All Aboard the SEM Bandwagon!
Filed under: Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, General Marketing, Lead Management, Search Engine Marketing, analytics, integrated marketing, paid search, search engine optimization
A recent Forrester study shows what all of us already know. Marketers will continue to shift dollars from traditional media and traditional direct marketing to online direct marketing.
I like Target Marketing Magazine’s research summary overviewing the growth factors in SEM, SEO, online advertising (a.k.a., Pay-Per-Click) and Email Marketing which are among the listed 16 online marketing trends.
More than 80% of marketers are using paid search and SEO and plan to expand search into more segments. As consumers search more online, Google’s AdWord inventory continues to grow. All music to marketers’ ears as you expand your paid search and SEO efforts.
Online advertising, “performance-based” media buys and integrated email marketing are also slated for substantial growth through 2014.
Think “Leads,” Not “Web Site Visitors”
Filed under: Search Engine Marketing, integrated marketing
We’re in the process of updating our Web site (well, when aren’t we in the process of updating or optimizing our Web site?) and maybe many of you are doing same right now. Here’s some advice to make sure you’re getting the most out of your Web site: Stop thinking in terms of VISITORS. Think in terms of LEADS.
What’s the Difference? As marketers, we can get into a rut with our buzz words and even use some words interchangeably. This can inadvertently affect our strategies.
For example, you’re going to tackle your Web site very differently if you’re thinking about attracting qualified leads and how to manage those leads versus trying to get the most possible “hits” to your site.
More Leads, Better Qualified, Now What? Well, if you were opening a storefront, you would make sure that everything was organized and setup properly before flipping-on the “open” sign. The same is true for your Web site. You need to make sure that you’re ready to handle those online leads once they’re in your “door.” Make sure your sales funnel structure is ready to handle the leads properly – or you can loose that prospect forever.
Also, I can’t say it enough – INTEGRATION. To get the most out of your Web site and online marketing, you need to integrate across all of the channels that touch your customer – both online and offline.
Search Engine Optimization is a long term investment
Filed under: General Marketing, Marketing Technology Solutions, Search Engine Marketing, Uncategorized
I was connecting with Adam Henige, our strategic partner from Netvantage Marketing this week about all of the cool and trendy social networking tools that are appearing everywhere it seems. We are now Twittering on Good Morning America!
But how do these new marketing tools really compare to the fundamentals in the Digital Services arena like Search Engine Optimization. As Adam explains below, this is more of a longer term investment and very analytically/metric driven. While the new social networking tools have their place, SEO has proven to be a constant contributor to targeted digital lead generation in the long run. Take a read through his thoughts below:
We live in an instant gratification world anymore, and it somehow manages to become even more instantaneous with each passing day. Twitter is a perfect example of this. If you haven’t “tweeted” yet, you’re probably going to be considered unhip by teenagers and the tech savvy, and you’ll also be left out in the dark as to what everyone you know is doing at every second of the day. Businesses, of course, have jumped on this bandwagon and are courting followers and fans through these channels and (some better than others) promoting products and services and attempting to build brand loyalty.
Some of us who earned our stripes in more traditional online marketing (does anyone remember SEO, pay per click and banner advertising?) are going to have to continue to get better at selling the value of a service that often seems to be getting no results, or moving at a snail’s pace. Social media appeals so well to the instant gratification crowd, as you can get huge blasts of traffic through to your site from Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon, but often this success is fleeting. Twitter can be a great tool to engage customers and prospects, but still lacks a great ability to target.
I’ve spent months, and sometimes years on sites to finally get that high ranking that starts driving the “dream traffic” you want to your site. The hard part is trying to keep someone paying for this service, when all you can show them is an increased ranking…but no revenue. The truth is, even for highly targeted terms, being on page one of search results simply isn’t good enough to get a significant portion of traffic. If you’re not in the top three listings, you’re still not even playing the game. In competitive markets, getting from 15th to 1st can be incredibly difficult, and may take months or years. But depending on what product or service that keyword relates to, getting to the top can mean literally thousands of visitors coming through to your site who have already expressly stated they want what you have.
Let’s put it this way, if you sold coffee, this would be the equivalent of magically appearing in front of someone right after they decide, “I need a cup of coffee.” No trip to Starbucks, or the grocery store to look at competitive products, they ask for coffee and you’re there, and you have the first opportunity to sell. How much is that worth? And can you afford not to make that investment? The truth is, if you don’t, someone else will, and those who do won’t be worrying about jumping on the next digital marketing bandwagon, at least not with the same urgency.
Adam Henige is a Managing Partner at Netvantage Marketing, an ICS Strategic Partner specializing in paid search management, SEO, and web analytics.
Questions to Get Your Paid Search Campaign Started Right
I’ve run into a number of clients who really don’t understand where to start when it comes to generating targeted leads through paid search. The more I thought about it, I decided it would be helpful to provide some guidelines for clients to gain a basic understanding of things you need to think about to run a successful online lead generation campaign.
I asked Joe Ford, our strategic partner from NetVantage Marketing, to pull together a few of the basic things you need to think about. He actually came up with several items for you to evaluate. Here are Joe’s thoughts:
Like any marketing initiative, it is always important that your online marketing campaign get off to a good start. The pre-launch work that goes into a campaign can pay large dividends, and it can also save a lot money and headaches in the long run.
The following is a set of questions that can serve as a checklist when you’re looking to get a paid search campaign off the ground. These are broad questions, in many cases you will want to dig deeper to properly investigate the value points of each area depending on the campaign objectives. You should be getting asked similar questions by your online marketing firm, or asking yourself these questions if managing your campaigns in-house.
1. What is the overall background and mission of the company?
2. What are the goals of your online campaign in relation to:
a. Brand positioning
b. Building awareness
c. Increasing leads
d. Increasing revenue via direct sales/ecommerce
e. Are there any offline/traditional campaign efforts that should be coordinated with the paid search campaign?
3. Has there been past work done in the online marketing arena? If so, what were the metrics for success, and is there data that we can use to investigate?
4. Has there been web analytics in place to detail the performance of the current website?
5. How long has the website been in its current state? If there has been current changes, was the results tracked through web analytics?
6. Is there a greater emphasis on certain products or services than others? Should we be marketing and driving traffic to certain products and services that are better sellers or represent higher margin?
7. What is the target audience profile, and what are the different personas throughout the buying cycle (this can have a profound effect on keyword selection)? Are there any new audiences that we are trying to target with this campaign?
8. Either from current web traffic reports, or from a qualitative business standpoint, what are the keywords that your target audiences are utilizing to find your site?
9. What are the initial keywords that you feel you want to be ranked highly on for your business?
10. Are there any online channels that you deem necessary to be placed on?
11. What is the testing strategy? What variables will be evaluated, and what is the cause/effect frequency that you or your firm has in place. (This will be especially important early on in your campaign)
These examples represent a basic foundation of questions to gain the right information to form a strong campaign that hits target audiences and meets your online marketing goals. As you can see, there is a combination of qualitative and quantitative information that needs to be gathered. Keep in mind that these initiatives should be treated with the same processes and standards as any marketing campaign you conduct.
As you can imagine, starting a pay per click campaign without answering these above questions can lead to major trouble and a lot of reactive work post campaign launch. It is important that this foundation is created as comprehensively as possible. This will allow your testing platform and refinement strategy to have the best chance for success!
