Popularity

According to a recent survey by PointRoll and Kelton Research, 80% of marketers plan on increasing spending on social media marketing or ads – more than on any other tool. A measly 2% of respondants will not use the channel at all. However, to make the investment work, one very important guideline needs to be followed. Use social media in accordance with what consumers want.

Take it easy

Treat social media marketing like a relationship. Diving right in and proposing marriage on a first date would send anyone scrambling for the door. Likewise, don’t make a sales pitch to a “friend” right off the bat. Get to know your followers and provide them with “getting to know you” content. Be human.

Give them what they want

Followers and friends want to be educated, they want to be entertained, and they want to be offered something for their efforts. Press Enterprise calls it “relationship marketing”. Relationships are a two-way street, so help viewers get to know you and your company. It’s okay to be a little bit personal, just don’t go too far.

Listen

You hear it all the time, communication is key to any relationship. Communication, though, doesn’t always mean talking. Listening is a skill that serves people well in personal relationships, and it will serve you well in business too. Ask questions and actually pay attention to responses, even if it’s not what you hoped to hear. You can then take that information and use it to your advantage.

Creating loyalty, trust, and a mutually beneficial relationship should be your goal with social media marketing, not selling. Because once you have those three things, the selling will likely happen on it’s own. The relationship will evolve to conversion because the customer has a real connection.

How are you using social media to market your business? If you’d like to learn a more effective strategy, contact us and we can come up with a plan that can help you build your customer relationships.

The numbers

The recent buzz around email – a marketing method that has never really gone away, but was no longer the new kid on the block – centers around a recent survey. Results from Exact Target show that people’s response to email is still higher than that for other methods when it comes to a few critical elements.

• Two-thirds of respondents say they have made a purchase in response to an email from a brand… more than three times the number saying they’d done so from Facebook, or a text.
• Nearly twice as many people share messages via email than Facebook.
• Email is also credited by 59% of marketers as being the most effective channel for generating sales.
• When looking for a deal, email just edges out company websites as where people look for deals from a company they know

I believe those numbers. I have signed up for emails from certain brands, and while I may not always take advantage, I do open, and often act. I get an unwanted text offer and can’t delete it fast enough.

What it means

What these numbers tell us, is that because people still respond so positively to email campaigns, they shouldn’t be tossed aside for the bright and shiny newer online toys. They also show that the best laid plan is to focus on cross-channel campaigns. After all, social channels are still pulling in response, and even direct mail can help support the mix. According to a target marketing survey this year, 34% of marketers plan to spend more on direct mail, with 65% looking to fund more for email.

How to get it right

If you want to dust off your email campaigns, or begin one for the first time, consider some best practices.

• Ask permission before adding consumers to your email list and include ability to opt-out.
• Go for quality over quantity when it comes to gathering lists. Accurately targeted smaller lists will get further than a larger, widely cast net.
• Personalized emails (names) generate higher response rates.
• While brevity has always been touted as the way to go, longer subject lines are OK these days. New research from AlchemyWorx found they are effective when it comes to opening and clicks.
• Clean up any existing email lists to eliminate dead-ends and long inactive accounts
• Offer a value proposition

Remember, when it comes to seeing results, mixing up channels and being patient becomes critical. It can take 3 – 7 connections to get a prospect interested. So when considering how to run your online marketing campaign, don’t count any avenues out. Determine the best mix, don’t forget about the old tried-and-true methods, and work to make your messages and your look fresh. Don’t forget a clear call to action.

Have you engaged in email or direct marketing? If you’d like to know how to blend that with your social media, or mobile marketing, contact us and we can help you devise an effective cross-channel campaign.

Bad grades

VSplash analyzed over 1 million websites and unearthed some startling findings. Many companies weren’t leading consumers through the buying cycle with clarity, access, or full presentation of their marketing message.

