Debbie Weil writes that Charlene Li has apparently brought in close to one million dollars in business to her employer, Forrester, in the last year – all through her blogging.
That’s a 5000% Return on Investment!
‘That’s based on her calculation that her $14.95 / month account with TypePad triggered $1 million in new business for Forrester last year.’
If that’s not the best argument for business blogging going around at the moment then I don’t know what is!
Interesting read…
Even more interesting is the timing of this. Just recently Movable Type announced their new $90/mo business blogging package.
Wow…. How come… 1 Million?!!! Thats incredible! I never imagine that blog business can be that profitable.. will keep blogging forever..!!!
I’m sorry but I don’t believe it.
She’s not saying she’s made $1 million. She’s saying that her blogging has brought in close to $1 million in business for her employer.
Charlene is a Principal Analyst for Forrester, so she already has quite a bit of influence. It’s not surprising that people would be keen to read her thoughts on her blog after hearing her speak or reading about her in mainstream media. Keeping in regular touch with past customers and other interested people is a proven way to bring in more business – the only novelty here is that she keeps in touch via a blog instead of more traditional methods.
That ROI figure is pretty meaningless, too. Someone as high up as Charlene would have a pretty hefty hourly rate, so that needs to be factored in. And the $1 million is only the total new business – it’s not profit. So while her blogging has probably been worthwhile, it wouldn’t be anywhere near a 5000% ROI.
Oh, and making 5000 times your investment is not a 5000% return – it’s a 500,000% return. :-)
Whats interesteing is she’s only getting around 650 visitors per day.
good observation Hone – I guess all it takes is one of those visitors to have a big account.
This is what I actually find with ProBlogger. All it really takes is 1 visitor who wants to take me on as a consultant on a big project and the blog is suddenly much more profitable in the consulting business that it generates than in ads.
Hone – I’m sure those 650 visitors each day to her blog are pretty well targeted and good business prospects.
Darren – Right on with the one visitor being able to generate considerable consulting revenue. How do we not know that Li’s million in generated revenue was not from landing just a few “big fish”?
Wow. At 650 visitors per day that’s $4.21 per visitor for the year.
Andrew
Can Your Business Blog Prove A Return On Investment?
The biggest point I try to ram into people’s heads about business blogging is that you CAN find ways to measure return on investment. Take for example, Charlene Li of Forrester Research, who just recently spoke about how her blogging has brought in cl…
I am sure that the “extra” influence she gives forrester is potentially worth more than $1,000,000.
[…] Darren Rowse, over at Problogger, relates some statistics related to Forrester’s Corporate Blogging: Debbie Weil writes that Charlene Li has apparently brought in close to one million dollars in business to her employer, Forrester, in the last year – all through her blogging. […]
Counting income generated by a Blog
Since there’s more and more blogs out there, esp business blogs springing up, we might want to find a way to count the income created by our blogs. In an article about ROI of Business Blogs of Forrester Research, Charlene Li,…
[…] Business Blogging – This section on Problogger.net has great coverage on the development of business blogging. In fact this is one of the best resources on the net for blogs…and they guy is in Melbourne. […]
she must have been doing something more than just blogging to pull in that sort of money. it may only have cost her $14.95 a month for the account, but her employer still had to pay her for doing all that blogging, whether that be in her salary, or by other means, but still, $1 million is unbelievable. Id be happy with 50k. lol
This is a nice blog, It seems like you put a lot of time and effort into it