iMedia
John Faris, Online Acquisition Director, Red Door Interactive

Digital marketing is influencing offline purchase behavior more than ever. These online strategies will enable you to maximize your brand’s role in the decision-making process.

It’s clear that digital marketing is influencing offline purchase behavior more than ever. In fact, 89 percent of consumers who buy in key retail categories in-store have conducted online research prior to purchase (Google, 2010), and offline sales influenced by online research are expected to top 1 trillion dollars in 2012 (Jupiter Research, 2007). To capitalize on consumers’ new inclination to research online before purchasing offline, marketers need to go beyond awareness and direct response campaigns, and start influencing the purchase decision-making process.

Identify brand promoters
Customer relationship marketing is a critical component to every company’s digital marketing mix. Loyal customers who act as brand evangelists can increase sales and drive word of mouth. Identifying your brand evangelists is a crucial first step. If you have a customer database with emails or phone numbers, you can easily pinpoint brand evangelists with a net promoter score (NPS) survey. The survey need only ask one simple question — “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point scale, and those who rate you highly (9 or 10) are your “promoters.” If you deploy the survey in-store or on your website or blog, make sure you capture emails or phone numbers so you have the ability to tie the response back to the individual.

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John’s Google Profile

eMarketing & Commerce (eM+C)
John Faris, Red Door Interactive

Google’s search network still dominates the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising landscape and there’s good reason for it. The channel continues to provide a lift for several key performance indicators including brand recall, direct site and post-impression visits, content engagement, and overall sales. However, there are many other options that should be explored and leveraged based on the goals of a given campaign.

Google’s Lesser Used Offerings
Google Display Network: Think display advertising is just for brand marketers? Think again. A study conducted by Google found that 51.6 percent of advertisers had an average display network cost per action (CPA) equal to or better than their search network. Google Display Network (GDN) serves over 6 billion impressions across hundreds of thousands of publisher websites. While some of these sites aren’t high quality, advertisers have a fair amount of control over where ads are served, with a myriad of targeting options. Best of all, GDN uses a PPC model, so you aren’t stuck paying for wasted impressions like you might on a cost per thousand (CPM) ad network.

Marketers should also consider retargeting ads to previous visitors of their site via Google remarketing campaigns on GDN. Remarketing can be used to cross-sell or upsell current customers or assist in a first-time conversion.

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iMedia
John Faris, Red Door Interactive

Article Highlights:

• Optimizing site content for search engine rankings requires keyword research to determine the most relevant high-volume terms
• Email provides subscribers with an effortless ways to share content (via email or social media), which turns them into brand advocates
• Having an active blog will allow you to capture the attention of other bloggers and increase traffic to the site 

Both direct response and brand-focused marketers can benefit from developing informational or entertaining content that is based on strategic themes. Putting content at the center of your integrated digital marketing strategy can increase your traffic, improve your conversion rate, and build brand affinity and awareness. To achieve these results, marketers have to develop storylines that communicate, either directly or indirectly, the brand positioning and messaging, while creating dialogue with (and among) consumers.

Content themes
As a starting point for your content strategy, it is important to assess how well your content aligns with the behaviors and attitudes of your target market. An audit of your key competitors’ content is helpful as well. By conducting these reviews, you will be able to determine if any gaps exist between your current content and the ideal set of content needed to become a credible industry authority.

Generally, the required content will fall under one of two categories: brand or non-brand. Once you’ve identified key content topics, you should group the topics into high-level themes within these two categories. These content themes act as a guideline for content development and serve as a reference point in forming an integrated digital marketing strategy. As marketing campaigns are developed, each of the channel experts (e.g., email specialist, SEO specialist, etc.) can reference the content themes and align their efforts with the other channels.

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In April, Red Door attended the Digiday LA: Video Upfront conference. The conference brought leading publishers, media buyers, ad networks, and technology vendors together to discuss “the way brands and agencies are harnessing the power of digital video to engage today’s multi-screen consumer.”