• Only a little more than 19% of SMB websites provide a link from their site to Facebook, with even fewer linking out to Twitter or LinkedIn.
• More than 93% of SMB websites are not mobile compatible and won’t render successfully on mobile devices or smartphones.
• Roughly 60% were missing either a local or toll-free number on their home page.
• Nearly 75% failed to have an email link on their homepage.
• More than 65 lack a form for consumers to fill out to request information.

So why is there such a disconnect between consumer digital platform use, and what these companies are offering? Perhaps they are unaware of consumer needs and behaviors.

Lessons learned

If you’re going to have a website, design it for the consumer, not for you. That doesn’t mean clutter it up with everything under the sun. Do think about the consumer and what they need, the time they want to spend, and how hard they’re willing to look for things. Also take into account that it’s highly likely they may be on mobile devices.

• Make your site mobile friendly
• Include all contact information – there’s nothing worse than a company that doesn’t seem to want to hear from you
• Offer an option for asking questions, or providing reviews

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that once they’ve found your site, they won’t need to access your social media. Use it as part of the cycle. Once they have a successful visit, get them involved with you socially. That’s how you get the shares, the loyalty, and the continued interaction to build.

Is your web design up to speed, and does it include all the elements your potential customers are looking for? Do you know how to successfully link it to social media and then utilize those channels to your advantage? Contact us and we can discuss how to integrate all the necessary options and make your digital marketing work for you and your customers.

First things first

It’s good to have goals, realistic ones. If you’re conducting an online marketing plan, the goals should be the first thing you consider. Who am I trying to reach? What action do I want them to take? If you’re writing a blog for your website, it’s particularly important to imagine the audience, and then feed them what they need. Right now, I am wondering who you are, what issues you might be having, and how this blog post might help you to produce better content, or at least more accurately targeted content.

Getting to the point

Generating traffic is typically the number one goal of most blogs. Should it be? You may be receiving lots of visits, but are they staying long enough to demonstrate that they are interested in your offerings? Are they the audience you are targeting?

If they don’t find your blog through search, your visitors are likely coming to you through social media channels. Social media is increasingly becoming an effective SEO tool. The social bookmarking site StumbleUpon is responsible for more than half of U.S. Social media referral traffic. While you may be getting high numbers from them, or from Facebook or Twitter referrals, are they the audience you want? You need to determine if you’re drawing the right crowd.

Assessing the traffic

Traffic to your site may be coming from various referral sites. Do some research to understand the typical user of those sources, like Twitter, Digger, or Reddit and decide if this is who you want, or better yet, who really needs you? If the referral source doesn’t match up with you and your goals, try focusing more on promoting your site elsewhere. Industry related blogs, and your current social media channels may not be bringing as much traffic, but you are more likely to get visitors that actually engage.

Align

Make certain that your blogs are focused on your core offerings, and are related to your keywords. Blogging about something too far outside those parameters, even if it’s interesting stuff, will only bring curious readers, not serious consumers. Develop blog themes around the keywords your target audience is likely using.

Ultimately

Getting great rankings as a result of effective search engine optimization, and generating lots of traffic on your site may feel good. But in the long run, it’s not doing you any good if visitors don’t have engagement potential. You want to attract people that need, or want, what your offer, not that just have time on their hands to lurk around people’s sites. Choosing the right social channels for pushing content, and understanding referrals, is going to aid you in developing a clear message, but also in drawing valuable potential customers.

Some Help

If you’re struggling with how to write your company blog… take a look at these 50 ideas from Entrepenuer Magazine

What are you doing to attract the right crowd? If you’d like to know how to make the most out of blogging for more than just SEO, contact us and we can help you with some options.

Reach out

Often, many companies do a lot of the talking, and not enough listening. Which is kind of funny, since understanding your audience, or customer, is the key to developing a targeted message. Without a targeted message crafted to connect with a ‘likely to convert’ consumer, why bother with marketing? Thousands of page views won’t matter if the people clicking aren’t looking for your offerings, ready to buy, or to even explore their options seriously. Current customers may lose interest if they don’t maintain a connection with your company… after all, there are many other fish in the sea.

