Analyzing the Kissmetrics Blog Strategy

“I really like the Kissmetrics blog.”

When a new prospect contacts Ghost Blog Writers I often ask them to list their favorite blogs. The answers usually paint a good picture of what the person’s expectations are for their own blog.

One blog has been named more than any other with recent prospects and I thought it was worth a post to analyze this blog’s strategy.

The Kissmetrics Blog Strategy

Here is the description of what Kissmetrics offers:

Unlock the hidden profits in your business using customer analytics to convert and retain more.

Kissmetrics is an analytics software that gives website owners the power to analyze customers and make decisions to improve website conversion. Kissmetrics has some big name clients in a variety of industries. Their software appears to be a great product and service for many people. Having a good product or service is obviously a good place to start for any business. Having a great product does help when it comes to creating a blog strategy.

The Kissmetrics Blog is what I’ve been hearing about (a lot about) lately.

As I sad above, prospects mention this blog as one of their favorites all the time. The folks at Kissmetrics must be doing something right to have all this attention. After looking at some of the recent posts as well as drawing on my experience reading the Kissmetrics blog, here are a few takeaways I have:

Relevant Topics for Target Audience

Looking down the first page of the Kissmetrics Blog will give you a good idea of how relevant the topics are. The target audience of the Kissmetrics blog is marketers. Anyone interested in learning anything about online marketing probably will stumble across an article on Kissmetrics. The topics are relevant to what marketers read and hear about. These marketers search for terms and find links on social networks. The marketers come to Kissmetrics and the articles deliver with actionable insight.

Look at the most recent five headlines:

Each of these covers a topic marketers are curious about. The visitors to Kissmetrics likely have questions about each of these topics. They’ll find answers at Kissmetrics.

For your blog, it’s important to cover the topics your target customer cares most about. You can research this. Sometimes the customers will already be asking questions in search engines and on forums. Other times, you’ll have to dig deeper and figure out what they want to know, but haven’t yet asked the question.

Entertaining and Easy to Understand Graphics

Something Kissmetrics is really known for is their infographics.

Here is just one example The Blueprint for a Perfectly Testable Landing Page.

The infographic is something that has been around for some time. Newspapers and magazines have been using them in various formats for decades and probably longer.

In the last year or two, though, infographics have blown up in popularity on the Web. Blogs have been creating infographics for all kinds of information. The reason infographics have worked well for bloggers is because a graphic can make difficult to digest information digestable.

When you can make something easy to understand people will respond.

Kissmetrics also does a great job with making their graphics fun. Each graphic also has a consistent style. People generally recognize the branded Kissmetrics infographic right away.

These infographics are shared like crazy too.

They’re quick to understand. They’re helpful. They’re easy to share.

For your blog, consider investing in infographics. Some people say they are running their course and people sick of them. This is probably true to some extent, but if the graphic is interesting and useful people will still appreciate the content.

This point goes beyond infographics too. If you can use photography, images, and even video to improve the message on your blog you will have an advantage over the competition. You’ll win attention.

Kissmetrics is proof of that.

Proof and Validation

It’s important to offer validation when making claims. On the Kissmetrics Blog, authors often link to studies and other materials to back up their claims.

Here is one recent example: The Psychology of Why Sexy Websites Suck at Sales. This is a strong claim and one people will question until there is more proof. The author links to studies that help prove the point. The study appears legit and it’s convincing to the reader.

When blogs link out to studies and other expert materials it adds proof and validity to claims.

This practice makes your blog more respectable and appealing to your target audience.

Expert Insight

Kissmetrics uses a lot of great writers as guest authors. The owners of Kissmetrics also contribute content to the site. People respond to great advice, but they also respond to the creator of the content. People do look at the author to validate the information. When there is a post on Kissmetrics it is easy to see the bio of the author. The authors are experts on the topics they write about on Kissmetrics. People see this and realize there is experience behind the claims being made in the blog post.

Do you read the Kissmetrics Blog?

What would you add as a reason for their success with blogging?