Landing Pages Testing – Worth it?

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Landing page testing and optimizationEnhancing a campaigns performance in the Search channels such as a paid search campaign, or even in an email program, if done properly can reap those conversion rewards, or whatever your defined KPI’s (key performance indicators) may be. Though when traveling down this path of designing, building and executing landing pages, the necessity to test is critical. Just as with a paid search campaign, email promotional or lifecycle campaigns, eStore check out sales funnel and your run of the mill homepage, the need to test to optimize is integral to maximize your online the outcome you’re seeking…whether it be increased signs ups, conversions, sales, opt-ins, opens, click thru’s etc.

Understanding what’s worth testing is that “ah-ha” many marketers face and tend to pull random ideas out of the hat. The issue I’ve found with marketers is not necessarily deciding if they should test…but rather understanding what variables they should test. While almost any variable on the landing page could be tested – raised CTA (call to action), key messaging above the fold, dynamic keyword population, localization to the visitors geographic city or region, larger images/buttons/text, content layout stemming from heat map reports, etc., the list can go on and on.

So what is worth testing? Here are my guidelines on what’s worth testing. Read more

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Measuring Social Media Success – KPI’s, ROI & Beyond Branding

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social media marketingBlogs, Twitter, Facebook it’s all the hype with today’s marketers and leaking into the fabrics with business owners and entrepreneurs jumping on the latest buzz words and making a best attempt on understand what all of this Social Media means, and how it can work for their business.

Reminds me of the dot com era when businesses jumped on the cart to put a website online, but not truly understanding how it will work for their marketing and business and provide value, other than doing it because everyone is, and of course bragging rights.
I receive at least 3 of these questions a week, and many more of prospects calling in asking for these services, but not understanding what they are, how they work, or most importantly, what value and ROI will they receive out of it. And this is where we begin…needs, objectives, metrics and ROI. Though while every self-proclaimed “Social Media Expert” may have the answers that sound good to the prospective client, the proper answer simply is understanding what Social Media components will work best for the prospects/clients business, and presenting those key performance indicators to benchmark those components, and the resulting ROI. Too many web marketing companies and publishers will have different ways and means to measure a Social Media campaign success, and while many may be correct, the rapid growth of Social Media space has resulted in to many complimentary metrics to gauge campaign performance and effectiveness. So a good starting point is to first understand some standard definitions for Social Media metrics to give a foundation of how to measure Social Media campaign success, and from this, tailor the metrics to the clients objective(s).

IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) released in early 2009 a proposed standardization of these Social Media metrics to lay the foundation for publishers and online marketing experts to get everyone on the same page. Similar to early days of the web and analyzing website performance by the various metrics available at that time – hits, page views, visitors, etc.

The Social Media Metrics standardization expands on the fundamental metrics in an effort to make campaign reporting for agencies and advertisers more consistent and less wild-wild-west. You can download the Social Media Metrics document here. It also offers some segregation between 3 distinct channels of social media; and supplementary metrics for each channel; Social Media sites (ex. Facebook), blogs / blogosphere, and widgets and applications. Read more

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Twitter Strategy – Building Organic Links

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Twitter Social Media toolI must admit I was one of those people who at first didn’t care less about the social media tool of Twitter and felt it was just one of many social media tools that will come and go. I was wrong. Twitter does have a purpose that supplies the demand from thee mass public, and can be complimentary fit in the overall online strategy to distribute content, and built external organic links.

Twitter is a social media tool to communicate and stay connected to the masses through short, brief updates that answer the question “what are you doing now?”? I like to think of it as an exploitation of Facebooks status feature, that taps into the psyche of human natures thirst for gossip. As a means to quickly stay up-to-date on what people are doing, its a brilliant tool to feed this thirst.