Perhaps the easiest way to reach out to current, and potential customers is through an online poll. I don’t mean a simple request for a review, or “tell us what you think” scenario. I am talking about an actual poll question, or several questions depending on the channel, that draw out specific feedback. That feedback should be something that actually helps you.

Help yourself

Gathering information about the people who are interacting on your site, liking your Facebook page, or even finding you on Twitter is the best way to plan an effective ‘next step’ when it comes to marketing, customer service, and product development. Having your pulse on your public keeps you in the loop as an engaged party, rather than just a company that generates content and occasionally monitors random feedback. Conducting an online poll on your website, or through social media, even email campaigns, is a great way to create a positive image of a caring business.

Think before you ask

Providing an online poll can take some planning to be executed properly. Think about the timing, the message, and the channel. You could be considering a weekly polling question on Twitter, or an extended quarterly survey comprised of many questions. Whichever route you take, think about these 6 tips:

* Make your question targeted enough without pushing them into a particular answer.

* Do not ask questions that will be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ unless the query is specific. Think “Did this shoe feel comfortable after standing on your feet for 8 hours?” As opposed to “does this shoe feel good?”

* If possible, provide a follow-up question.

* Take the opportunity to collect contact data.

* Consider running a poll on occasion that is simply for fun – it’s a great way to get people participating, and to show you aren’t just trying to ‘sell’ them.

* Ask smart questions that are timely, interesting, and that demonstrate your awareness of what people need, or want to share.

Building credibility, creating a positive image, assessing the pulse of your target audience, and even learning what you can do differently, are all benefits of polling online. Just make wise choices about when, how often, and how those polls will be run.

If you’re considering a more involved polling approach, here’s a list of online polling software tools to get you going:

PollDaddy

MisterPoll

Vizu

99 Polls

PollCode

SnapApp

Have you ever conducted an online poll, and if so, what did you learn? If you’d like to understand more about online polling and other digital marketing strategies, contact us and we can take you through several options.

Social media is all about sharing. While repeat business is one reason to cultivate positive customer relations through social channels, the notion that customers like to share experiences – good and bad – with others should grab your attention as well. So, ask yourself, am I keeping up with my social media effectively? Do I realize the damage that can be done if I don’t? In other words, could you be headed for a break-up due to lack of commitment?

The numbers

It has been about a year since statistics were first made available on the customer relationship management (CRM) element of social media. According to an Econsultancy survey on customer relations issues there is a low rate of engagement. This is surprising, considering that CRM has been touted as one of the bonuses of social media presence.

Of retailers on Facebook, only 17% responded to positive comments. A mere 11% responded to negative comments.
For retailers with Twitter accounts, those numbers were 10% and 20% respectively.
Only 25% of retailers with Twitter accounts responded to a question directed at them.

All the talk about getting social and having conversations isn’t just talk. Those conversations shouldn’t just be between consumers. You need to get into the mix. Best Buy’s “Twelpforce” is standing by to provide answers to any tweeted questions. Of course, larger retailers, like Best Buy can afford to be heavily involved on this level. While you may not have the staff, the time, or the means to conduct such a 24/7service, take a lesson from what they are doing. Dedicate at least a few minutes every couple of hours to check for questions and issues on your Facebook page or your Twitter feed.

The effort

Right now you may be saying “that takes time away from other important business”, or “that activity does not generate any revenue.” Does that mean what your customers need, or expect from you isn’t important? Or, does it mean that losing a customer who is put off by your lack of response doesn’t also mean lost revenue? It’s kind of like exercising, it’s not always convenient, but it’s necessary for your health. Experts will tell you to “make the time”. The same goes for keeping your customer relationships healthy.

There are tools, like sproutsocial that can help you track and monitor social conversations about your brand. However, nothing can take the place of you reading, and responding to questions and concerns as they appear.