During the conference, several key themes emerged:

• Social media and Web content have created a paradigm shift in marketing . Selling through interruption is becoming less effective. Brands need to become publishers of premium content that is entertaining or informational, in order to earn the attention of consumers. Thus “branded content” is as important as ever.

• Online video advertising distribution technology is disparate, making it difficult for buyers to maximize their reach. Standardization here will certainly be a key element in online video’s long-term success.

• It will take some time for the sophistication (or lack thereof) of Web video ROI measurement to catch up with TV’s 50+ years of advertising science. That’s not to say that Web video can (or should) move to measuring GRP’s. That would actually short change the value of Web video, given that it is more “lean forward” and interactive than traditional TV. The first step in improving video measurement is standardization of engagement metrics. Most panelists at the event agreed that using clicks as an engagement metric for video is not the answer. While Web marketers are obsessed with direct response, video advertising lends itself better to brand building. That being said, relying on impressions/views as a success metric can be deceiving. For example, below the fold auto-play video ads can rack up impressions without having much of an impact on consumers. The consensus seemed to be that a tiered approach to measuring engagement would be a good solution in the short-term. The model could look something like this:

1. User initiated play to completion
2. User initiated play
3. Auto-play
4. Auto-play below the fold

• Mobile video combines two of the fastest growing mediums on the Web. Soon there will be more smartphones than cable subscribers in the US. The “3rd screen” is quickly becoming the “1st screen.”

• Live streaming video makes sense if people will be compelled to come together to share in the communal experience of “now.” This means that it is most effective for events that people gather around offline, like concerts and sporting events. To maximize impact, brands need to make sure to tie in social elements to amplify the event’s impact.

If you have $19.95 for a one month registration, you can view the entire annotated agenda and (of course) video of the conference here.

Website Magazine
John Faris

Former U.S. Congressman Tip O’Neill famously coined the phrase, “All politics is local.” In much the same way, retail and service companies are quickly coming to realize that all marketing is local. With the recent rise — and soon to be explosion — in GPS/mapping-enabled smart phones as well as the drastic changes in the way Google searches trigger results, local search is rapidly becoming a critical marketing channel. If ignored, it may mean the difference for an organization being visible or invisible to potential customers.

The concept is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Most marketers are savvy enough to claim their listings in Google Places, but most don’t do anything beyond that. Instead they opt to focus their efforts on optimizing for general search queries.

However, claiming your listing is only the first step in a comprehensive strategy, since the majority of location-specific searches don’t even take place on Google. Many consumers use other outlets such as online yellow pages, local directories and city guides like CitySearch or Yelp, as well as search engines including Yahoo and Bing, to conduct their searches for local businesses. Even if Google were to start dominating local search like they dominate general search queries (and they probably will), their results are heavily influenced by these other local sources.

So before missing the boat entirely, here are three things marketers can do today to optimize their Internet presence for local search queries.

Stake Multiple Claims. Organizations should establish their local listings on all three major engines: Google, Bing and Yahoo! Maps. If a company has more than 10 locations, they can avoid Google’s postcard/phone verification process by submitting a spreadsheet for bulk upload. Once the listings are uploaded, the verification process can be initiated by submitting a request at http://bit.ly/GoogleVerification.

Be aware that this still triggers a manual process on Google’s side and doesn’t result in instantaneous verification. The process can be accelerated by registering your Google Places account using a company-owned email address, as opposed to a Gmail account or other third-party email address.

Beyond search engine map listings, marketers should increase the number of “citations”, or mentions of a company name in association with the location-specific phone number and address, on third-party sites. They are crucial in improving the rankings for your map listings. Google puts more weight on citations from trusted resources like Yelp, CitySearch, YellowPages.com and Local.com, but citation authority is industry-specific in many cases.

As an added benefit, top-tier Internet Yellow Pages and city guides get a fair amount of their own traffic and provide excellent outlets for consumer reviews. Google often pulls reviews from third-party sites into their listings and the number of reviews a location receives can impact the 10-pack rankings. Locations with high customer ratings typically see a lift in click-through rates as well.

