Internet Marketing Post

Guerilla Market Research: Discover Your Prospects on a Budget

Who drives the marketing messaging in your company, really? The engineers? The marketing people? The CEO? The company mascot? The web master? Hopefully your answer to all of the above is "no" and many of you are answering, "our prospects, our market research methods, our online media results". So what's wrong with the technical writers deciding what to call a product?

I find over and over again that companies, especially small and medium size ones, drive their messages and venue approach to their prospects based on who they are and not on their targeted market. We are all better off asking  "Are our prospects watching TV?" "Reading online content?" "Blogging?" "Where are they found?" "What language do they speak these days?" "Do you use that language?" "Are we in their venue?" Or are they trying to find usand once they do they don't understand the language we are using to reach them?

No one has extra market research dollars sitting around these days, so here are some simple steps to take to get to the prospects you are after in their language and in their venue.

1. Online media results. Paid search, web site clicks, banner clicks etc. Which clicks turn to sale? What was the verbiage of the ad that got the click? Or the image? Paid search ad testing is a gold mind for new messages that work in other media t ypes.

2. Talk to your prospects. Have you called back the people who called you last week and didn't buy? Find out why they didn't or who they bought from? Did your process turn them off? Was your web site too confusing? These are all valuable questions to have answered.

3. Surveys Survey Monkey is inexpensive and easy to use. Use it to create simple surveys that survey your prospects and clients on their opinion of your brand and work. Be ready for he honesty the written word brings and put what they say to work for you.

4. Use social media to casually survey your prospects. Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites can provide a wealth of detailed insight into your customers wants and desires, irritations and even feature requests for your product!

Do you have a Twitter account yet? Think it is a waste of microchatting? Thank again. Search on Twittersearch for your brand name and industry terms. What are people saying on those topics? Once you have a Twitter account, search people to find your typical prospects. Follow a few of them for a week. What are they talking about?

 

Are your prospects runners? chocolate lovers? vacation takers? Fan a few of those types of pages on Facebook and observe and participate in the discussions. Where are their passions and motivations? Are they spending according to those online and in retail outlets? Yes.

There are many other means of surveying your prospects interests - these are a few low cost methods to get you thinking their direction, and have a little fun with social media outlets while you are at it. Have fun!

Marketing to Women in Social Media

Marketing to Women in Social Media

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Launching Email Marketing: List Building or Acquistion

Upon program launch, every email marketer faces the decision as to how they will acquire or build an email list of recipients. A solid email marketing strategy includes a thoughtful creative strategy based on your target market, and an equally thought out list acquisition or building strategy. Lets talk about what each is and when to choose which - list  approach that is.

Build a List Organically.
It is best to build a list of loyal, opted in email recipients, one by one via your online campaigns like search marketing, web site sign ups, blogs and other social media efforts. Also, take advantage of the many traditional media opportunities to collect addresses,  like direct mail lead cards, trade show booth sign ups and retail location POS collection.

You will need to evangelize the value of email addresses in some corporate environments where often physical addresses are still the sought after consumer data.

Acquiring a List
Shortly said, acquired lists can be expensive and you don't always get a quality list. The list seach requires time and research, so choose carefully and talk to list holder references, get 3 bids, you know the drill.

Also, some email senders  will not even accept most acquired lists. So know your sender's list policies before you decide your list route. The reason is "you never really know what you are going to get". The addresses on many acquired lists are old, include non-opted in names, and sometimes come with no proof of opt in at all. The best thing to do if you have the budget to acquire a list is to get the seller to scrub it for you, or scrub it like crazy once you have it. And this means sending a "resubscribe" invite to the subscribers to make double sure (thus "double opted in") that they still want to hear from your company. This may shrink a list but a small and mighty list (mighty = high responding) is much better then an expensive to mail to large list.

A Note about Deliverability
A positive deliverability reputaion is paramount to ongoing success in email marketing. Deliverability is risky game, even when you know exactly who you are mailing to. Consider that you have once chance to gain a good reputation with ISPs and if you blow that chance getting black listed is not fun and even always possible to recover from. So, waiting a few months to build your own organically grown list, and spending that time, instead of the dollars acquiring a list that you may not know much about is often the safer route.

Whichever route you travel, you are sure to enjoy great cross sell, branding and offer results with email marketing. For a free copy of our list qualifying questions, email us.

Follow me on Twitter

So the hottest social media tool right now is Twitter. So that is what they say. The growth rate is quite impressive.