Take it one step further… create an inventory of comment subjects and learn from it. Look for patterns in complaints… is there something you need to change about your products or services? Also look for patterns in any compliments, is there something there that you can capitalize on, or promote?

The take – away

Econsultancy reports 23% of online revenue is lost annually by US companies due to poor online customer experiences, and 33% of Americans saying they have a stronger connection with companies they interact with on social sites. So, there’s no reason not to focus on ongoing engagement with customers. Having a social media presence is great, being heavily involved in it is vital. Don’t just post as if you’re the guru on the mountaintop. Get down into the crowd and give them what they really want… a little TLC.

How much time do you spend responding to your customers? Do you want to know how to maximize your interaction, and your presence in social media channels? Contact us and we can answer your questions about strategy.

Much like rich snippet mark-up we discussed in an earlier blog, Schema.org provides markup that can help your content get indexed by search engines. The Schema.org site gives webmasters the means to markup their pages with html tags, allowing content to be recognized by search providers like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Schema includes an item called VideoObject that gives the reader some pertinent video information in search snippets, which are those brief bits of summary information that pop up for your site on a search page.

VideoObject utilizes information on the title, video duration, a thumbnail image, and a description of your video. Koozai.com explains that one advantage to using VideoObject is that it enables you to accurately describe each video that’s on a single page containing multiple videos.

Here are the VideoObject properties you’ll need to provide.

* Name: The title of the video

* Thumbnail URL: A thumbnail image for the video that must be at least 160×90 pixels, but no more than 1920×1080. Files should be in either .jpg, .png, or .gif format.

* Content URL: A URL of the video itself.

* Embed URL: The URL for the video page that can typically be found in the tag for the video.

This should be used for video hosted by a third-party website.

* Description: A written description of the video.

There are optional properties you can provide, including duration, upload date, and the height and width of the video in pixels.

As is the case with rich-snippet markup, it’s recommended that you test any Schema.org markup using the Google Rich Snippet Testing tool.

Giving viewers the information needed to determine if your search result is what they’re looking for optimizes your page. A quick glance of a snippet markup using VideoObject leads the reader to your site with little effort on their part.

Check out the Schema.org site and see if it’s what you need to make the most of your videos for search engine optimization.

If you’d like to learn more about other helpful search engine optimization tactics, contact us today.

Consider that, according to Marketing Profs, 30% of all online searches will be local by the year 2015 – compared with 12% in 2009. If you’re looking at mobile search, 80% of all smart phone searches are for local products and services.

Tweaking your site to make the most of local searches is not complicated or costly. There are 5 areas to adjust that can give your business a local connection.

Keyword adjustment: Think about how consumers conduct searches for certain items. Look at your site and determine where you can naturally place geo-targeted keywords. Try to use the location along with your industry. For example “Atlanta financial planner” or “wood crafting tools in Atlanta”. Use these keywords in fresh content like blogs. Try highlighting customer reviews and comments on your site that have these phrases.

Create and maintain a consistent local profile: To avoid search engine confusion, make certain that your name, business type, location, and phone number are consistent in all of your online presence. Include as much applicable information as possible in your local profiles such as business hours.

Use customer reviews to your advantage: Reviews can help search engine rankings and increase click-through rates and conversions, so encouraging them is a good idea. If your platforms and underlying codes are set up properly, consumer content on your site can improve SEO. According to practical ecommerce, Google and Bing are getting better at crawling the JavaScript that previously kept crawlers out of review content. Displaying customer content that includes long-tail search phrases and locations can do the SEO work for you.

Get visual: Search engines like videos and photos. The more varied your content, and the more opportunities you have to include information, especially location, on your site the better. Using visuals with descriptions – including locators, also draws more customers. Post videos on your site, and on YouTube, then link them back to your site.

Keep your information current: Update your site with any new products or services, deals and discounts, and changes in hours or contact information. New content that is consistent in all profiles is your goal.

