I. INTRODUCTION: POSITIVE EFFECTS OF BLOGGING

BACKGROUND:

The Advertising Research Department of San Francisco State University assigned this study at the request of Sonoma Hanzell Vineyard. Before authorizing to create a blog of a Hanzell Vineyard, the executive council requested a study examining the positive effect of blogging on existing companies who are using blogs. Members of executive council wanted to determine to what extent the blogging will benefit the company.

For those who are unfamiliar with blogging, it is a free website where the company can post the information of the company, as well as its products. It is web page intended for general public consumption that can be run by an individual or small group, which is written in informal or conversational style. Bogs are different from website, because they are easy to use and can be used as a platform where customers can leave their comments. Blogs generally represent the personality and purpose of the companies and it can be used in different ways. From all the research done in past, it has been proved that blogging has direct and indirect benefits that can help the companies to increase their revenues by as much as 55 percent or more. Blog is a low cost, easy to use, highly effective marketing tool for differentiating the company from the competition and increasing customer loyalty. And all it requires is commitment, creativity, most importantly keeping the blog content useful for the readers.

PURPOSE:

The purpose of this report is to show the benefits of blogging and how it will help the Vineyards to increase its revenue. The original goal is to create an affordable solution to introduce this company to online audience through a blog with relevant content and use this opportunity as a marketing tactic to drive traffic to the company website.

SIGNIFICANCE:

The report will compare the costs for creating and maintaining the blog. It will also measure the returns and the paybacks. The report is significant because the increase in revenue will encourage the growth of company and the careful frequent blogging has a lot of benefits in return with the minimal costs.

SCOPE:

Even though Sonoma Hanzell Vineyard is a small and family owned business, it can still learn a lot of benefits from blogging. This report will show the effects of blogging and compare the revenues between the companies that blog to the ones that does not blog. This report will elaborate on what small business can learn from blogging. Furthermore, this report will show how cost effective blogging actually is and how Hanzell Vineyard can profit by creating and updating its blog on a daily basis.

ORGANIZATION:

This study was designed to analyze the direct and indirect sales impact from blogging on the Sonoma Hanzell Vineyard of Sonoma, CA. Specifically, the study seeks answers to these questions in following patterns.

How can blogging be the bridge that connects the customers to the winery? How does creating a blog will increase the customers participation?

How can a blog increase the revenue of the company? How much is it going to cost to maintain and update the blog?

What is the cost of maintaining the blog? Is the payback worth it for the expenses created by blog?

II. FINDINGS

A: Companies with blog have 40% or more traffic, than who doesnt:

There are countless customers looking for information on the products and services. If the company fails to provide the information then the business is losing out on a potential sales. The Hanzells blog can be the place where customers meet their Vineyard needs and curiosities. Blogging is a good way to educate the target audience so that they become better informed on making buying decisions. As shown in figure 1, 60 percent of business uses blog, while 329 million people view blogs on daily basis.

Figure 1

Blogging Statsistics

Data From: http://www.digitalsherpa.com/blog/wp-content/Blogging-Stats-01.jpg

Designed by: Digital Sherpa

The Vineyards blog can be a tool to advertise and market the wines by introducing the new deals and discounts to attract the visitors. The research done by hubspot found out that, the companies that blog gets 55 percent more visitors as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2

Benefits of Blogging

Data From: http://www.michalwurm.com/blog

Designed by: Hubspot

B: Daily blog reaps the best result:

The habit of daily blogging contributes a handsome increase in the traffic of the companies website in compare to those who doesnt. The companies who updates their blog daily gets 77% more customers in compare to the one who only blogs once a month. When the company blogs every day, the trust of search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing will likely develop. Quality and well-formed posts on daily basis will form a good reputation from search engines. So, when customer searches the similar information as provided on the Hanzell blog, the search engine will show up the Hanzell Vineyards blog because of the good reputation it has established. As shown in Figure 2, the number of visitors has always increased on the days when the company updated their blog.