So. After much ado, and experimenting, "tweeting" and "retweeting", "deleting", "following", and "unfollowing" - I have a Twitter community that is valid and valuable to my business. I network with others doing what I do, meet potential new clients, exchange services. It is also just a fun part of my day to share newsworthy items, read the same and stay connected to folks across the globe.

Recommend as a must for your brand stability, not yet, think necessary for your marketing team to monitor your competitors and the thoughts of your target audiences, absolutely. (I even hired a cartoonist to lighten up my profile page, take a look) Look for more from "her" later.

So tell me,  I know you have an opinion, what do you think of all the tweeting?

This Post's Header Credit - and check out Siah's free Twitter buttons while you are there. 

6 Reasons to Keep or Start Your Email Newsletter

                                    

While rumors of social media threatening email marketing bounce around the web, email  done right, marches on producing leads and loyalty from consumers. Here is where the loyalty comes from and also why you should keep or start your email newsletter. 

1. Email newsletters deliver value add content to an otherwise offer badgered audience. In the "it's all about them" web economy it is crucial to deliver content useful to your audience and completely not focused on your company or its products and services, offers, coupons, you get the picture. For value ad content ideas, sign up for few of your competitors email newsletters and see how good they are at focusing on the needs of their customers, and downplaying their own interests. 

2. Email newsletters are a great environment for offers. (see #1, and then read #2) Your offers should not be the focus of a email newsletter. But, you can test new offers tastefully within and email newsletters. The targeted content of email newsletters offers opportunities to present new offers, in a non pushy manner - right there amongst content that is valuable to your customer.

3. Email newsletters succeed at establishing your company as an expert in your industry. Your customers may buy Widget X from you but do they think of you for expert advice and industry trend information? Email newsletters enable you to build trust and credibility with your existing customers. 

4. Email newsletters are a great vehicile for promoting your key partnerships - interviews with key executives, featured new products and other company tidbits about your partners will educate your customer and help your partner companies. 

5. Last but not least, email newsletters produce great fresh content for your web site - they are easily hosted on your site for revisiting and SEO purposes. 

6. Email newsletters are great viral marketing tools - in other words, if they are well done your readers will forward them to friends and family, file or bookmark for future reference, share on social media networks. 

So tighten your existing email newsletters with relevant "all about them" content, bright imagery and clear brand messaging. Make sure you include a means to share the content, and a forward to a friend button. Email newsletters done right can build your customer's loyalty and build the value and size of y our email list. 

10 Reasons Ignoring Usability is a Bad Idea

Time and attention. Aren't we all fighting for more of that for our web sites, our landing pages, our blogs, our Twitter profiles for goodness sake. Time and attention. What keeps a web site visitor giving you more of their time and attention?

My viewpoint on this subject was formed based on the almost 4 years thinking about busy senior caregivers and seniors and how they use the web, and how they don't use the web. Where they click and where they won't. Serving the fast growing senior on line market forces you through some web design filters for sure. Filters in regards to color, contrast, information volume, content, use of keywords, form ease of use, and many more. What applies for attracting and keeping the attention of a senior audience is not so far from what you need to provide for any busy, option hunting web audience. Here are the reasons you can't ignore what they think of your site's ease of use - or usability factor:

1. People are in a hurry, much of the time on the web. They are scanning and hunting for a product or information right for them.  If you have not considered how easy it is (or not) to find the key pieces of information your site exists for (hottest products, key solutions, etc.) your users are most likely not spending much time hunting, and are onto the next site.

2. Based on age and health of your visitor, your site may or may not be easy to see or read. Color contrast relevant to the age and tastes of your audience is important. Are they young and looking for trendy use of color, older and needing high contrast? Researching and wanting color simplicity?

3. information is power, if it is organized in an easy to use fashion. Who cares if your firm holds the golden key to all of your visitor's business problems if it is buried beyond 3 flash files and 4 irrelevant topic categories? Think about the need of you audience and organize information so the most important content is available first and easily.

4. If you ain't asking, I ain't responding. Does your site ask people to respond to your offers and products in the right places? You may have "had them at hello" but do they know where to click now to buy or learn more? Is it obvious where to buy your product.

5. Consumers will drop everything and leave the store if the cart process is difficult or frustrating. I spent hours trying to convince a client that all the marketing in the world would not make his cart easy to use. You have brought them to the party - are they bailing out early because the shopping process is hard to use or too cluttered?

