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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Online Marketing Checklist: Are You Covering Your Bases?
 The days when all you needed for online marketing was a nice website have long passed. In order to be effectively represented online, you’ll need effective campaigns on several critical platforms. The platforms vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for those of you still finding your footing; here is a short checklist of platforms you should consider. Stable Content - Website: Since its 2010, you should have professional website. If you don’t have one, get on it.
- Bonus Points Wikipedia Entry: Businesses haven’t fully embraced Wikipedia but it is the authority for information reference. Having a Wikipedia entry will become increasingly important for online credibility and exposure.
Regularly Updated Content - Blog: A critical platform for establishing credibility with the online community and search engines. If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you are missing out on establishing yourself as an online authority in your industry.
- Bonus Points Periodical Press Releases: Press Releases still have their place online, particularly when pushed out with a service like PRWeb.com. It can do more than just a blog posting or website update as it pushes to many channels, allowing for more exposure and credibility.
Social Networking - Twitter/Facebook Fan Page: Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social networking and an increasingly important platform to promote dialog between companies and the online community.
- Bonus Points LinkedIn/Foursquare: LinkedIn and Foursquare aren’t for everyone, but depending on the kind of business you do, these maybe valuable platforms to reach potential customers.
Video Media - YouTube: YouTube continues to be a predominately an entertainment focused community, but its reach is undeniable. If you have how-to videos, or a business presentation, they are good candidates for YouTube.
- Bonus Points Webinar: Webinars are a great way to interact with customers and the community. Webinars add great value for any customer base.
Search Engine Marketing - Google AdWords: This isn’t a must but for those of you who are just starting out, or struggling in competitive markets, pay-per-click campaigns with Google can get you that exposure when you need it.
- Bonus Points Pay-per-click on Facebook/LinkedIn/Yahoo/Bing: Although Google is the most recognized player; pretty much every major platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc) has a similar version of the pay-per-click program. They may present a less competitive and more targeted environment to push marketing efforts.
Depending on your business and goals, the platforms mentioned may not be critical. Also keep in mind that just because you are represented on these platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you are being represented well on each platform. However, how to assess your effectiveness on the various online platforms is the topic for another post. Do you have other platforms that are critical to your business’s online marketing strategy that you feel should be on this list? Please share it with us in the comments. Author: Jimmy Wong
Monday, July 05, 2010
Effective Email Newsletters
Many companies send regular email newsletters to their customers but not many of them measure the effectiveness of their newsletters and adjust them. I recently helped a non-profit organization improve its email newsletter campaign. They had been doing several newsletters each month in the past but they didn’t know if they were being read or even opened. Peter Drucker once said that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and this can apply to newsletters too! When I looked at the newsletters. I found that it had too many articles. These articles covered many different topics and the staff had to spend quite a bit of time collecting these articles each month. They created long newsletters and there wasn’t any focal point in them. I then looked at the email opens and click thrus from previous newsletters and found that the numbers were very low. As a result, I advised them to greatly reduce the number of the articles in each newsletter and focus on a theme for each month. For interested readers, we provided headlines and excerpts linking to longer articles on their blog and website. I also noticed that they used the same email subject line for every month. The only difference in the subject line was the month. Many recipients will automatically set it aside in the hope that they would come back to it when they have time, but this may not happen unless the subject line has relevancy. I advised them to make the subject line more relevant and describe the theme of the newsletter with some curiosity and urgency for the recipients. The results: It freed up time for the staff and the email open and click through rates increased significantly. Now the recipients see the value to them and some are even anxiously waiting for the next e-newsletter! So the point is: You have to regularly monitor, measure and adjust your email newsletters to make it work. Don’t give up on it – it can be one of your most powerful marketing tools. Author: Ray Yip
Labels: E-Newsletters, email marketing, marketing
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Top 5 Mistakes Made When Setting Up Pay Per Click Advertising
I spoke with a prospect recently who was disappointed with the results they were receiving from the Google advertising they had set up and paying as much as $5 per click with little or no response. Search advertisers make it very easy for business owners to set up a pay per click account but the costs of setting it incorrectly are not as apparent as they should be. In today’s blog we look at the top 5 mistakes made when setting up pay per click advertising: - Not doing the right keyword research –
 Search advertisers provide research tools to find keywords to run your advertisements on, but often they suggest the highest searched keywords which have the highest competition. Selecting these keywords also requires you to bid significantly higher for them in order to have your advertisement show up. In most cases it is better to select keywords which have a reasonably high search volume, but lower competition, which will help to keep your bids down in the long run. - Not defining a daily budget – You can define a daily budget for your advertising where your advertisements stop showing after the budget is reached. Not doing this may result in your monthly budget being reached within a week or two and your advertisements not showing for the remainder of the month.
