Eric Waldinger: June 2009 Archives

SEO to rise amid other search spending
June 18, 3:53 PM
Becky Sheetz-Runkle


Search is fundamental to customer acquisition. And search engine optimization (SEO) is projected to grow consistently, according to eMarketer's Search Marketing Trends report.
 
One key finding is that brand loyalty is out the window in a down economy. Today's customers are jumping online in search of the best deal. This has major ramifications for B2B companies with longer (thanks recession!) sales cycles that need to work even harder to keep the customers they have.
 
Paid search, or pay-per-click is where the bulk of the search marketing spend is, but eMarketer concludes that marketers are increasingly turning to SEO to acquire new customers. eMarketer isn't alone in this conclusion.
 
They project that paid search will roll back from 15.9% in 2009 to 11.3% in 2013. Contrast this with SEO, which they expect to grow from 17.7% to 20.3%.
 
Find more details on the Search Marketing Trends report at http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000559. 

Great Article from Bob Heyman in Search Engine Land.

Jun 18, 2009 at 8:11am ET by Bob Heyman

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Bob Heyman is the Chief Search Officer at Mediasmith in San Francisco, and co-author of Digital Engagement, published by The American Management Association. Bob coined the terms "Audience Development" for building traffic to websites and "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO).

If this does happen how will this impact you?

Marketing E-mails Expected to More Than Double in Five Years
Forrester Research Forecasts That Spending Will Hit $2 Billion by 2014

By Michael Bush
Published: June 16, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If you think you're getting a lot of junk in your inbox now, just wait a couple of years.

In its latest study, Forrester Research projects that consumers will receive more than 9,000 e-mail marketing messages a year by 2014. That translates to about 25 messages a day, double the average of 10 to 12 people deal with today. According to the study, spending on e-mail marketing will hit $2 billion in five years, nearly double the projected 2009 spending of $1.2 billion.

E-mail is cheaper, faster and easier to measure than traditional creative advertising. But that doesn't make it perfect. The report, which surveyed 286 e-mail marketers in the U.S. and 3,730 U.S. online consumers, also predicts marketers will waste $144 million on e-messages that never reach their primary targets because of poor list hygiene and mailing practices, as well as overzealous ISPs that group good messages with spam.

And then there's the problem of clutter. Business-to-consumer marketers sent an average of 3 million e-mails a month in 2007, said David Daniels, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research. That number has now more than tripled to 10 million messages a month. "There is certainly increased clutter," Mr. Daniels said. "And marketers are beginning to realize that in the face of all that clutter they have to be more targeted and relevant."

Many prefer social media
He said social-network-savvy marketers can avoid these pitfalls. The survey found that a majority of 18- to 24-year-olds said they prefer social communications over e-mail as their primary communications tool, and 22% of all adults said they prefer social communications to their personal inboxes.

"Using things like shared social content so the user can take a piece of the message and share it on their social networks is an important tactic for marketers to be trying now," Mr. Daniels said. He said he also recommends becoming acquainted with Twitter. "We are seeing many of the e-mail service providers launching features around this so that they can manage a Twitter feed like it's a marketing campaign within the application."

Mr. Daniels said marketers might also do well to winnow their lists -- bigger is not always better when you're seeking relevance. "You may need to remove people from your list or mail to smaller segments rather than do massive blasts," he said.

He added that another major challenge for marketers is lack of internal support. E-mail marketing departments are usually made up of one or two people. "There's often not a lot of corporate support for e-mail programs, other than that they are very cost-effective," he said. "Getting the support internally to fund these types of programs and the additional head count needed to do more types of variable campaigns and dynamic content is a big challenge."

http://www.scribd.com/doc/15651991/Google-Adwords-Bid-Simulator-Reference-Guide

This is a good link to the new Adwords bid simulator.

Has anyone tried it yet?  

We would love to hear your feedback

Why Interactive Advertising Needs a Creative Revolution

Viewpoint: Obsession With Click-through Rates Keeps Online Campaigns From Having Greater Impact on Sales

by Hernan Lopez
Published: June 15, 2009
Adage


One of the most persistent questions about advertising is: How does it work?

Almost 20 years ago, John Philip Jones suggested it depended on which side of the pond one was on. His paper "Advertising: Strong Force or Weak Force? Two Views an Ocean Apart" described the typical American view that advertising was "expected to work by conversion: by addressing apathetic prospects and persuading them with powerful arguments." In contrast, "weak force" described the European view: Advertising was a "nudge," acting as a reminder, reinforcing existing brand perceptions and defending the status quo.

Mr. Jones later argued that advertising was more often explained by the weak-force theory, which was appealing to admen on both sides of the Atlantic for a number of reasons, starting with modesty. Advertising cannot be expected to overcome problems with the product, competitive pricing or word-of-mouth, and that is probably truer today in countries with large online populations.