6. There are places visitors are looking first and you need to know where they are. Heat mapping technology evolved to help companies figure out where their visitors were looking on their web pages - are your strongest calls to action well placed and gripping? If you don't want to spend the dollars on heat mapping ask 5 coworkers at lunch to tell you where their eye goes on your top 5 web pages. if the represent your audience types, listen. 

7. Lead and they will follow. Good usability practices lead your audiences to where they need to go to get what they want to buy from you. Is it obvious where you are leading your audience segments? Are 20 somethings' paths as clear as the 35 and older women's? All of your key audience segments should have several clear paths to follow. Are you leading?

8. You must stand out in your field on line. Okay, in other words, your site must look better, function better and close sales or share information better then your top 3 competitors. Does it? What are they doing wrong or poorly that you could do better? Color? Organization? Audience targeting? Are they using fancy technology but have horrible content or visa versa? There are your opportunities.

9. Deploying good usability practices is a wise use of budget. (and those are precious few these days for some) So. Don't waste money on a poorly organized, visually unappealing site. Take the time to know and target your top 3 audience segments with great paths, visuals and information they will use. Use at least an A and B version of your site or even some of the key pages, observe the clicks and make changes before you go live with a redesign. Your designer may have thought it looked great but its the clicks that count, so don't ignore them when redesigning your site.

10. Last but not least, good usability practices increase site stickiness, call to action response, completed contact us forms and phone calls. For most, this is at least part of why they have a site at all - to increase revenues.

One meeting with the right people in attendance, to review your site and list the biggest usability opportunities on your site, and then taking action to test those suggestions, could increase the conversion of your site traffic by 20% or more. Brainstorm, make a list, assign the changes and test a couple of them at a time. If you know your audience as well as you think you, you will be amazed at the results.

Internet Marketing's Evolution

I took this poll after finding it in my daily tweets - and sure, it was interesting to see of the top 3 I chose what the other 100 folks thought...but what struck me about this exercise was not so much the poll results but the length of the list of digital media categories. Wow.  This media type has grown from a corporate site, a micro site or two, maybe paid search and some targeted landing pages. There are no less then 45 categories listed on this poll! My votes are bolded, looks like email marketing and microblogging are right up there with other bloggers, or folks who read blogs, but corporate sites gained a small 6% of the votes. The survey is too small to be very statistically relevant yet, but it would be worth watching over the next week to see where it lands. 

Similar to my comments on Social Media, Digital Media (aka Internet Marketing) is a vast, fast growing, complicated and fun media type. That needs a marketing objective, a plan and a measurement tactic. Again, if the unknowns and level of complexity overwhelms you, build your objective (reach, revenue, return, etc.) and then media types in line with that objective, and it's demographics, timeline, methods and budget. 

It will be interesting to also look at the list of digital media types in even 6 months from now, to see the fall outs, what evolves, the start ups and the melt downs. 

For now we will keep building and redesigning sites, enabling clients to increase their traffic, convert more of it and bring them back for more with seo, search, email marketing and social media strategy. Here is the survey and the digital media category list, for those of you still reading. (Thanks Lee Odden, Online Marketing Blog, great post and survey!)

What 3 digital marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2009?

• Blogging (41%, 50 Votes)
• Search engine optimization (36%, 44 Votes)
• Microblogging (Twitter) (33%, 40 Votes)
• Social network participation (Facebook, LinkedIn) (28%, 35 Votes)
• Email marketing (17%, 21 Votes)
• Social media monitoring & outreach (17%, 21 Votes)
• Social media advertising (11%, 13 Votes)
• Video marketing (11%, 13 Votes)
• Pay per click (10%, 12 Votes)
• Blogger relations (9%, 11 Votes)
• Online/digital public relations (9%, 11 Votes)
• Viral marketing (8%, 10 Votes)
• Corporate web site (6%, 7 Votes)
• Free content (eBooks, white papers) (5%, 6 Votes)
• Branded microsites (5%, 6 Votes)
• Podcasts (4%, 5 Votes)
• Online communities/forums (4%, 5 Votes)
• Article marketing (4%, 5 Votes)
• Affiliate marketing (4%, 5 Votes)
• Link bait content (3%, 4 Votes)
• Widgets (3%, 4 Votes)
• Behavioral targeting/re-targeting (3%, 4 Votes)
• Advertorial (AdFusion) (3%, 4 Votes)
• Social news / Bookmarking (2%, 3 Votes)
• User generated content (2%, 3 Votes)
• Online contests, giveaways (2%, 3 Votes)
• Webinars (2%, 3 Votes)
• IM/Mobile SMS (2%, 2 Votes)
• Contextual advertising (2%, 2 Votes)
• Online display ads (2%, 2 Votes)
• Mobile ads (2%, 2 Votes)
• Advergames (2%, 2 Votes)
• Virtual worlds (Second Life) (1%, 1 Votes)
• Buy web sites and retool (1%, 1 Votes)
• Paid reviews (1%, 1 Votes)
• Rich media apps/demos (Flash) (1%, 1 Votes)
• Blog advertising (0%, 0 Votes)
• Freemium services/tools (0%, 0 Votes)
• Virtual tradeshows (0%, 0 Votes)
• Rich media avatars (0%, 0 Votes)
• RSS advertising (0%, 0 Votes)
• Teleconferences (0%, 0 Votes)
• Sponsorships / Cross branding (0%, 0 Votes)
• eCommerce feeds & Comparison shopping (0%, 0 Votes)
• No holds barred spam (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 123