Alternatively – just watch this video on “twitter in plain english”

However, in this post I won’t go into details on how Twitter can be leveraged strategically for the overal mix of your strategy, but simply to give a high level understand how Twitter can support an organic search strategy to spread content and build those oh-so sought after external one-way organic links. Keep in mind, Twitter is not a link building tool, though externally it can be utilized indirectly as link bait. Read more

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Director of Internet Marketing – Character of ‘Great’ Leadership

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In my 11 years experience working in direct and indirect capacities with some well known national brands, I’ve seen leaders (directors, VP’s, managers, etc.) come and go. And in these foul economic times as companies start their South Beach diet to cut fat throughout the organization, the emphasis on your worth and your value to the company is essential in these times.

My hat rack shows my experience over the years as web marketing manager, entrepreneur, board director and director of Internet marketing. And working along side other management and leaders in the organizational structure, I’ve come to witness and learn first hand, common attributes, and tools that make some leaders great, and others leaders dissolve.

I’ve found great leadership does not have to be complex, whether it be a director of web marketing, media, information technology, coach and yes, even fatherhood.
All leaders in any level and capacity whom I’ve found ‘great’, are supported by the people they lead, and who all demonstrate common personal characteristics, which is one of two ingredients that lay the foundation of a great leader. (the other ingredient…..competence…more in another post).

Its a given great leadership typically comes over time, and some attributes of great leadership can be taught, and others born with. Though with a even mixture of experience, self-development and character, make good leaders great. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Read more

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Influencing Purchase Behavior: Blog Social Media vs. Social Networks

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social media blogs vs. social networks and a consumers purchasing behaviorOne of the top studies reported in 2008 found social media blogs influence a consumers online social behavior of their purchasing decisions far greater than social networks, as blogs that influence consumers generate a timely conversation and perceived as a greater trusted resource.

Covered by Clickz, the study conducted by JupiterResearch called “Harnessing the Power of Blogs”, looks at the evolving influence from online visitors/readers, and how they engage and interact with the blog media platform.

With the explosion of blogs (blog marketing) over the last few years, and the integration of professional, personal and industry blogs into the marketing framework of companies, more and more individuals seek blogs as their direct form of news and consumer research and informative guides. This is shown from the study where JupiterResearch noted a 300 percent growth in monthly blog readership in the past four years.

The curious question is why? Why blogs? Aside from the rich, frequent content that’s absorbed by Google and compliments a businesses search strategies to produce saturated results on the core subject matter the reader is seeking, readers find blogs more useful as a resource by using its links and multiple resources referenced in the blog. This contributes to spark or extend the conversation on the blog post/article. And the frequency blog readers flock to the web to jump into the conversation is shown with 49% of blog readers defined as someone who reads a blog at least once a month, and 71% reading more than one. And multiple blog sources reflect more opportunities for contextual and online ads, referrals in comments by readers, and any direct or indirect references within the content itself. Read more

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Search Engine Marketing 2009?

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2009 search engine marketing2008 is coming to a close, and you may have embarked on your first, well-overdue, search engine optimization (SEO) project for your business. Many steps were likely taken in your SEO project through the discovery phase of assessing how friendly your website architecture is for search, keyword discovery around your industry/market/brand/product/competitors, research where your visitors hang out online, the physical optimization and improvements to your site, etc. Now that your website is SEO’d for Google and others, what’s next? Read more

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Niche Marketing 2009 & The Value in Social Network Marketing

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Chances have it you use a social network as Facebook or MySpace, or contribute to a social media platform, such as a personal or corporate blog. The online playground is full of social activities with everyone including your mother jumping onto the next latest and greatest way to connect with friends, family, professionals and groups of your related interests.

social network marketing niche marketing Even with the recent win of Barack Obama as America’s new president, his campaign tapped into leveraging social media and networks to reach out to the niche audiences throughout America – by ethnicity and age demographics. Whether a special environmental group locatd in Seattle, or the tens of thousands of non-voters between 20 to 30 years of age in Chicago and New York, social networks and media platforms were a successful channel to mix into the Obama’s marketing campaign to win new voters.