- Not targeting the right audience – You need to define the cities, states or countries that you want your advertising to be shown in. It doesn’t make sense for a local service provider to show advertising across the nation. It is also important to set the time of day you want your advertisements to show (ex. Not in the middle of the night).
- Not improving your website or landing page – If you do not get any business off your website currently, then driving more traffic using pay per click advertising does not always mean that will improve. Your company website needs to be credible and look professional before someone will contact you from it. Improve your landing page and add the right offers or calls to action to entice your visitor to make contact.
- Not maintaining the advertisements regularly – There are a lot of moving parts in pay per click advertising that often get overlooked; It’s not easy enough to simply set something up and let it run. You need to pay attention to things like: bids, keywords, ad copy, click through rate, bounce rate, quality score, etc. It is worth the effort to run experiments and try different variations on ad copy and landing pages to see what produces the best result.
Search advertising is a very powerful medium to use when it is done right. It can produce a good amount of business and easily pay for itself. If you do not have the expertise or time to manage it, we recommend consulting with an expert who can help you to manage and achieve better results. It is important to note that paid search advertisements are only clicked on by ~30% of search engine users; the large majority of search results are delivered through organic listings, so ensure you have a search engine optimization strategy as well. Author: Paul Uppal
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Healthy Websites Lead to Online Marketing Success
Your website’s online exposure is a key component of business life, just like getting healthy and into shape is a vital component of our own personal lives. However, most people never ‘get into shape’. Many people buy gimmicky workout machines or slim fast drugs only to be tricked out of time and money. Many get confused, frustrated, or give up. The Online Marketing Athlete
Online marketing is very similar to personal health and fitness, so don’t be tricked by thrills and gimmicks. Think of building and maintaining online exposure like training to become a competitive athlete. It takes planning, time, diligence, and the right combination of exercises. Get Healthy
Most websites are not fit or robust enough for the internet search environment; many have problems they don’t even know about. Most websites aren’t very healthy, even if they look ‘good’. Fortunately, that means with the right ‘diet and exercise’ of a good online marketing solution, you’ll be ahead of the pack just by improving the health of your website.
Get Fit
Sometimes, just a clean bill of health isn’t enough. If you are in a very competitive environment or are playing in the big leagues, you’ll need to have an online marketing solution to match. You will need a highly regimented solution that is high impact and intensive. Use a Trainer
Just spending more time or money on your website does not mean you are reaching your goals. The advice and on-going coaching from a good online marketing specialist is an essential guide for success. Lastly and most importantly, you don’t have to do it on your own. A good agency can do most of the heavily lifting to keep your online marketing in tip-top shape. And just like a trainer, it doesn’t require much of their time, and therefore it won’t cost you much. Especially Important in SEO
This advice can be generalized to most streams of online marketing, but this is particularly important when assessing search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. The process of SEO is a credible and important part of any online marketing effort, however, be aware that SEO is becoming a growing buzz term associated with quick success schemes and effortless automated programs and software which search engines detest. Don’t be fooled. Conclusion
Employing a physical fitness mentality and approach for online marketing will keep efforts focused, committed, and working in the right direction. It may be hard at the beginning but it won’t be long until you’ll see results. And even easier to keep that way! Author: Jimmy Wong
Labels: Interactive marketing, marketing, online marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, web marketing
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Websites That Work Beautifully: Clearing a Path for Customer Action
 I got an email from Marketing Profs for a seminar entitled “Demolish the Roadblocks on Your Website: Clearing a Path for Customer Action, Sales and Loyalty“. I’m not here to sell this seminar, I just found the lead-in couple of paragraphs selling the seminar a great post all on its own.
