Forrester’s Charlene Li Calculates The ROI Of Blogging
This is a post worth studying: Charlene Li’s Blog: Calculating the ROI of blogging. Calculating ROI for a blog implies being able to complete the following sentence: “The $X we invest in our blog will generate a X% return on our investment annually…” While it’s important to go through this thinking process prior to launching a blog initiative, I believe it’s going to be difficult for most companies to calculate a true ROI prior to launch. It’s more likely the blog will be sold based on projected benefits and metrics that show performance vis a vis the blogs of peer brands and competitors. I think Charline’s list of “benefits” and “appropriate measurement” are mostly right. I would love to be able to calculate and measure “conversion rates” in all cases because you really can calculate real ROI with those numbers in hand. She suggests discounting the ROI by placing a value on risk — that makes completing the whole equation even more difficult and the resulting ROI calcuation even more suspect, in my view. Last point, some IT groups are really going to drive up the start-up costs associated with blogs if they are not more willing to adopt hosted and/or open source solutions (e.g., wordpress, drupal). The “enterprise class” solutions I’ve been nose-to-nose with are difficult to configure and skin. What should be a 5 minute download turns into a 5-week implementation. I’d like to think about all this more and post “part II” at a later date. I’m glad Charline is taking on this issue and sharing her thoughts. I wonder if Forrester required an ROI projection before they approved her blog?
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