Monitoring and Managing Blog

This step is never end Companies should keep track on blog traffics They can use many tool such as Urchin to monitor or use service to compares such as Alexa They also have to discover trends of visitors, behaviors, etc based on the statistics they have from blog log data or such services as Google, Technorati, and BlogPulse

Moreover, they have to manage comments and conversation on blog, know when to let go and manage possible and potential crisis before it may happen

4 Marketing with blog

Almost all businesses dedicate significant resources to understanding their market and spreading the word about their company and the products they offer For many successful organizations, blogging has provided a crucial way to raise that awareness Besides, the Web is a critical channel for marketing and selling products and services For many, blogs that focus on selling products are proving effective at generating revenue Taking care of current customers is good business It is been well documented that one of the best resources a business has for driving future sales is their current customer base According to Fredrick F Reichheld, director of the strategy-consulting firm Bain & Company, a 5-percentage-point increase in customer retention in

a typical company will increase profits by more than 25 percent In addition, satisfied customers drive positive word of mouth buzz, which can strongly influence new customers Blogs are proving to be a great way to support customers after they have bought (and before they buy again)7 Lastly,

7

DL Byron, Steve Broback, New Riders (2006), Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business, chapter 2

reputation and recognition of companies can be enhanced in company with the visibility of their blog

This thesis mentions these five focus areas in blog marketing which are discussed in more depth below

 Blogs that help talking with customers

 Blogs that raise awareness and visibility

 Blogs that sell products

 Blogs that support current (and prospective) customers

 Blogs that build reputation and recognition

4.1 Talking with customers

Encouraging an interactive audience

Blog enables companies to interact more directly with new, existing, and potential customers by giving them easy ways to talk with them, stay in touch and be alerted whenever they post something new This exchange allows them

to increase their awareness and to sell product directly Dialog also allows companies to learn more about what their market wants because customers will tell what they want right in their blog

As a marketing tool, blogs are used by companies to enable "virtual focus group" of customers Blog will be a place where companies listen and respond to comments and then use that feedback to improve their products and support

To get this type of focus group feedback, companies often enable comments on their blog, post about their product, and then ask for input Usually, blog will encourage lots of comments and reader participation Companies then have to authorize comments, eliminate inappropriate contribution and make sure the site‘s authors are participating in the

discussion are crucial to keeping the dialog going Moreover, companies must have the staffing and time to do it right It often takes an hour or two of attention every day and frequent checking in on what is being said in the comments can go a long way to ensure that participation is managed correctly

After sales services

Blog not only help companies sell products, but also help take care of customers after they have purchased something Business blog is like a newsletter with interactivity Instead of generic "contact us" form, customers can interact with companies in a more intimate way by commenting in blog

In addition, when companies post about product, they can provide answers to commonly asked questions, or solutions to issues that have been raised previously For many companies, blogs are excellent replacement of FAQ and

―Contact Us‖ functions in companies‘ websites and even are more effective

4.2 Raising awareness and visibility

Smart marketers work hard to get their company and products talked about on the Web, with the ultimate goal of having their offerings found more often by people searching or surfing the Internet They can use blog to archive that goal by trying to drive traffics to blog

Blogs that get many visitors (traffic) have two key attributes that make them special Those attributes are visibility and find ability

 Visible sites are those that are mentioned frequently and, in many cases, are linked to and from many Web pages It is clear that the more opportunities people have to click and visit, the more they will do so Similarly with blogs, the more sites that mention company blog (or product blog) or reference its posts, the more visible the blog will be

 Findable sites are those that search engines like Google feel are relevant and place at or near the top of search results pages Most bloggers who monitor their traffic statistics closely know that a significant number of the people coming to their site are clicking through from Google and other search results pages It is clear that the more relevant search engines think the blog is, the more visitors that blog will get

In order to increase to achieve these two objectives, companies have to increase numbers of inbound link8 to their blog There are two reasons to do

so First, it is the evident truth that, the more direct link, the more visibility their blogs have Second, the more inbound link, the more ranking in search engine they have Thus, this will increase companies‘ blogs‘ findability

Company can achieve this in two ways:

 Firstly, companies can write many interesting posts that bloggers pay attention to and then they may refer others to those posts The elaborate and often expensive linking strategies advocated by many Web marketing consultants is usually far less productive than just writing well about subjects that will grab readers' attention By this way, companies can get natural inbound links

 Another way they can buy link from ―link brokers‖, who sell inbound link from sites they have established along with compensated partners Getting other sites and blogs to link back to company blog is vital if they want their blog to become a high-profile destination However, such search engine as Google is on the lookout for people trying to get links that they view as "illegitimate" and could conceivably determine brokered links fit

