Dealers Need Something to Blog About - Here's One Example of a Digital Marketing Plan

A dealership's website is really just the beginning of a digital marketing strategy... When Matt Cutler joined Visible Measures last October the company was just preparing to launch itself into the public arena. But one of Cutler's first moves was to put on the brakes. As vice president, marketing and analytics, for Visible Measures, a Boston-based company that provides software to track Internet video metrics, Cutler knew that the company's bare bones website and sparsely published blog weren't yet ready for public consumption.

"The advertising agency community is important to us [as our customers]. There's a level of professionalism that community expects, and frankly we weren't up to snuff," he says. "We needed to have a sophisticated Web presence that tells our story. Any buzz you generate, whether from media coverage or a blog, [sends people] to your website. It's a first impression."

And as the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Cutler knew that having a good website wouldn't close deals, but having a bad one could prevent deals from ever happening, even for a B2B company. So in December Visible Measures began working with HubSpot, an Internet marketing software company, on an integrated Web marketing program that included blogs, search engine optimization (SEO) measurement, lead management capability, and reporting and analytics.

Keywords and traffic
Specifically, Cutler focused on figuring out the best keywords that would drive online searchers to the company. Prelaunch, Cutler came up with a list of keywords that he thought would be important for the company to "own," such as "audience behavior measurement," "video advertising" and "video publishers." And Visible Measures did indeed start ranking highly for some, like audience behavior measurement. But to what end?

"You can rank for keywords that get zero traffic," Cutler says. "For instance, we still believe 'audience behavior measurement' is an important descriptor of what we do. Hence it is important that we rank on that keyword whether we get 50 visits or 50,000 visits as a result."

From this experience, Cutler learned an important search lesson: "Traffic isn't the only measure of value for any given keyword...and traffic levels tend to vary over time," he says. "So [now] we take a portfolio approach towards SEO and have targeted both 'mainstream' keywords like video analytics and 'long-tail' keywords like audience behavior measurement."

Back to blog basics
In addition, Visible Measures' blog has proved to be one of the most important elements of the company's digital marketing plan. The blog is updated about 10 times a week—usually by the CEO—with videos and pithy posts (a recent one highlighted a video parody of a Batman/Iron Man throw-down), and has become the most highly trafficked area of the company's site.

One benefit is that it provides a context for creating new content. "A regular website can become ossified, whereas with a blog there's always something new to write about," Cutler says.

And sometimes, new, interesting keywords pop up unintentionally, as happened with the phrase "video engagement." The company has posted blog items with phrases that then rank as keywords on search engines—what Cutler calls an ancillary benefit.

Still, most surprising to Cutler was discovering the ultimate importance of the blog in the first place. His own unscientific research revealed that many B2B executives make qualitative decisions about a company based on the content of its blog. "People read blogs to get a sense of the personality of the company," he says. "As we structure the content, it's important that it accurately reflects the personality of the business."

Today, Visible Measures' website is more than ready for public consumption. In addition to the updated blog, the company added additional video content, monitor the News & Events page, has made some content changes on interior pages. The company has increased organic searches as a percentage of overall site traffic, and Web leads have increased by a factor of 10.

"There are lots of things being written about Web 2.0 communication, and it can appear intimidating or fraught with risk for B2B marketers," Cutler says. "But there's a world of opportunity for the properly motivated marketer to exploit."