I Blog and so doe$ Marriott - $$ Cha-ching $$
I have not made any money and don’t expect to find anyone willing to let me dictate posts but this is a great ROI story.
Kathleen Matthews, who heads global communications at Marriott International, came up with the idea for chief executive Bill Marriott’s blog. He saw it as a good way to communicate.
"That’s the importance of public relations, of advertising, of everything we do," Marriott said. "And this is just another channel." Marriott also likes how the blog shows that he’s "a human just like everybody else." He sometimes breaks from writing about corporate issues to post about the movies he sees on Saturdays with his wife.
Marriott has thousands of employees around the world, who make up about one-fifth of the blog’s readership and comment frequently. "It is the virtual substitute for Bill Marriott visiting every hotel," Matthews said.
He’s not your typical blogger — he doesn’t use computers. Instead, he dictates entries into a recorder and a staff member transcribes and posts them. The audio is also on the site, which averages about 6,000 visitors per week and has had more than 600,000 total visitors since its inception in January 2007.
Marriott has made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott’s blog.
