B-to-B Blogs Take a Dive: Forrester

Business-to-business blogging took a nosedive this year, mainly because returns on corporate blogs haven’t matched investment, according to a recent report by Forrester Research.

However, analyst Laura Ramos, the lead author of the report, recommends businesses take a second look at corporate blogs.

“Rather than cross blogging off the marketing communications list, marketers would do better to embrace one of the four strategies prominently used by bloggers to attract readers, build conversations, and engage community members in sharing their experiences with their online peers,” said Ramos’s report, “How to Derive Value From B2B Blogging.”

Still, the number of new corporate blogs has dropped sharply in the last year and a half, according to the report, with 36 companies launching them in 2006, 19 in 2007, and just three in the first quarter of 2008, according to Forrester.

Moreover, in a survey of 189 companies, Forrester found that 38% rated blogging as “marginal” to their marketing strategies and 15% rated them “irrelevant.”

One reason b-to-b blogs may not be paying off is that most of them are so bad, according to Forrester. They read like “tired, warmed-over press releases,” and visitors’ experiences with them are “simply awful,” said the report.

“Many b-to-b marketers fail to realize that good blogging style should resemble a coffee shop conversation, not a white paper,” said Forrester’s report.

Forrester’s Ramos recommends would-be corporate bloggers learn to be conversation starters by, among other things, honing their online voices by leaving comments on other blogs. She also recommends focusing on being a resource rather then just a brand, and filling a distinct niche.

She also urges companies to make their blogs more entertaining, and easy to use.

“Blogs build community faster when they combine information with entertainment,” said the report.

She also recommends connecting blogs with industry events, such as conferences, by writing about them, posting from them and involving readers in the process.

Successful corporate blogs “talk openly with an authentic voice,” and are “humble and honest,” two traits that run counter to many corporate egos, said Forrester’s report.

Ramos recommends letting staff members speak on behalf of the firm. However, she concedes: “This means wresting control from legal and corporate communications departments while ceding it to business staff members.”

One solution is to have a single blog author interview staff members and write on their behalf, as Jim Cahill does for Emerson Process Experts, said the report.

“In this way, Emerson Process shares learnings gleaned from on-the-job engagements in open and authentic blog communications that don’t betray confidential information,” said Ramos’s report.