8 An inbound link is a hyperlink transiting domains Links are inbound from the perspective of the link target, and conversely, outbound from the perspective of the originator Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies

in search engine optimization (SEO) (Source: Wikipedia -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbound_link)

that profile If Google senses inbound links have been fabricated, they might actually move illegitimate site lower in rankings, or may even remove it from results pages completely

Spreading the word

Once companies increase their blog awareness and visibility, they will use these to spreading the word over communities, nations and even all over the world Maximizing awareness and visibility then become a strategy They carefully plan and then act artfully on the right time, place to achieve the result

Driving more traffic on companies web site

Most of the businesspeople with an interest in blogging already have a Web site and are very motivated to have more people visit it Blogs have proven to be very effective at driving traffic to traditional sites, and many companies have made them a cornerstone of their promotional strategies Many companies have it hosted under the same domain as their company site

By this way, blog helps not only drive more traffic companies‘ web site but also putting a "human face" or a ―public face‖ on the organization to customer Vice versa, a high profile website also raises blog visibility Thus, this is a mutual benefit relationship

4.3 Closing sales

―Most of the bloggers, who are experiencing success promoting products

or services, do not embrace the "hard sell" approach Many of these people would chafe at the notion of actively trying to manipulate visitors, and would rather just focus on creating quality posts that get noticed While posts are great for driving traffic and credibility, sales will certainly be enhanced if company has a strategy for dealing with people once they arrive on its blog

and that does not mean breaking out the hard sell.‖9 So from blog visibility to sales, it does require a lot of efforts

Many companies work hard to enhance the ―blog conversion rate‖, which is a measurement indicating what percentages of Web site visitors become buyers Those companies have discovered scores of techniques (mostly proprietary) that can make a huge difference in sales Successful blog will have this rate among 5 – 40%

The best way to convert a visitor into a buyer is simply to make it easy for them to make a buying decision Smart commerce-oriented bloggers utilize several techniques to help facilitate this process DL Byron and Steve Broback (2006)10 have given some tips for companies:

 Make it clear what you do, and the products you sell It means that

blogger should write a brief paragraph about their company containing a link to their product pages This paragraph should be positioned near the top of your blog's home page

 Post about positive customer experiences Testimonials from satisfied

customers in the sidebars (again with links to products) can help visitors overcome any objections to buying that they might have Companies can boost sales dramatically by researching why people are reluctant to buy their product and featuring customer comments directly refuting those common reasons Mentioning products in posts and linking back to pages that allow purchasing also works well

 Leverage trusted commerce sites your visitors may rely on now Many

potential buyers are hesitant to provide credit card information to

unfamiliar blogs, and prefer not to have to re-enter contact information Companies should use popular shopping cart systems that permit buying through services that have millions of registered users PayPal (with more than 20 million account holders) or Amazon (with more than 40 million account holders) is two most popular one Besides, Yahoo! and eBay are also two prominent services

4.4 Dealing with disasters 11

While blog can serve as an ideal platform for writing about things that promote company or products, it can also serve as an important channel in which to respond to negativity from others Several high-profile companies have experienced the wrath of angry bloggers because of product or service gaffes CBS news, Sony BMG, Alaska Airlines, and Dell have all faced significant PR challenges due to how they responded (or did not respond) to critical bloggers

These companies discovered the hard way that detractors in the blogosphere can have significant influence over the mainstream press, and all faced front-page exposure of embarrassing problems due to their lack of blog-savvies

In all of those examples, rather than post or comment in response to criticism, the companies stonewalled This silence fed into the blogger's escalating speculation and accusations In some cases, press releases were eventually issued, but it essentially amounted to wrong channel and bad timing

11 DL Byron, Steve Broback, New Riders (2006), “Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business”,

chapter 2

4.5 Building reputation and recognition

Many companies also use blog to foster a positive image They have asked key employees to blog These people are required to post and respond frequently about topics that show how smart, innovative, and caring the company is

The ultimate goal here is not toward to customers ―Leadership blogs are not intended to be read by direct customers or intended customers of a company, but are targeted instead toward influential people (often other bloggers and/or members of the press) with the hope that these readers will write about (and reinforce) what the thought leader is trying to project‖12

While encouraging employees, they also set comprehensive policies and systems, and careful monitor of what's being said is mandatory

5 Blog marketing performance

What is measurement of a successful business blog? There are a set of indicators that can be used to evaluate the success of any blog In this part, this thesis will discuss these indicators in depth First, this thesis discusses about the key performance indicators

5.1 Key performance indicators

To make any website or blog successful, companies should have goal for

it and work hard to achieve those goals They need a set of indicators to measure how success they do That is the reason of KPI

