December 4, 2009

Blogs and Marketing Effectiveness

According to a recent McKinsey survey, businesses are finding blogs among the most helpful Web 2.0 technologies. Mckinsey went further in their Web 2.0 analysis by looking at measurable gains (graphic below). 

It's fun to follow the hype on Twitter and other social medias, but it's almost refreshing (I never get tired to see some good stats!) to see a company like McKinsey participating to the Web 2.0 debate and bringing good data to the table (they've been doing it for 3 years). 

HubSpot, an Internet marketing company with evidently not the same pedigree as McKinsey, has also released some proprietary data on the effectiveness of blogging for small and medium businesses. HubSpot's data point suggests that blogging (vs. not blogging) offers 3 clear advantages for SMBs:
  1. More visitors (+55%)
  2. More inbound links (+97%)
  3. More indexed pages (+434%)
HubSpot links each one of these measures to more leads, higher search rankings, and more indexed pages.

Ultimately, the stats presented by both companies point in the same direction: It's about marketing effectiveness and conversion and no one can ignore the undeniable power of blog. 
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