Illustrate and Amplify. Optimizing for local search is a constant care and feeding process that will require marketers to keep on top of the latest developments by both mainstream and vertical search sites and enhance their listings accordingly. As far as Google Places is concerned, the first step after claiming and verifying your locations is to enhance your profiles by building out the listings with comprehensive information, including pictures and videos.

Companies can even add unique coupons to their listings that provide incentive to customers and helps with tracking. One of the most critical data points is the category that is associated with the business. Choosing the right one helps to ensure that your locations show up for the right search terms. The more complete the profile, the more trusted it becomes by both Google and the consumer. If you still aren’t showing up for your priority local search terms, consider advertising in the map results via Google Adwords Local Ad Extensions pay-per-click services or through Google Places Tags for a flat fee of $25 per month. Neither of these advertising options will push your listings into the 10-pack, but they will help your listing get a bit more exposure in the result pages in Google Maps.

Take Chances. There’s good reason to, so do experiment with incentivizing consumer actions through mobile applications like Twitter, far beyond simply chasing the latest fad. In July, Biz Stone, co-founder of the popular social media phenomenon boasted that Twitter now supports 800 million search queries per day, more than twice that of Yahoo! and Bing combined. Many of these searches have local intent and can be leveraged for both branding and direct response. And while it is nice to have a large following of engaged users that you can reach directly, Twitter search has the possibility of making the micro-blogging site a useful marketing vehicle independent of your communitybuilding skills.

In the same light, marketers should start considering location- based mobile applications like Foursquare and similar services like Double Dutch, as these services afford companies the opportunity to tap into users’ geographic locations. Companies can use that information to serve up offers and information for nearby businesses and points of interest. Some savvy marketers, like those at Tasti D-Lite, are even using social-local apps to power their loyalty programs, providing incentive for both social and financial transactions.

One thing’s for sure with local search marketing programs: consistent care, maintenance and optimization will not only increase online traffic, but offline sales at various locations. Make sure that you continually update your listings across the Web if and when any of your location details change. Keeping the information up-to-date and accurate is key to establishing credibility with the search engines. Such practices can be the difference between making noise and making it rain.

About the Author: John Faris is the Online Acquisition Supervisor at Red Door Interactive, an Internet Presence Management firm that helps organizations profit from their Web initiatives. Clients include Petco, Qualcomm, Overstock.com, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill and Cricket Communications.

Website Magazine

iMedia
John Faris

Article Highlights:

• While volumes of quality links and content will result in top SERP rankings for your site, the ultimate goal of SEO is to increase your traffic and conversions
• By creating content that is based on the needs and wants of your prospects, you can convert more of the visitors that arrive at your site
• Gaining a better understanding of your visitor’s attitudes can be achieved with surveys conducted on-site

In the era of Google, web analytics data is plentiful, and pulling ranking reports is a no-brainer. As Google’s Chief Economist put it, data is cheap and ubiquitous, but the analytic ability to utilize that data is scarce. When it comes to analyzing SEO data, the key to gaining actionable insights is segmentation. By segmenting and analyzing your rankings, traffic, content, competitors, and links, you can start to understand what’s working and where to focus your efforts next.

Full Story >>

eMarketing & Commerce (eM+C) Magazine
John Faris

Former U.S. Congressman Tip O’Neill famously coined the phrase, “All politics is local.” In much the same way, retail and service companies are quickly coming to realize that all marketing is local. With the recent rise — and soon to be explosion — in GPS/mapping-enabled smartphones and drastic changes in the way Google searches trigger local results, local search is rapidly becoming a critical marketing channel.

The concept is more evolutionary than revolutionary; most marketers are savvy enough to already claim their listings in Google Places. However, that’s only the first step in a comprehensive strategy, since the majority of location-specific searches don’t take place on Google. Many consumers use other outlets such as online yellow pages, local directories and city guides like Citysearch or Yelp, as well as search engines, including Yahoo and Bing, to conduct searches for local businesses. Even if Google were to start dominating local search like it dominates general search queries, its results are heavily influenced by these other local sources.

