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There is a small buzz going around about a recent blog post by Jeb Banner at SmallBox (a local website design firm) about some of the techniques and tools implemented by local blogging giant, Compendium Blogware. In his post, The Problem with Compendium Blogware, Jeb talks about the merits of the Compendium system and whether or not Google will be punishing Compendium in the long run because of a tweek in their algorithm.
To be completely honest with you, as a small business owner, I think the bigger problem is the fact that Compendium is still selling and overtly offering their service to small businesses that cannot afford a $6,000 blogging tool that they can get for free on WordPress. I don’t want to debate the merits of a tool that is better or worst than WordPress. I don’t want to debate whether or not Compendium has better functions and offerings than another free blogging platform out there.The simple fact is that Compendium is targeting the wrong consumer group for this product.
I will be the first to say that I don’t care about the backend programming merits of one blogging platform over the other (no offense Jeb and Chris). I can tell you first hand and from experience that WordPress works for me. Plain and simple.
I have a corporate blog we just started on our company website Brandswag (using wordpress) and I have the personal blog that you are reading now. Why would I spend $6,000 dollars, which is 10% of my overall revenue, to buy a tool that is free online? I just haven’t seen the value yet. I get great search results on my blog from using the WordPress platform and I can actually tell you the amount of money I have made because of my search rankings and because of my blogging. Why? Because I measure it.
I can understand a corporation using Compendium. Heck, I will refer clients to Compendium if they have the revenue to support the kind of investment the tool costs and if they fully understand the strategy behind blogging. Most small business owners simply should not invest 10-20% of their revenue into a tool when they do not understand the concepts, the fundamentals.
Start small and graduate big.
Start with a WordPress site and get the hang of blogging. Once you understand the value of content and you realize a return on investment make the switch (if you want).
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Thanks for flipping around the conversation on this a bit. I’ve previously commented on the post you mentioned by Jeb so I’ll let them stand on his site.
But as a Compendium client, one of the pleasant surprises has been the support they provide to their customers. It’s much more than just blogging tips and “have you blogged today” reminders, but the webinars they lead have been extremely insightful and helpful.
I’m not sure if the so-called “free” platforms provide this level of support.
Thanks for the comment Chuck. I understand that they provide more support than just the reminders but you can get webinar support, youtube videos, content ideas, and every other strategy in the book for free online.
And no, WordPress does not provide that kind of support but you can find it.
You mean with WordPress you have to search for help? Ugh. . . I like my support handed to me on a silver platter, preferably with some garlic mashed potatoes and a sprig of parsley.
[...] Unloading On Compendium Blogware (kylelacy.com) [...]
You can find support groups that will give you the support you need to help you with WordPress and for much less than you are paying for Compendium.
If I was paying a premium for blogging I would want it with potatoes and wine too.
If $6,000 is 10% to 20% of your total revenue, you actually answered your own question on why you need Compendium.
I was never really sold on Compendium blogware myself. My colleague and I heard Chriss Baggot speak at Blog Indiana last year and we were not sold. Because of the fundamental idea that duplicated content is not bad – besides that it just seems foolish to put a blog that is trying to brand a business on a subdomain of another business. You’re right when you say they could just do the same thing with WordPress.
I’m not impressed with the Compendium platform, anyone could throw together a better blogging platform with WordPress MU in a hour that would blow it out of the water and offer better value for money.
@Doug You know that I owe most of my knowledge about blogging and social media to you. You are one of my mentors in my opinion. The simple fact that you are discounting a $150,000 company in a year of business is disheartening to me. Are you going to give that small business its’ money back when the tool doesn’t work and they can’t pay.. payroll? Give me the benefit of the doubt that what I am buying is more than just another blogging platform. I haven’t been sold on it yet.
@jonathanwthomas I agree with you on the subdomain but I actually love what Compendium does. I just don’t think it is a valuable tool to small business owners under $500,000 in revenue. That’s just my opinion. I don’t really care about whether or not you could throw this together on the MU platform. I’m not a developer. I am an end user.
Kyle,
You know that I appreciate what you do as well.
As your mentor, I’d advise you that bad-mouthing a local startup with the success and growth of Compendium is just plain dumb. Indianapolis is a small city and we should be working together to strengthen each others’ businesses. We would love to have you as a client so you and your clients would benefit from what we do.
Compendium has the resources, support and consultation of industry professionals throughout the country. If our engagement with a small business was $6k, it’s a small price for a business to access the hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources that Compendium has invested in. Our clients get to tap into a goldmine of tools and consultants.