5 Reasons to Launch Email Marketing Now

Did you know that 91% of internet users between the ages of 18 and 64 send or read e-mail, and an even higher number of users ages 65 or older do the same? The only other activity to even approach e-mail’s popularity is using a search engine to find information. Here are 5 reasons to launch email marketing now:

1.       Email marketing is a basic ingredient of balanced and effective online media menu.
 Email marketing copy can be built off of the data of pay per click media and visa versa. Your most successful pay per click ad may also be your most successful email header or subject line copy. Email is a perfect way to follow up with paid search responders who have not yet closed to sale.

2.       Your customers, who know and trust your brand, want to hear from you.
If your branding has formed and emotional connection with your audience (like it should) your customers trust you and want to share your great products and services with their friends and family. And email gives them the opportunity to do just that, quickly and easily.

3.       Your customers said “Yes” to you once, some will again.
Statistics suggest that suggestive selling will work anywhere between 58 and 72 percent of the time," says Jim Sullivan, chief executive of Sullivision Inc., an Appleton, Wis.-based consulting company for the restaurant industry. Why would that not translate to email marketing your loyal customers to up sell them to your other products and services?

4.       Mailing to an existing list is much less expensive than building or renting a list.
 The best part about cross selling and up selling to an existing customer list is that it is much less expensive than trying to find new customers – use the list you already have to build your bottom line.

5.       There is a percentage of your list that will respond.
 Is it .01% .05%? Can you afford to let your list sit and not earn for you? It may be the asset you didn’t realize you had.

Th There are dozens of other reasons to launch email marketing - to gain ecommerce product sales, survey your customers for likes and dislikes, provide value add information. Once you dip your toe in the water on this media type you will find your own dozens of ways to add value to your marketing efforts.

Plant Your Social Media Focus

Social Media: Where first?
With literally hundreds of social media sites to explore and exploit today, and more being introduced all the time, how does an online media manager or business owner decide where to focus?  If you are a late comer to the social media scene and are recently convinced you can no longer let it soar by without your brand, this post might provide some direction. (or further confusion, I hope the former.)

Let the Numbers Do the Talking
It is difficult to conclude for most of our clients that "social media just doesn't fit their demographic" or "isn't worth the time quite yet."  Here is why:

If you plan by the numbers like we do, your customers include internet users and you see the value of online marketing---social media should be in your plan. To over ride the "this is all new to me, I am busy can you cut to the chase factor" plant your focus on the most frequented social media sites that include your demographic. Here is the list of the most frequented to get your started: 

 

Carolyn McCarthy does a fine commentary after speaking with Compete about how these numbers were arrived at - her notes indicate that because these are U.S. only numbers that Twitter is likely even larger then what is reflected. As Twitter makes choices to commercialize their offerings (did you read Twitter's plans to charge corporations) it will be interesting to see their reach trend. For now, they are hot, growing and certainly difficult to ignore.

So where from here?
The recommendation we have is to still build a Social Media plan based on a business and marketing objective i.e. increased exposure in X market, within X demographic over X time period to yield X results. With the reach of FB and Twitter, it would be surprising if your demographic can not be found there - and getting started on both of these sites is neither terribly time consuming nor difficult. Like any media it needs a strategy, execution and measurement. The cost now, is time and money - the cost later is lost exposure and late arriving to a powerful new media type that is swallowing up millions of traditional media dollars (online video alone 26% growth in 2008). Can you afford to watch from the sidelines much longer? 