Full Story >>

Many have surmised that the next generation of internet users will forgo using email all together, instead favoring communication through text message, chat, Twitter, Facebook, and other mediums that provide more instant gratification and collaboration. At today’s Google I/O Developer Conference, Google may have just put that debate to rest by announcing a new communication tool, Google Wave.

The idea, originally codenamed “Walkabout,” was spawned by Jens Rasmussen in Google’s Sydney office. Jens and his brother Lars started by asking several fundamental questions:

“Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication – email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?

Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?

What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers’ current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?”

Working with a small team over the last two years, the Googlers came up with a revolutionary way to mash-up and improve the best features of email, chat, social networking, and wikis. One of the key features is the ability to chat and share files in real-time through a process called operational transformation (explained in a video by Google engineer David Wang). In laymen terms, this means that :

“In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”

David Wang explains for private conversations (not being published to the Web), this feature makes online conversations more engaging. With chat (and even more so with email), you have to wait for the other person to finish their thought and hit the enter/send button to comprehend what they are trying to communicate. Since we don’t communicate like that in real life, Wang contends that it breaks the natural flow of conversation.

Moreover, for public dialogues on blogs and Web sites, the possible applications for Google Wave are mind-numbingly endless. Others have already covered what is currently known about Google Wave, but there is obviously much more to come. In the meantime, check out some of these great resources on the topic.

A Sneak Peak at Google Wave at Google Blogoscoped
Google Wave of the Future Revolutionizing the Web at Marketing Pilgrim
Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web at TechCrunch
Google Reinvents Email, Docs with ‘Google Wave’ (with slideshow) at PCMag
Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave at The Official Google Blog
Google Wave Homepage at Google

Updated: Video Available

In a recent interview with Dr. Ralph Wilson, Avinash Kaushik shared some of the metrics he likes to analyze for Twitter. These Twitter analytics include:

• Number of followers over time
• Number of retweets (RTs) over time
• Number of clicks on tweeted links
• Most popular content (above-average clicks)

The last point is a critical one. Avinash contends that if you determine the number of clicks that an average tweeted link gets on your profile, you can identify and analyze over-performing content that is more popular with your Twitter followers. Of course, you can “learn from your failures” by analyzing under-performering content too. Either way, you have actionable intelligence for creating successful content/campaigns in the future.

While Avinash makes a great point, your tweet popularity only provides half the picture. Click and RT metrics indicate how you can best use 140 characters to effectively promote your content. But once a piece of content becomes popular, you really have to look at site-side metrics to see if the content is helping you achieve your business objectives. You can do this by segmenting Twitter traffic in your analytics tool and measuring conversion/engagement from that specific source (which I’m sure Avinash is already doing as well).

It’s the 4th Quarter and you need a big win.  As the holidays approach and marketing budgets increase, now is a crucial time to diversify and integrate your approach to online marketing.  In order to do this properly, you have to leverage several marketing channels and use consistent messaging/promotional offers across all of them. 

These channels include:

·         display ads

·         online PR

·         contextual ads

·         paid search ads

·         organic search listings

·         email/CRM

·         landing page optimization

Consequently, successful online branding and traffic acquisition requires a coordinated effort among several departments.  In many companies, the departments involved (SEO, PPC, Email, Tech, Creative) operate primarily in silos that don’t communicate well.  This is where management needs to make planning and collaboration a company priority.  Need a case study to convince management that a broad and integrated online strategy will provide results? Below, you’ll find links to five of them.

Combination of display, contextual, and paid search provides 21% lift in purchase intent

Paid search with specialized landing page creates 136% conversion lift

Email sets viral campaigns up for success (pdf)

Paid search combined with SEO leads to increased purchase intent and brand recall

Deep-linked email landing pages lead to 69% increase in CTR