Acquire an FTE (Full Time Employee)

The question isn’t IF a good online marketing employee will help increase revenue.  If they are good they will.  But there is a question as to if the cost of this person will exceed the revenue they bring in.  For example:  $100,000/year salary and benefits for a good online marketer is a good deal.  If this employee helps you bring in an incremental $200,000/year in revenue this is a no brainer.  If the market will only let them bring you in $50,000/year there is probably a problem.

Acquire PTE (Part Time Employee)

A part time employee may also be considered and may cut the salary requirement in half.  You may also reduce the quality of the person you are seeking.  You are probably seeking (or at least hoping for) Organic Search, Paid Search, Display, E-mail, and Social Media marketing skills in one person.  Your chances of finding all these skills in one person are slim in the first place.  This effort is further hampered when you only have a part time position to offer.  Two reason for this: 1) you screen out the best people and 2) you limit the time they have to devote to doing a complete job each month.

Hire an Agency

Acquiring a GOOD agency will address the problem of expertise.  They will most likely have expertise in Organic, Paid, Display, E-mail, and Social Media.  Unlike your perfect employee they will most likely be multiple individuals who focus on their core competencies.   The problem with this scenario is you will probably go from $100,000/year salary and benefits for a full time employee to $200,000/year to engage a good agency.  You may also find you will not have an employer/employee type relationship.  As hard as they may try not to do so they will probably come across as a bunch of arrogant know-it-alls that will insist on doing everything their way with little input from you.  This may be justified in some cases but will be unacceptable in many situations.

Hire a Virtual Agency

This is the best of both worlds and more.  You have a)  at your disposal expertise in Organic, Paid, Display, E-mail, and Social Media, b) part time “virtual” employees while maintaining the quality and coverage of a Full Time Employee, and c) a cost that is closer to the cost of the part time employee.  The expertise gained by engaging  this virtual agency is further enhanced with years of contacts, available online marketing tools and techniques at their disposal, and economies of scales that simply can’t be enjoyed by companies that don’t have online marketing as their primary business.

What You Should Expect From A Virtual Agency

Most of us know something about how Twitter works.  We follow someone.  Hopefully they will follow us back.  We type in something interesting every once in a while. We read what others are typing in.  But what does it all mean?

As this is being written we are gathering responses in a Twitter poll from actual Twitterers.  This poll attempts to gauge what users of Twitter expect from their time and energy.  As of today the Twitter poll respondents believe Twitter should be used to:

1. Generally socialize and get connected 27%
2. Keep informed about a particular topic or interest 30%
3. Inform others about a particular topic or interest 19%
4. Promote a product or service I provide 24%

See poll results and add your two cents by clicking here.

From these responses we conclude that most people are not using Twitter to promote a product or service.   If you are a business person, and since you are reading this you probably are, you may at first view this as bad news.  But it is actually good news.  Since less than a forth of the Twitterers are promoting a product or service, we conclude the market place is probably more open to a few doing just that.

Let’s illustrate this with an example of businesses at a trade show.  If only the businesses at the trade show were the ones presenting, they would be focusing so much on promoting their own product or service that they may not be as interested in hearing about yours.

Of course you should Not come across as only being self promoting.  You need to build relationships, offer value, entertain your followers, then every tenth tweet or so they may not mind a little self serving promotion.

This brings me to the point of this blog posting.  How do you tell how effective you are on Twitter?  Yes, you can create tracking url-s that tells you when you got a visit, lead, or sale from Twitter and that is the ultimate indicator.  But how do you know how you rank with your followers as compared to other Twitterers?   How effective are your tweets compared to the best on Twitter?  A lack of knowledge here may make or break you.

One indicator of how you rank with your followers is your Retweet rank.  A Retweet Rank is a representation of the number of times a user has been retweeted by others recently on twitter.

If you enter my Twitter ID of @steventhompson, I have a Retweet rank of 8,406 and a 94.2 percentile.   This compares pretty good with Twitter ID @airductcleaner who has a retweet rank of 144,868 and a 0.0 percentile but not as well with Twitter ID @britneyspears who has a retweet rank of 1001 and a 99.31 percentile.  As you can see the lower the rank number and the higher the percentile number the better.

If you rank low and have a higher percentile this is probably an indication that you may get away with a few more self promoting tweets.  If you rank high with a lower percentile you may want to promote every 20 tweets or 30 tweets, of even more.

Go ahead and take the Twitter Poll.  Then find out your Retweet Rank.  You will then be positioned to do the optimal amount of self serving promotional Tweets.

Contact steve.thompson@siteedgeagency.com .

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Social Media, Online Marketing

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I have to admit that I didn’t come up with this headline or topic.  Erik Holladay, Global Marketing Director for Intertek blog positing of the same name talks about the importance of negative keywords. You can read his blog by clicking on the following link: http://erikholladay.blogspot.com/2009/06/negative-is-positive-with-google.html

I agree with Eick on the importance of negative keywords but added my additional comment below:  

Erik,
You could also stick to “Exact Match” search terms but that may be restrictive in some cases. What you didn’t mention was how to determine the negative keywords. With Google new “Search Query Performance” report it becomes convenient to view what search terms are actually being picked up in Broad and Phrase match. This is after the fact but may be worth periodically reviewing and making selective parts of these search queries negative keywords.