You also neglect to mention the daily coaching we do, the ongoing webinars, the analytics integration and monitoring, the infrastructure, security, ongoing updates, weekly client prizes and contests, etc. that we do for our clients. The majority of small businesses we handle paid more for their branding and website than they pay for our service. And they come to use because those didn’t deliver – and we do.
You also neglect to speak about the local businesses, ghost writers, graphic designers, PR agencies, etc. that we have continued to farm out work to.
Do we offer a money back guarantee? We don’t have to since we’re Software as a Service. If our clients don’t get results, they don’t renew. If they don’t renew, that would significantly damage our business and reputation. That’s not been an issue, of course, because those who leverage our system get the results they deserve.
Your $50 gift card for watching a demo is on it’s way. Hope you enjoy it.
Doug
@Doug
As a new Brandswag employee I believe strongly in the power of having a search marketing strategy. When I was looking for a job a few months ago Compendium was one of the places I applied, because you focus on blogging ROI. This is extremely important, and it should be obvious to everyone that Compendium delivers excellent search visibility for multiple keywords.
In regard to Jeb’s post, I think he brings up some valid questions that should definitely be addressed. Duplicate content ‘could’ be an issue for Compendium in the future. Lots of SEO experts agree that having lots of duplicate content is a bad thing that could potentially aggravate the google algorithm.
I also think that discussing these issues in a public forum (blogging them) will only ‘help’ Compendium to improve the quality of their product and avoid any future issues with the google index.
As far as small companies using Compendium, I think that’s entirely up to the business owner. A lot of small companies only need to rank for local search terms. If this is the case, a standard wordpress blog that’s properly optimized will probably be extremely effective (it all depends on the target keywords). Brandswag is a great fit for companies like this because we can put together a simple blogging strategy that fits into their existing marketing plan.
If the owner of a small business decides that they want to use Compendium Blogware, then that’s fine. I’m sure that the strategy will be effective, because Compendium has already proven that their product works. However, that doesn’t mean that Compendium is the only option they should be looking at.
I need to amend my comment a bit. When I posted it I hadn’t been to Jeb’s blog to see the most recent comments by Chris Baggot (compendium CEO) and Jim Brown (Evereffect – a local search marketing firm).
I recommend that everyone who has an opinion on the issue of duplicate content (regarding Compendium’s software) read Jeb Banner’s original post and the comments. This has certainly been a very enlightening couple of days and it’s raised a lot of questions and issues for us to discuss, which is a great thing!
I have been having some errors with some comments and a plugin I was using. The CEO of Compendium, Chris Baggott, wanted me to post his opinion on the comment.. so here it is. Good thoughts:
Chris Baggott’s Comment:
My Bad Kyle
I am not a regular reader, but I’ll fix that today.
Meantime, what’s the number that you feel makes sense for Compendium? You first mentioned $60,000 a year revenue then went to $500,000?
I’m not sure if you saw my example of Fairytale Brownies on Jebs blog yesterday. This is a small business, don’t know their revenue numbers, but suspect it’s pretty far below your second number. They paid us around $4,500 annually, & said publicly that they were driving $5400 in the past month directly attributable from the hundreds of keywords they are driving from their Compendium blogs. This is direct revenue and not accounting the lifetime value of all those new customers or the 180 that requested the catalog.
I’m not sure where the $6,000 price number came from, we have clients that are barters for goods and services like Greenfield Liquors or Circle City Tickets and Monon, and we have clients that spend 10′s of 1,000′s.
That’s the beauty of the marketing democracy stemming from Saas. It used to be that companies with the most money won because they could afford the best tools.
As Greenfield Liquors (a small two person shop) said in the Star the week of BlogIndiana, “I now sell cases on the products I blog about vs. bottles before”. She sells plenty of Bud here….Compendium helps her sell the expensive stuff. And it’s the same tool that the most sophisticated marketers in the world use.
Every time I hear a wordpress argument I can’t help thinking back to the beginning of ExactTarget and the email industry. “What? I can do that with a listserve” All I need is a server, tech guy, a plug in for images, another plug in for bounces, yet another plug in for subscribers, of course an additional plug in for unsubscribers, oh…a plug in for analytics, to get help I can spend time involved in a search for support online somewhere, Plus, find a developer for my templates and CTA’s…… Anyone out there still doing their own email in a meaningful way? Of course not.
You get the idea.
It’s just not sustainable or scalable for any business, let alone the very smallest. If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest The Big Switch.
Really does a great job of explaining what’s going on regarding the decline of installed software and each company having their own tech resources and the migration to Utility computing or the Cloud or whatever the word-of-the-day is.
Please, keep the dialog open..but as internet marketers we have a responsibility to not let our feelings get in the way of data.