But advertising can work in subtle ways. It can boost profitability, even for large brands in developed markets, which are normally sluggish and rarely see sustained sales increases. Advertising is not as weak as it seems, just difficult to measure.

Single-source studies from Mr. Jones' own study of TV ads in the late '90s to ComScore's recent "Whither the Click" report have shown that some campaigns work, while others simply fail to defend the brand from competitors. And when a campaign does work, the first exposure often has the biggest effect on sales. Erwin Ephron found a paradox here: "If advertising is a weak force, how can a single ad have a strong effect on sales?" His answer: Consumers act on ads for products they're ready to buy and ignore the rest. That called for a shift in scheduling, from flighting to continuity; being off the air was "like being off the shelf."


Both Mr. Ephron and Mr. Jones agreed that the most important factor behind successful TV campaigns was the quality of the creative. When Mr. Jones looked at those campaigns, he found that they weren't "hard-selling in the conventional sense" but instead shared three characteristics: "They are entertaining and amusing; they are visual rather than verbal; and they say something important and meaningful about the brand being advertised." More recently, he added the expression "rational arguments enclosed in emotional envelopes."

That brings me to online advertising -- and its missed opportunities. Sad to say, it's hard to find interactive campaigns with the three characteristics Mr. Jones found among the best-performing TV creative. The industry's obsession with click-through rates, despite evidence of their small correlation with total sales, results in messages that are rarely entertaining or amusing and are overly reliant on verbal hard sell.

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, has called for a "creative renaissance" on the internet, which he said has been "an unthinking hostage to a direct-marketing culture and tradition that devalues creativity and its long-term effect on brands." Such thinking relies on the strong-force theory, which today looks more like the exception than the rule.

Fortunately, there is a growing body of evidence linking display advertising online with increases in sales. Gian Fulgoni of ComScore, who has seen single-source data on successful TV and online campaigns, concluded that their effects on sales are comparable. At my company we're working with some of those advertisers and their agencies to find out why and how.

Maybe online is more than making up what it lacks in creative with better targeting. Maybe it's working its magic in conjunction with TV, by letting brands with smaller budgets afford continuity, or by acting as a "reminder" of a TV ad. Maybe online is working on its own, by adding leverage to a "weak force" and making it stronger. But this much is clear: Online advertising will work even better if there is an interactive creative revolution.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hernan Lopez is president of .Fox Networks and chief operating officer of Fox International Channels


 

Thought this was a great overview from Lon!

Eric Waldinger
Practice Leader
Online Marketing

The 10 Commandments of Social Media
BY Lon Safko Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 2:21 PM


As an author of The Social Media Bible, I am often asked, "What do I need to do engage my company, my products, and myself in social media?" The answer is easy: participate. Get out there and get involved. If you aren't in the game, you can't win. Here's your Ten Commandments or things you need to be doing to get in and win with social media.

   1. Thou Shalt Blog (like crazy).
   2. Thou Shalt Create Profiles (everywhere).
   3. Thou Shalt Upload Photos (lots of them).
   4. Thou Shalt Upload Videos (all you can find).
   5. Thou Shalt Podcast (often).
   6. Thou Shalt Set Alerts (immediately).
   7. Thou Shalt Comment (on a multitude of blogs).
   8. Thou Shalt Get Connected (with everyone).
   9. Thou Shalt Explore Social Media (30 minutes per week).
  10. Thou Shalt Be Creative (go forth and create creatively)!

Commandments 1. Thou Shalt Blog (like crazy)

Blog. Please. That's the first priority. Set up a blog, a personal blog, a business blog. It's easier than you think. Use an existing blogging site such as Blogger.com or GOingOn.com or install your own branded blogging site right on your own server by using WordPress. And, WordPress is free.

Commandments 2. Thou Shalt Create Profiles (everywhere)
Create your profiles; do it now before someone else takes them. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. That's called cyber squatting. So get out there. Use Open Social to make filling in your profiles as easy as a click of a button.

Commandments 3. Thou Shalt Upload Photos (lots of them)
Upload photographs. You've got them. Don't upload the one with you with a lampshade on your head...counterproductive; but other photographs? Absolutely. Customers want to see and participate. You want to give people a face to go with your company.

Commandments 4. Thou Shalt Upload Videos (all you can find)
Videos. You all have got videos. I don't care whether it's training videos or customer videos, grab your video camera and go interview some of your customers. What's better than seeing your customer's smiley face on your Web site? And it doesn't cost anything.

Commandments 5. Thou Shalt Podcast (often)
Podcast. If you're too cheap to get a camera, use the free audio software that's in your computer. That's what I did. I created 48 audio podcasts. If you take the podcasts I did for my book and played them back-to-back, they run 24 continuous hours of interviews. You can do that. It's free. It just takes time.