Over the last few years, KPIs have generated a lot of controversy in the analytics industry, most of it centered on what they are and how they should

be used Basically, a KPI is a measurement of performance based on the most

12 DL Byron, Steve Broback, New Riders (2006), “Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business”,

chapter 2

important web goals in general a blog in particular That definition leaves

out a lot of detail, but it is a good way to think about the issue

Webopedia.com, one famous online dictionary and search engine of computer and internet technology definitions has a slightly more in-depth definition:

“KPIs or key performance indicators help organizations achieve organizational goals through the definition and measurement of progress The key indicators are agreed upon by an organization and are indicators, which can be measured that will reflect success factors The KPIs selected must reflect the organization‟s goals, they must be key elements to its success, and they must be measurable Key performance indicators usually are long- term considerations for an organization 13 ”

Key performance indicators are an excellent strategy to translate visitor activity into the context of a site‘s primary business goals, and KPIs are often used to evaluate otherwise complex ideas by providing a relative framework

5.2 Common KPI of blog

Which KPIs should be tracked for blog? Before answer this question, this thesis will determine which kind of website blog belongs to Pedro Sostre and Jennifer LeClaire (2007)14 has divide website into for categories: E-commerce, Content, Lead generation, Customer support Each type has different set of KPI

Type of site Do blog have same functions and features?

Customer support Many

According to this classification, to measure blog‘s performance, people can use KPI set of content and customer support site and some indicator form ecommerce and lead generation site

5.2.1 E-commerce and Lead generation sites indicators

 Page Bounce Rate: This is the percent of users who leave immediately

after viewing the page If this rate is high, there may be either something wrong with the website — design, content, and so on — that turn reader off, or the sources of traffic send lots of untargeted traffic – usually from click fraud on a pay per click (PPC) campaign

 Conversion Rate: This is the number of conversions divided by the total

number of visitors Converting visitors into buyers, members, or subscribers is the purpose of commerce blog, or blog of commerce site If this number is poor, there may be some problems with quality of blog posts Companies should continually keep its eye on this number

 Conversion Rate for Campaign “X”: This is the number of conversions

divided by the total number of visitors generated by a particular campaign

5.2.2 Content and Customers support sites KPI set

 Average Page Views Per Visit: This is the average number of pages that a

visitor views while surfing Web site in general, or blog in particular In most cases, if a majority of visitors leave after seeing only one or two pages of blog, more actions need to be done to entice them delve deeper into the content Better headlines, photographs, or other article teasers might be needed

 Average Visits Per Visitor: This is the average number of times that a

visitor views Web site in general or blog in particular within a given

period If the same visitors come back repeatedly, it is good signal of success It means that blog has compelling content that users just cannot get enough of If they do not come back again and again, companies maybe start thinking of ways to encourage them to do so They may need

to offer more regularly updated content or some downloads that they can keep on their desktop

 Average Searches Per Visit: This is the average amount of times that a

user uses the search function on Web site in general, or blog in particular

If users have to embark on four or five searches per visit, companies need

to ask themselves why Why are not users finding what they want on the first search? Having to do multiple searches to find something usually leaves visitors frustrated, and frustrated users are bad for business Of course, perhaps they were searching for four different items That is good news because it means the visitor is interested in building a relationship with companies at some level However, it is rare

 Percent of User Growth This Period: This is the total number of users in

this reporting period, divided by the total number of users in the preceding reporting period Periods are usually measured in months or years This metric provides a snapshot view of blog‘s user growth This KPI is the best way to track how well blog is performing when it comes to

 Percent of Traffic Growth This Period: This is the total number of visits

this period, divided by the total number of visits in the preceding period (Periods usually measured in months or years.) This KPI shows how much blog traffic has grown since the last period It is different from Percent of User Growth in that it counts each time someone visited blog, as opposed

to only counting new visitors That means if someone visits a blog 15

times this period, it counts all 15 times; the former metric counts only one visit per user New or repeat users could generate traffic growth

 Percent of Traffic from Search Engines: This is the number of visits that

were referred from search engines divided by the total number of visits Keeping an eye on this number can help companies decide whether their current search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns are doing their job to increase traffic15

 Percent Low/Medium/High Time Spent Visits: This is the percentage of

visitors who stay on a Web site for under 30 seconds (low), between 30 seconds and 316 minutes (medium), or longer than 3 minutes (high) Knowing how long a visitor was at blog can be an important piece of the puzzle to show how effective the blog really is A long stays at a blog generally mean its content is doing a good job at capturing its visitor‘s interest Comparatively, a high percentage of short visits can indicate the opposite

 Percent Low/Medium/High Click Depth Visits: these metric breaks down

visitors into groups based on how many pages they visited on blog Click depth is also referred to as page views Expressed as a percentage, this metric is also effective for determining how well blog content appeals to its visitors and how effective its individual pages are at getting users to visit other pages Companies should track this metric regularly since their blog is a content-based site