Data is the reason that internet marketing tools, including search, continue to grow and prosper at the expense of every other media. TV, Radio, Billboards, Newspapers, Flyers, Brochures….all these are based on intuition not necessarily data. Design and Campaign Execution used to be based on experience and opinion right?
The reason that 24-year-olds like you can become leaders in this industry is because of data. There is no ambiguity. “Does it work or not?” “Where is it failing?” “Conversion?” “Great, we can try 3 more CTA’s today!”
Marketing in 2009 is all about data and agility. Don’t get locked into what you Think is right. Let the Data guide you.
My favorite Thomas Paine quote: “A long history of thinking nothing wrong doesn’t make it right.”
@Doug I appreciate the response and in no way am I bad mouthing a local company. I have constantly said (on a continuous basis) that I will refer clients to Compendium if I feel they would benefit from the platform. I don’t find that as bad mouthing a local company. I feel the need to voice my opinion about certain things.. and so I do. And I agree with Chris’ point that we need not let our feelings get in the way of data. I appreciate Chuck getting on here and voicing his opinion about your services that is what I want to hear! I want to hear from your clients not from the sales and marketing staff. Thanks Chuck! You know I love you and The Bean Cup and everything you respresent. I just like to voice my opinion about certain service. I can also talk about ProBlog Service.. which I will.. but we will leave that for another post.
@Chris Love the Big Switch. I am glad you brought that up. I am a huge fan of your tool and SaaS in general. I also appreciate the examples you give about companies that have taken the initiative and used the tools to the best of their ability. That is exciting news! I am looking for communication and dialogue with using this tool and that is what I received from you. Thank you.
It isn’t a one size fits all world. Different solutions, for different companies at different times.
Beyond size, is the question of why are you blogging, and not every business has the same goals, nor should they.
For clients who need a starter website, with a blog built in – I love wordpress. It is a great tool to build a blogging habit, discover your voice and figure out what you want to write about.
More established clients, with a strong existing website, and specific traffic goals and key words they want to own – I like Compendium. I love the feedback as I write the post on my key word usage. I value the feed with relevant content which helps spur my creative process.
This is very similar to the comparison of Constant Contact and Exact Target. For the micro user sending out one to two emails a month, CC is fine. For the serious business, using the campaign functions to send more and more targeted and relevant communication, Exact Target makes sense.
@Doug I am not bad-mouthing you and I am looking forward to buying you a coffee with the gift card.
Yuck! Starbucks?
I think a couple things ‘stung’ personally with your post, Kyle. First “Unloading on Compendium Blogware” denotes that something negative is going to follow.
Second is that you’ve never been privy to the extraordinary customer support and success management that our clients get. It’s like having a powerhouse marketing team in each of our clients’ back-pockets. So when you question the value of such a service and I’m one key person supplying that value – it tends to get my blood boiling.
I guarantee you that some of the clients that I’ve helped personally would have been $12k contracts had I been managing them on my own. That’s the great thing about having a good staff and being SaaS, though. Our clients pay less and get more value.
Okay… I’ll take a Peppermint Mocha, non-fat, no whip.
Doug,
You are right about the title. I will be changing that. Not the best way to go about it. I will take full blame for that. I was looking for your clients to come to the blog and post their success stories to get the conversation flowing and that was accomplished. I’m glad that it happened! Thanks Chuck!
I will buy you a Mocha, non-fat, no whip.. grande.. maybe a Venti if you are nicer to me..
Kidding. You already are.
And in regards to the $500,000 comment. I rightfully withdraw that comment. I was getting a little heated. a $500,000 could def. afford and should think about using Compendium. My mistake.
Kyle, I think you are right in assessing Compendium is a better fit for certain companies. I would argue that they are probably best for companies with a serious e-commerce presence. Most small businesses aren’t set up to generate a substantial amount of their revenue via an e-commerce website. As Chris notes, Compendium is about acquisitions. It’s more about the sale and less about the relationship. This means it is better suited for companies selling products than those selling services.
Most conversions via a Compendium blog don’t come back through that same route. Email and other means will bring them back. So to me I see Compendium, after reading Chris’ responses on my blog, as well suited for a company that is currently relying on PPC to generate sales. Compendium can help in the organic search realm.
If it’s just a numbers game then $6000 to generate $60,000 in sales with a 25% or better margin makes sense. But if you can’t get that kind of return, and most small businesses in the service arena probably wouldn’t since they are more about relationships than acquisition, then I think a free solution like WordPress does make a lot more sense.
they are more about relationships than acquisition, then I think a free solution like WordPress does make a lot more sense.