Commandments 6. Thou Shalt Set Alerts (immediately)
Set alerts. People are talking about you. You probably need to know what they are saying and you want to participate.

Commandments 7. Thou Shalt Comment (on a multitude of blogs)
Comment. Commenting is like going to a cocktail party. You wouldn't walk into a networking event, walk up to a group of people talking, and tell them your name and what you do in your business. That would be rude and unacceptable. Listen first. Read the blogs and add comments. You can be controversial, that's okay. But participate. Get involved.

Commandments 8. Thou Shalt Get Connected (with everyone)
Get LinkedIn. Put it in your email that you have a LinkedIn account, you have a FaceBook account, and that you have a Twitter account. Make it a part of your heading on your letterhead, because that's how you propagate. That's how you sell it.

Commandments 9. Thou Shalt Explore Social Media (30 minutes per week)
Explore social media. Give me thirty minutes a week, that's all I'm asking. Friday morning grab your coffee, lock yourself in your office, and give me thirty minutes. Just Google something. I promise you within the first 30 days you will be excited. You'll be as excited as I am. You will get excited because of the ROI.

Commandments 10. Thou Shalt Be Creative (go forth and create creatively)
And the most important commandment is creativity. That's all. It's just creativity and having fun. But you know what, that's what your customers want. They want to see transparency. They want to see authenticity. They want to see you having fun. They want to be able to relate and communicate

by Eric Waldinger
Practice Leader

To develop an online marketing function that will drive ROI for an organization, companies need to understand and know how to leverage a key set of knowledge areas.  Although bringing this online marketing function in-house is the ideal structure, you do not need to hire a large base of as permanent employees, nor can you assume that you can find one person to know all of these areas of online marketing.  You need to be able to know how to access the right talent for the objectives of your campaigns.  

The following knowledge areas have become vital for the marketing management structure to understand and know how to access to create marketing programs utilizing online media in today's marketplace.

These core functions include Online Marketing Management, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization technology strategy, Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Online Public Relations and Analytics.

Online Marketing Management

Online marketing management has a key role to identify and evaluate new tactics and channels to drive traffic and grow brand awareness. This function manages online advertising campaigns and marketing programs and maintains relationships with advertising partners.

With any media programs, testing is key to developing an optimal mix. So the marketing management function conceives tests and evaluates the performance of online marketing efforts.

This role is responsible for preparation and monitoring annual advertising budget and creating deals that are at a minimum CPC and in most cases a CPA structure.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) should be the most cost and results effective online marketing medium.    Search engine optimization and vertical key words and landing pages are key to successful search engine marketing. Search engine marketing has emerged as a vital marketing function to leverage search traffic and convert it to leads or purchase.  

The SEM function in an organization should:

•    Promote websites by increasing visibility in search engine result pages.
•    Develop in-depth understanding of keyword advertising & direct marketing.
•    Manage & execute operations across various interactive channels.
•    Manage day-to-day operations of search marketing - keyword bidding, copy & optimization
•    Report & analyze advertising success and ROI

Email Marketing

Just like Direct Mail requires a specialized knowledge base, managing email campaigns has its own set of requirements best practices and specifications that can lead to the best outcomes.  Developing a clear strategy is vital, but many factors in testing and development of email programs from subject lines to offer prominence can drive differing results.  

Core staff should manage the functions of email planning, analytics and strategy, but bringing in specialists to complement your best practices and to execute complex campaigns can drive higher clicks and conversion rates.

The email marketing function in your organization should:
•    Design, quality test, deploy, and report on manual and automated email campaigns for both internal customer databases as well as lead lists.
•    Coordinate and maintain the email marketing communications production schedule to ensure accurate and timely delivery.
•    Assess all email creative to ensure communications are aligned with internal email content policies and compliant with CAN-SPAM legislation.
•    Monitor email volume and track to established budget.
•    Maximize revenue utilizing best practices for direct marketing promotion and 'endorsement' selling optimizes promotions.
•    Maximize the revenue from available web and email marketing banner ad positions through the use of effective analysis, scheduling and creative approaches.

Online Public Relations and Content

This function focuses on Online Reputation Management and Public Relations.  As consumers have increasingly adopted the self-service model companies need to cover key areas of content online throughout new media.   This should address specific questions on products and make sure that the right messaging is going out online.

The Online Public Relations function should:
•    Write, manage, edit, and source website content
•    Improve site engagement through user management, guerilla marketing and leveraging social media groups and in-club marketing initiatives
•    Utilizes content management tools and systems for content, page and document creation
•    Partners with subject matter experts inside and outside the organization
•    Utilizes visitor traffic reporting to analyze site success
•    Contributes to and participants in content planning
•    Maintains in-depth working knowledge of related topics, sources, and trends