Contact steve.thompson@siteedgeagency.com to discuss further.

Technorati Tags: Paid Search, PPC, Google Negative Keywords

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…or how you can generate more business than you can handle.

It’s as simple as following these steps:

1.  Resolve to put your ad dollars into getting internet traffic

2.  Use the “marketEDGE Technique” to develop 6 to 8 ads

3.  Use an approved Campaign Optimizer to identify the top producing ads

4.  Use the “marketEDGE Technique” to develop 2 to 4 offer pages

5.  Use an approved Campaign Optimizer to ID the offer page that delivers the most prospects/customers

6.  Use approved Campaign Tracking to tie every single customer generated back to the source

7.  Continuously narrow the source of the internet traffic until you are only paying for the traffic that is producing customers.

You now have the Marketing System That Never Fails and all you have to do is repeat these steps until you have more business than you can handle.  It typically takes 3 to 4 months to perfect the process. 

You can do all this yourself but the “marketEDGE Technique” is the key to its success and it is proprietary to siteEDGE.  Don’t worry it’s not that expensive.  One of my customers paid the Yellow Pages 20 times what they paid me.  References are available upon request.

Contact steve.thompson@siteedgeagency.com to discuss further.

Technorati Tags: Paid Search, PPC, Analytics, Campaign Tracking,  google content network, google site targeting

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There is danger in limiting landing page design and implementation to just five rules but I like Billy Blog’s presentation.  According to Billy you should:

Keep it focused: Force your page to have only one goal. If you are required to have two, then choose one as a priority and emphasize that one. Remove excess baggage like advertisements and navigation bars so that visitors have only two choices: convert or leave.

Give a good second impression: People don’t see the landing page first, they see your PPC or banner ad, e-mail or even search result. Build relevancy between them. Use the same messaging from the first point of contact to your landing page. I try to use the same words or exact title from advertisement to landing page. Keep creative consistent too. One thing that is often overlooked are offers, if you put an offer on your page, put it on your ad and vice versa.

Target your biggest (middle) audience: There’s 3 types of visitors. Ones that’ll convert no matter what, ones that might convert and ones that are just looking. You only need to grab that middle audience. A landing page is not meant to please everyone, it is meant to drive conversions, meaning pleasing only those that will convert! For example, putting less information on a page will drive away people who only looking to learn more, but help push along those that are looking to buy.

Stop talking about yourself: Customers come to your page to read about the product, not your entire company history. Talk about yourself to the extent that it will calm visitor’s fears about your legitimacy and quality, else you’ll clutter the page and intimidate the visitor with blobs of text. Third party validation logos (BBB, Hacker Safe) and quotes from happy customers are often enough.

Use a product shot: So a cheetah might be a great symbolic way to show how fast the computers you’re selling are, but really you should be showing your computer. Customers come in and will only spend a few seconds to see if they’re in the right place before hitting back and so you need to communicate what you’re selling fast. Why distract them with symbolic images, when your product is what you want them to buy? If you’re service oriented, then people probably are a good idea, but make sure they directly represent what you’re doing.

For more from Billy go to Billy’s Blog.

Technorati Tags: Landing Page Optimization, Landing Page Testing , PPC, SEO, Paid Search

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A must read article on e-mail marketing by Loren McDonald from the August 8, 2007 edition of E-mail Insider. 

I won’t spend time saying what Loren has already said.  Let’s just say that this article describes very well the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/email_insider/?p=482

Technorati Tags: e-mail marketing, Can-SPAM

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On today’s web - a static ‘brochure’ site doesn’t cut it anymore.  If you provide a service, sell a product, or want to generate traffic, you have to produce fresh content that engages your readers on a regular basis.  One of the best ways to do this? - Blogging.

What is a blog?  You can read the Wikipedia Entry for that.  What I want to do is give you 7 steps to making a blog work for your business.

What are the potential benefits to blogging about your business?  They are numerous: search engine traffic, blog search traffic, positioning yourself as an expert in your field, engaging your customers, creating a community, positive PR, RSS subscribers, easy content creation and archiving, and, most importantly - gaining new customers.

Just see what it did for one lawyer here. (requires a free signup - sorry!)

Step 1 - Do some research and planning.
Look at your business.  What sets you apart?  What are you an expert in?  What subjects do you feel comfortable writing about?  Go to Google and type in some keywords related to your business.  Are people blogging on the same subjects?  What are they talking about?  Can you add value to the conversation?  Answer all of the above questions, and find your niche.

Step 2 - Choose your platform.
There are a number of services out there, from free blog sites to very expensive systems.  Each has drawbacks and positives, so you have to decide what’s most important for you.  Ideally, you want a blog system that is easy to use, customize, and will allow you to have your own domain name pointed to it. If you can find one that offers web stats, even better!