Your Media Plan Reflects Your Social Media Decision
Did blogging, online video and twitter sales strategy make your online media plan this quarter?
Some see social media as repetitive banterings, some see it as the most crucial time and money you can spend in a recession. Replacing email, I doubt it but worthy of attention, I would say, yes. You made your decision with your media plan, what is next quarter's decision?

2009 Projections from Random Online Media Smart People

 

So I asked a few of my smart colleagues for their opinion on 2009 - what is on the horizon from your perspective? I actually used my Linked In account to gain these replies and highly recommend this as a method for gathering opinion. I got more responses then I could use. 

 I got some great responses to share with you. Today begins a series of these type posts where I will introduce a smart person working in online media, in one industry or another, and you will hear from them on 2009 predictions and a couple other online media topics. Our first player is Andres Giraldo who runs two successful financial web sites - you know those pay day loan places, he runs 2 of those type businesses securely and efficiently online. 

Here is his take on 2009:

1.       How do you see the landscape of online media changing in your industry in 2009?

Actually, I believe it to stay very stable, but see online media converting over to more cost-effective strategies that yield a greater R.O.I.  Email, low-cost partnerships, and more effective search strategies will lead us into the new fiscal year.  Media campaigns will be targeted to smaller groups and smaller budgets will continue to correlate with the downswing in the economy.  Online media has integrated itself as an important medium with corporations and it will definitely be used even more often to attract new and former customers in the financial field.

2.       What will improve? Decline? Why?

To specify a certain decline will be quite difficult, but the trend towards spending less on “big-budget” productions has certainly been felt in some industries.  From outsourcing, full campaigns to interactive media, corporations have now internalized parts of the process to try and save money.  There will be plenty of opportunities to find certain niches in the economy, but hard work and determination in this space is crucial to success. 

3.       Why do you think online media is growing in your industry, if it is?

Online media is the backbone for lots of financial service companies.  From banks to private lenders, the Internet provides a fast, secure, and private way to do all types of transactions.  Online media is an important role in this generation and it continues to infiltrate across all households as technology becomes cheaper to acquire.  “B&M” chains will be around for a long time to go, but the effectiveness and simplicity of standing behind a computer while balancing a checkbook is very lucrative.

4.       What role will email marketing play in balancing out the online media score card?

Email marketing has several great components.  One of these mechanisms is the ability to drive a specific message to new customer or former customers and provide a substantial

Return across all fields.  Secondly, email marketing is a test and it will always be in a “development phase”.  What that specific statement means is that we must always test our targets, subject lines, and creative to develop a greater a relationship with all customers in the financial space.

5.       Do you think search marketing will take a second seat to another type of media? If so what and why?

SEO/SEM  will definitely be a driving force behind several of the financial institutions online, but there will also be a shift to integrate SEM messaging across mediums such as email marketing and offline tactics.  There will be a constant focus on driving the most possible volume at the lowest possible price point, and with that in mind, all mediums will be closely synergized within financial institutions.

Thanks Andre for sharing your thoughts with us.  Check out Andre's sites (and maybe pick up a loan online) here www.thinkcash.com and www.paydayone.com.

Internet Marketing Basics: Online PR

An often overlooked search engine optimization technique that is low cost, quite "guerilla", you might say, is running online PR. You can use this technique to build presence online, for the sake of that, or If your company has endured a season of negative press or you have old news to replace with new and more exciting news.  Here are some tips to get your organic rankings teeming with new and exciting news on your company - boosting your reputation and your bottom line. 

1) Look around you for newsworthy happenings in your firm and assign the stories to be written into a basic Press Release format. This is not difficult nor time consuming but having a database of these type of stories on hand is invaluable to your search engine optimization strategy and your online reputation. 

2) Have a public relations consultant or online pr agency review and tighten the stories and run them on the traditional and online media channels like PR Newswire, Business Wire and PR.com.

3) Do not use a traditional public relations firm who thinks they understand online PR do your online PR. You would be better off managing the work in house then to do this. 

Why does this work to increase positive reputation of your company? 

Because part of search engine optimization or "gaining organic rankings" on the major search engines is a numbers game. For example, Google will spider and run the latest and greatest rankings on your company, but if only the old stuff remains, that is what is shown as company name search result. So start writing all the good and interesting news. Have fun and let me know how it goes. Here to help if you need some more details.