"Too many people create websites that look beautiful. But what we really need are websites that WORK beautifully. It’s not enough to put some content up. It’s not enough to launch and leave an application or a new website design. If you want a website that makes money you must continuously improve the completion times of your customers’ top tasks. The most important thing you need to manage on your website is your customers’ time."
This is Coolaid that we drink all day every day; it is more important to be found, answer questions, generate a lead, than it is to look the prettiest. Of course the website can’t be a junker either, or that becomes a barrier (lack of credibility) all in itself. Just don’t spend all your money on the design, save 75% of your budget for promoting the website and answering your customers questions with webinars (and downloads of recorded ones), case studies, and white papers. Author: Yves Matson
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Webinar Recording - How to use Social Media in B2B Marketing
 Social media is becoming a popular avenue for businesses by creating a voice for their business and attracting prospective leads by distributing details, free offers and news about their product & services. For a long time, social media was looked upon as a personal communication channel, where you could provide your opinion about personal things. Since that time Social Media has greatly evolved into a channel for businesses that want to leverage social networks to share their respective experiences and how others can benefit from their offering. Many have seen Social Media as a distribution channel, a value add asset for potential leads, and a means to offer promotions that will in turn entice people to follow them and be their customer. Join Yves Matson, Director of Business Development at FoundPages as he shares emerging best practices that effectively integrate Social Media into online marketing. Webinar Title: How to use Social Media in B2B Marketing Click on the link below to access the webinar recording: http://www.foundpages.com/social-media-webinar.htmlTopics included: * Utilizing newsletters, blogging, case study publishing, and webinars for social media marketing * Using Social Media as a distribution channel for blog, newsletter, or website content * Case Study: How ActiveConversion uses Social Media Marketing for B2B marketing and how they measure ROI using marketing automation. Labels: b2b search engine marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, web marketing
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Web Marketing Tools - Website Comparison
One of the most popular free search engine marketing tools is the one providing Website Comparisons. The tool allows you to see how your website ranks, and compares your site against others such as your competitors. Here are a few key benchmarks of search engine marketing you should know about from the tool.  Alexa Rank - gives you a general measure of the traffic your website is receiving. The lower the score the better. It's very useful to compare the traffic trend to that of your competitors for example. If you do any social media marketing, it will play a part in how much traffic you receive from your marketing effort. The SiteInfo of Alexa will also tell you a lot about a particular website, like Traffic Stats, Contact Info, Related Links, Keywords, Clickstream and Demographics. Google PageRank - is a numeric value between 0-10 that represents how important a page is on the web. It is based on a link analysis algorithm that is similar to a ballot system. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important that page is assumed to be. Indexed Pages - reports how many pages of your website can be found on Google. More indexed pages usually indicates your website is search engine friendly and is ultimately beneficial to your ranking. As an example, we've seen a large DVD rental website that initially had about 100 pages indexed by Google due to search engine barriers on the site. With some effort and minor optimization of the website, it went from 100 to over 50,000 indexed pages in less than a month. Inbound Links - reports how many websites directly link back to your site. Having a good number of credible links to your website will also boost your Google Page-Rank and improve the importance of your website within Google. It allows Google and other search engines to position your website higher in their search results. Of course, the content needs to be related to the search terms. The Website Comparison tool is just one tool and a start for your online marketing efforts. You can also try the Keyword Suggestion Tool to see what search terms people are using to find your website and Webpage Analyzer to get a technical breakdown of key components of a webpage relevant to the search engines. Labels: b2b search engine marketing, online marketing, search behavior, search engine marketing, web marketing
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