 Percent New Visitors: This is the number of new users divided by the total

number of users For companies‘ blog, getting return visits is great, but it

is also important to make sure it is being exposed to new visitors on a regular basis

 Percent Returning Visitors: This is the number of returning users divided

by the total number of users If this number is high, it means that blog has

built a community of loyal readers

 Ratio of New to Returning Visitors: The number of new visitors compared

to the number of returning visitors Companies need to answer these questions: ―Do your visitors know about you already, or should your Web site talk to them as if they have never heard of you before?‖ Determining the voice for its blog is essential to a successful marketing campaign If its ratio of new to returning visitors is 20:1, companies need to start with the basics and offer introductory information on its blog If that number is reversed, however, and they are seeing 1 new visitor for every 20 returning visitors, they are probably safe skipping the introductions and just immediately making way for the content they are looking for

 Percent Visitors Using Search: This is the percentage of visitors who use

the search function on companies‘ blogs Is an internal search vital to their blog? One of the ways to determine the answer to that question is to keep tabs on what percentage of their blog‘s visitors is actually using it If the number is high, companies should make sure that their search function works well and delivers the results visitors are looking for Otherwise, if their internal search does not see much action, companies can leave well enough alone and focus their efforts on other aspects of the site

 Percent “Zero Result” Searches: This is the percentage of searches that

yield no results For a company blog, if its visitors frequently see no results for the terms they are searching for, companies probably need to do some digging into the search terms they use They should consider why

their site offers content for those keywords If many of their users are searching for them while on their blog, the answer is a resounding ―yes.‖

 Percent “Zero Yield” Searches: This is the percentage of searches in

which the user does not click any of the results What good is providing search results if users do not click them? If companies, if their blog generates lots of searches but users do not click the results, possibly their blog search engine is identifying bad search matches If that is the case, companies should consider upgrading their search function to one that provides more results that are relevant

5.3 Analysis method

Number is number Number is meaningless when it is not related to blog goals and analysis context Companies used statistics number to track their result, find problems, discover trend and the most important purpose is to make the right decision Many organizations can benefit by developing a list

of KPIs that are relevant to their individual organizational goals They can use the common KPI in their analysis model Besides, they should use some of their own indicators to make the analysis more effective

Since common KPIs have relation with others, it is hard to analyze Mike Sukmanowsky17, a Web Analytics Specialist working for Rogers Media in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has suggested that companies should categories KPI into several groups to when analyzing For content site like blog, he suggested to divide into three categories: growth, loyalty and engagement as below:

 Ratio of New to Returning Visitors

Loyalty

 Percent Returning Visitors

 Percent Loyal Visitors (> x visits)

 Average Visits per Visitor

Engagement

 Average Pages Viewed per Visit

 Average Time Spent on Site

 Percent of Visits Greater than 60 Seconds

 Percent of Committed Visits (> x page views per visit)

Next part of this thesis will discuss about how to apply blog marketing theory in a specific case BAAMBOO.COM blog

2012th position in the global website rank19

Currently, Baamboo provides four services: music search, video search, dictionary and Google search enhancement Music and Video search are their two most popular services and are used by millions of Vietnamese netizens For the next several coming months, Baamboo will continue to launch some other interesting services to serve Vietnamese netizens

2 Baamboo blog structures

Baamboo blog, or Baamblog,20 was launched in June 2007 after three months since the first launch of Baamboo service Its address is http://dev.baamboo.com The purpose of launching Baamblog is to interact with users for developing a better website In this site, users can claim about errors, bugs, etc It is also a place where Baamboo development team shares their work, their ideas with the hope that users‘ ideas contribution can help them develop a better product

In this part, the thesis will discuss how Baamboo use blog to listen to customers‘ voice, what they have done right and what they have not

2.1 Baamboo blog

Since the first launching in June 8th this year, Baamboo team keeps it blog unchanged in design and layout They have also posted seven new entries in around three months and received hundreds of comments related to its functions

2.2 Baamboo blog design

2.2.1 Color

Since Baamboo is similar to bamboo, development team has chosen yellow-green as the main color for blog It is also the color of bamboo, one of the most popular symbols of Vietnam

2.2.2 Font

When designing for readers, one of the most important decisions is which typefaces to use for blog Baamboo team chooses Arial as the only font This is one of the typical fonts installed in any computer So that, any reader who browses Baamblog will have no difficulty reading Vietnamese

2.2.3 Layout

Majority of blogs often have very similar layouts There is usually a banner on top, navigation elements, and two or three columns of content And Baamblog is not an exception Its banner is on top and show a panorama of trees In the left of banner, there is a picture of bamboo, which is one of Vietnamese symbol and is pronounced similarly to Baamboo Baamboo blog