Figure 2

Effect of blogging every day

Source: http://nectafy.com/17-higher-on-days-we-blog-new-blogging-stats/

Designed by: Danju Maharjan

C: The minimal setup costs for maintain blogging:

Blogging is effective low-cost marketing. It doesnt cost much to add a blog into the website. Technically, the company can create its blog for free and in minutes. While there are different options for blogging services, Wordpress.com is one of the widely used one. The vineyard could buy its own domain name, the one which is similar and appropriate for as low as $6 per month. The company needs to hire a writer to develop post-worthy content. The average cost of writer to update a blog on daily basis is less than $2500 a month. San Francisco State University Department went to 14 different wineries for research purposes to know the better impact of blog from those who are using blog for their wineries. Figure 3 shows what the managers from Ravenswood Winery, Envolve Winery, and Roche Winery had to say about the blog.

Figure 3

Opinions of Different Managers

Point 1 Point 2 Point 3 Overall

Data From: SFSU Research on 18 wineries of Sonoma, CA

Desined by; Danju Maharjan

III. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A, Summary of Problems and Procedures

Blog can speak for the company brand and establish the credibility among Internet users. Most importantly, blogging builds trust. About two-thirds of marketers say their company blog is critical and important to their business. Part of the reason is that blogs are great way to engage the visitors. Blogs can assist the Hanzell Vineyard with the effective promotion of a service and products. The blog can become a central place for all of the other online interaction with customers. By creating a blog, Hanzell vineyard allows itself to create a focal point for a community of customers, provide the company with its own social network hub in the market and allows the company to expand on the information on other social media as well such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and so on.

B: Summary of Findings:

The daily updated blog attracts 40% more traffic to their company website, which converts that traffic into leads. There are plenty of studies, which prove that the companies with blogs gain as much as 67% increases in lead over their competitors that dont. Those leads will eventually become a sale. According to study done by Factbrowser, more than 60 % of United States online customers say theyve made a purchase as a direct result of reading bloggers recommendation. Blogs are very valuable type of content. Blogs are 63% more likely to influence purchase decisions than magazines. There is very minimal cost to create and maintain the blog; in fact blog has below average cost in compare to other channel.

C. Conclusion:

On the basis of these findings, it is recommended that creating the blog can increase the sales and revenues of the Vineyard. The increase in sales would encourage the growth of the company, thus much needed step moving forward for Sonoma Hanzell Vineyard.

Blogging is comparatively affordable, while it has direct as well as indirect benefit to the company. With the increasing number of Internet users and the popularity of social media and social websites, the customers could easily share the companys blog in their social media. When the content is good, the social media users are more likely to share it, and the social media users covers more people than ever and that viral share will be the huge indirect benefit for reaching out to other potential customers.

D. Recommendations:

A blog gives the Hanzell Vineyard a great opportunity to build up the brand awareness. By connecting the companys blog with social bookmarking and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Reedit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and so on, the blog can also spread the influence into areas of potential customers which the company could not have been able to target otherwise. The company can use one of many free blogging service like Wordpress, Typepad or Blogger. Once the blog has been setup, the only investment required is time. Once the Vineyards gets into the habit of posting blog updates regularly, the benefits Hanzell will be getting back in return will amaze the management.

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TWELVESKIP. Retrieved April 7, 2015

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business-blogging-h

Larkwen, M. (2012, April 14). 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on

recommendations from a blog. Retrieved April 7, 2015, from

http://www.factbrowser.com/facts/7065/

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Positive:Negative:Neutral: Mixed Support.

Approves."Not easy Approves, but "Good plan but

to write content."with "caution." needs effort."

Positive:Negative:Neutral: Optimstic:

Strong Support:Time ConsumingHave to give a "Worth a

" "Easy and free." shot trouble."

Positive:Negative:Neutral:

Approves: "Low-cost "Updating daily"Benefits far Supports plan.

source of marketing."needs commitment."outweigh costs."

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