2009 will bring to the boardroom a number of conversations about how social network and media can fit into the upcoming marketing campaign or yearly marketing plan. Hell, any forward thinking company who’s marketing can shift as quickly as my snowboard will cut and curve down the hills of Whistler mountain this year, will be on the edge of trying to learn how best to fit social networks as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and social media as blogs and forums to into their marketing mix.

Sure, many marketers will use the excuse to invest into social network marketing as a brand exercise to build evangelists and advocates of their latest and greatest campaign. But the insightful managers and directors upstairs should also be looking for the hard pay off – to not assume that overal lift in sales must have resulted from the social network endeavors of the campaign. Better yet to understand what contributions to the campaign, specifically the social marketing tactics, can be monetized to drive new business and sales. Read more

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Search Engine Marketing for Joe the Plumber

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Joe the PlumberAre you a “Joe the Plumber”, or a new or small business owner needing to get Google to drive new business? Then grab a coffee and have a read as I plan to pack as much value into this post for you to get you started. And as always, any questions or comments, make a comment below or drop me a line.

Often in presentations and chats with small business owners, let’s call them the “Joe the Plumber” of the world ;-), we tend to get so involved in all the wonderful things Joe could do for his small business to bring in new business from the web, that we tend to forgot Joe is just getting their feet wet in the internet marketing pool. In these cases, we need to re-address our approach and language to put the wonderful internet marketing ideas into plain simple english, tailored to Joe the Plumbers specific needs.

Over a coffee with Joe we may go on about what search engine marketing could do drive new business to his website, or what an email marketing program could to do create and sustain dialogue with his customers throughout the year. We could get in-depth about how a Facebook business strategy could help get Joe engage and interact with his customers or how a media / pr tactics will gain him free publicity offline, as well as online while at the same time feeding his SEO strategy.

But in the end, Joe is a business owner in Vancouver BC, he knows his business best, and nothing or very little about marketing over the Internet. His needs are simple. He needs new business, needs to get the most mileage from his budget (which is the size of a jar of jam), needs a powerful impact on the web, and needs guidance and trust from someone who can understand his business and his needs. Read more

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Email Best Practices – What’s New?

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The funny thing with email over all other web marketing channels is you only get to get it right once. Once you click “send”, that email campaign is out the door to tens or hundreds of thousands of potential customers. Ensuring strong procedural protocal and best practice hygiene is maintained within your organization is essential to maintaining 100% accuracy with your campaigns. Ok…at least +98% accuracy 😉

email marketingMany people have written a lot about email best practices. I commend Jeanniey Mullen of Click Z for leading the way. She’s written a number of important issues pertaining to email marketing.

Best practices in email marketing comes in a variety of packages. They range from a best practice approach to list hygiene and subscriber management, to email template design and development, to copy writing for marketing promotions versus newsletters.  Even best practices on usability for email campaigns is out there. I recal a few A/B multi variant email conversion campaigns we tested for a national TV direct response commercial and the outcome was surprising to some. Good thing we tested as our client assumptions, even ours, were off until we tested and saw the resuls.

So what’s new today in email best practices? Well aside from digging into the details of email accreditation and authentication considerations, lets touch on a few some of you email marketers may not have thought of. Read more

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Viral vs. Buzz

I have to come clean. I’ve worked on campaigns for which the goal was, in part, to get a particular piece of creative to go (and I quote) “viral.” That is, we designed campaign elements to be intriguing and clever, a bit surprising and funny. I suppose that only a disinterested third party could truly determine if we actually created something of quality, but in each case we believed that what we made was actually good. In many of these campaigns, a large group of people agreed with us and passed it along.

But it’s increasingly clear that interactive marketers shouldn’t turn up their noses when a client wants a campaign to spread virally. For a long time, interactive strategists would get fairly upset at the prospect of having to make something go viral. They claimed viral was simply the effect that occurs only very infrequently and cannot be planned for. Read more

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