Positioning yourself as a local business with new and relevant content will get you noticed in local search queries. Be ahead of the competition by using these 5 steps to maximize the local mentions and improve sales.

Are you using geo-targeted keywords across your site, and do you have a rich video/text presence that incorporates locale?

For more on local search engine optimization, contact us today.

So what does this mean for you? It means getting your SEO strategy up-to-date is the only way you can compete. Yes, a lot has been said about keywords and original content, but it goes beyond that. You may have targeted keywords, and perhaps have even driven more traffic to your site, but you aren’t seeing an increase in conversions, why? You may not be drawing the right traffic because you don’t have keywords with high commercial intent.

There are 3 types of searches being conducted. The ones you attract determines your bounce rate, and the likelihood someone visiting your site will buy. Some folks are simply navigating – looking for a specific brand, others are looking for basic information and they aren’t ready to buy, while others are looking to make a transaction. It is this last group you can draw by making certain the keywords on your site have high commercial intent.

Think about how people conduct searches at various stages. The terms being typed in are different for informational quests than for those intending to buy. The more sale oriented, or specific, the keywords being used, the more likely it is that person is ready to make a purchase. IncomingPR says your site should provide an ‘answer’ to their question. For instance, take a look at these search queries. They begin with what might typically be someone’s informational hunt. As you move down the list, there appears to be more of a serious intent to purchase the item:

1. Do convection ovens cook faster?
2. Maintenance on convection ovens
3. Convection oven reviews
4. Buying a convection oven
5. GE Convection oven purchase online

In utilizing keywords with high commercial intent, make certain what you have aligns with what you offer. There is no faster way to lose a potential customer than to be misleading. If you use #5 in the example above, but they discover you sell only GE regular ovens, and are hoping to change their mind, you won’t make the sale.

Fine-tuning the keyword phrasing on your site is that extra step you need to pull in customers that are ready to buy. Optimizing your webpages with those “ready-to-buy” keywords only takes a little bit of thought and natural placement of the phrases. Use them in descriptions, summaries, even a blog.

How do you determine your keyword strategy, and do you have high commercial- intent phrases on your site?

For more on search engine optimization, contact us today.

Basic snippets are the bits of information shown in the brief summaries appearing in search result pages. The trouble is, it’s not possible for the search engines to understand the semantics of what appears on your Web page, and therefore cannot optimize, or highlight, pertinent information.

What are they?

Introduced by Google in 2009, rich snippets label bits of information to provide clues to the search engine about the meanings of words on your page. In doing that, rich snippets can then label each piece of data to display the most suitable bits for search.

You may have seen rich snippet displays, particularly for restaurant or product sites. They can include certain phrases, those star ratings, pictures, or other identifying pieces of information. The idea is to provide people with immediate details, thus helping them to weed through results to find what they’re looking for, hopefully resulting in more clicks.

To enable Google to recognize and display rich snippets, you’ll need to add semantic HTML markup to your page. Oddly, rich snippet formats aren’t widely used… about 5% of web pages are using rich snippet markup, according to Google product manager Kavi Gael. Here’s a brief rundown of what you’ll need to do if rich snippet markups are added to your SEO strategy.

Select a format:

Google says there are three formats for doing this, but they back the use of microdata. The other formats include RDFa and microformats.

Mark-up your content:

Currently, rich snippets are supported for the following content

* products
* reviews
* events
* people
* businesses and organizations
* recipes
* music

Google will also recognize markup for video content to improve search results.

Test your mark up:

Use the rich snippets testing tool to be sure your data can be pulled.

Business 2 Community sites a ReadWriteWeb article describing the use of rich snippets as ‘the wave of the future’ believing they will change the way people design websites and conduct search marketing.

Riding the rich- snippet- markup wave could help drive more business to your page. And while the semantics of “rich” can vary… it’s definitely a word that strikes a positive chord for businesses looking to get noticed and to increase sales.

Have you noticed many rich snippets in your searches? How could they help your site?

For more on search engine optimization, contact us now.