Step 3 - Get started.
An empty blog can be intimidating, and the best way to get through it is to just get started.  As you post more, you can discover your voice, and it will get easier as you go along.  Remember, you don’t have to impress Harvard scholars here (unless they are your target audience) - blogs are supposed to sound like you wrote them.

Step 4 - Keep going.
Once you start, set out a schedule of posts that you try to keep to.  1-2 per day is best, but make sure to try to post at least a few times per week.  If you keep the content fresh, people will find you, and come back.

Step 5 - Interact.
The magic of blogging is that they create communities based around them.  Read other people’s blogs, and comment on their posts.  Allow readers to comment on yours.  Respond to those comments.  Provide links to others (and they will reciprocate).

Step 6 - Rinse, and Repeat.
Once you get rolling, keep the momentum going.  With a few months of effort, you can create a very valuable web property.

Step 7 - Get help.
As a business owner, you’re busy - and we get that.  Sometimes, it makes sense to get some help executing these steps.  If you hire a professional consultant, you can use their expertise in this area to kick-start the success of your blog, get ideas for content, change the look and feel of your blog, stay up to date with new plugins and technology, and have expert help in promoting your blog.

And, you’ll find that many consultants are reasonably priced.  Contact siteEDGE for more information on how we can help you build a successful blog to get you new customers.

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Like many I have purposely delayed converting client accounts over to Yahoo Search’s Project Panama. I had a sneak peek months ago and knew about the new fresh look but was not convinced our agency should be the first to expose our clients to this unproven platform.

I learned one year ago at the 2006 SES Conference in New York directly from Yahoo that Panama would be using a quality score to determine the cost per click opposed to the traditional Overture bidding that we have grown accustomed to. There was a small uproar with some attendees when this was announced. To be honest I was kind of relieved. I still cringe when I think of the inflated bid prices that have been artificial set by hyperactive bidders who didn’t take time to romance the campaign instead of trying to seduce it. Now these individuals will have to spend time in writing good ads and landing pages, or pay more than the ones who do.

I have seen the blog postings of some who are unimpressed with Panama. A reoccurring theme is that they are happy with the new user interface but will not be satisfied until Yahoo Search increases the volume of available searches.

I actually agree with both these points but will point out one thing I have not yet seen discussed in a blog posting. Yahoo’s implementation of local search has paid off well for us and our clients. Our firm has a heavy emphasis on geo-targeted searches and have campaigns that target up to 20 DMAs for one client. The goal, of course, is to generate traffic only within these geographic pockets. Up to this point Google and MSN have allowed this but Yahoo Search was a non performer. And no, Yahoo Local was not the answer.

We didn’t want to miss the coverage that Yahoo offered so we made location a part of each and every search term. This is very tedious and made for a lot of search terms but we have done this for years with many clients and thought the results were worth the effort.

The initial results of our Panama geo targeted campaigns are extremely promising. The volume of searches has increased of course, but with the added benefit of multiple ad groups and the ability to test them we have also increased the click through rate. Since we have a good quality score, we are paying less for more.

What is truly note worthy is the increase in conversions. We have to study this over a longer period but first indications are, in proportion to the clicks, we are getting more conversions from Yahoo than with Google. For the client in this particular study we track conversions by telephone appointments with each call recorded. We are seeing cases where the phone appointments are up while the overall click costs are down. We contribute this to Yahoo having, for this industry, a better conversion rate than Google.

Again these are early results but look promising. I will give it another month and report back with further details. Let me know what you have seen.

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This is a reference to the February 6, 2007 article in the business section of the Kansas City Star that echoed many points that we have been preaching for months, but goes a step further by supplying specific examples of success stories. This article begins by talking fundamentally about blogs being different from a static Web site because they contain continuously updated information where the most recent entry appears on top. One quote from the article indicates “blogging has brought him more clients in two years than phone book advertising did in seven years.” Another quote indicated that “their blog was not designed to generate business but to share current developments quickly and easily with other lawyers in the firm and with existing clients.” This is noble but I am sure they don’t mind the additional benefits gained of signing a few new clients.

The legal profession is an excellent example of how to apply the blogging technology. This profession has the built in benefit of attracting individuals looking for information they are willing and able to provide. The blog site should be set up to be search engine friendly. After all we want Google, Yahoo and MSN, etc. to pick up the postings so people can find and read them. The blog site should be structured in a way that allows the categories (e.g. wills and probate, employment, bankruptcy, immigration, etc.) to be easily accessed and the blog appropriately posted.

Blog site www.homeofficelawyerblog.com was mentioned in the article and provides a sample of a fairly good implementation. This blogger concentrated on a niche market (home office businesses) and provides information in categories that are of interest to this target market. This blogger appears to post a blog entry every other day and is benefiting from the effort.

Blogging can take from five to 15 hours a week even after the blogging site is up and operational. There are ways to minimize this effort and siteEDGE Agency is here to assist. Let us know what you think.

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