This is a books excerpt from our friends at Pearson Education. Each excerpt will be taken from one of Pearson’s excellent Marketing titles. This is our second excerpt from Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site, 2nd Edition by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt from Que Publishing.
Search Marketing Is Big Business
You can tell a new marketing technique is taking off by noticing the number of consultants who
hang out their shingles to help you do it! Several kinds of firms are involved in search marketing:
• Search consultants. A brand new kind of consultancy has sprung up in the past several
years, variously known as SEO consultants or SEM consultants. These new firms, led by
iProspect, OneupWeb, and Global Strategies International, handle search marketing and
nothing else.
• Traditional advertising agencies. At the other end of the spectrum are the old-line adver-
tising agencies that have been around for years. Just as firms such as Young & Rubicam
and Ogilvy & Mather handle TV, radio, and print advertising, in recent years they have
taken on Web advertising. Starting with banner ads, they have now moved into search
marketing, too. Some ad agencies handle paid search only, whereas others offer SEO
consulting for organic search, too.
• Interactive advertising agencies. In between the two extremes, interactive agencies
handle anything online, ranging from search marketing to banner ads to e-mail cam-
paigns. Sometimes these agencies are subsidiaries of the traditional ad agencies, such
as OgilvyInteractive, whereas others, such as Avenue A | Razorfish, are smaller, inde-
pendent firms.
All of these firms are competing for your growing interactive marketing budget—projected
to be 9 percent of all advertising spending by 2011. Your organization might already work with
one of these companies, or might be looking for a search marketing partner. What is most impor-
tant at this point is your interest in allocating part of your marketing budget to search, because
you will soon see that achieving success is rather challenging.
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The Challenge of Search Success
Now that you know the basics of Web search, and you know how big a marketing opportunity it
is, it must be time for a reality check: Search marketing is not easy to do.
And, unlike most marketing efforts, the bigger you are, the harder it is. We know that in
marketing, size has inherent advantages. The bigger the budget, the more advertising you can
buy, the more free media coverage you can coax, the better a public relations person you can hire,
and on and on. But search marketing is different.
Companies with well-known brand names assume it is easy for their Web site to rank
highly in search results, but John Tawadros (of search marketing firm iProspect) explains that
“the field is more equal. Just because you’re a big name doesn’t mean much to the search
engines.” In fact, well-known brands have lots of competition for search rankings, both from their
competitors and from their allies—many resellers rank highly for well-known brands. Amazon
may rank well when a searcher searches for “sony dvd player”—possibly even higher than
Sony’s Web site.
It is actually easier in some ways for small Web sites to succeed in search marketing than
large ones. For instance, fewer people need to know what to do, and the whole Web site is man-
aged one way by one team. As soon as your site is large enough that you hear some telltale con-
versations about separating your team or even your site into multiple parts, then search marketing
has just gotten tougher:
• We need multiple teams of specialists. “The copy writers and the HTML coders really
should be in different departments. . . .”
• We need multiple product sites. “Each product line should really run its own separate
Web site. . . .”
• We need multiple audiences. “We should really have different user experiences for con-
sumers than for our business customers. . . .”
• We need multiple countries. “It is really easier for everyone if the Canada and the U.S.
sites are separate. . . .”
• We need multiple technologies. “We decided to keep using the Apache server for the mar-
keting information, but we are putting all of the commerce functions into WebSphere®. . . .”
“Green Buzz Agency staff and their finished product was of the highest professional quality. Our project requests were not only respected and delivered but also met with other, more expansive, suggestions and ideas. Their experience and dedication to their work was highly evident in our final project, which exceeded our original concept.”
Lisa Nichols, Director, International Programs: American Seed Trade Association
So youʼve been doing the local open-mic night circuit for a while now, youʼve just recorded
your first EP or album and are ready to start getting the word out about your brand. Hereʼs
a quick music marketing check-list to help you get on your way:
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1. Define your brand – Ensure you branding is clear, consistent and professional across all
your online and offline platforms. Define your identity who/where you target
audience are. Go to your fans, donʼt expect them to come to you.
2. Collect “currency” – Email addresses, mobile numbers and zip codes are the new
currency of the music industry. Email is one the most effective direct marketing
channels to fans. Make sure you are collecting fan data wherever you are both online
and offline. Two great newsletter services are mailchimp.com or fanbridge.com
3. Create a website – having your own website instantly create a professional brand. It
also acts as a uniting hub for all your other social networking sites. Remember, if
Myspace or Facebook died tomorrow, all your fan data would be lost. Having a website
ensure you are in total control of your brand and fan data. If you canʼt afford a website
yet, then just get a holding page with a newsletter sign-up on it and links to your social
networking sites.
4. Prioritize quality over quantity – Prioritize connecting with fans one by one over
applications that “autobot” fans onto your social networking sites. This will inspire
loyalty in your fan base and will ultimately be the most effective way in turning potential
fans into super fans.
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5. Be media ready – Ensure you have both physical and digital copies of your music
available, and a biography and/or press release too. Many journalists still want to
receive physical product in order to judge the professionalism of an artist. However
make sure you also have your full album available for download via a hidden website. I
recommend Soundcloud for this.
6. Donʼt forget about offline marketing – Online marketing has made connecting with fans
on a global level so much easier. We can now communicate with people in real time all
over the world. However, donʼt forget about your offline marketing. Your live
performance, fan interaction at gigs, and face to face networking are still fundamental.
Be aggressive (but nice!) in BOTH your offline and online marketing.
7. Know your rights – Ensure you aware of the different ways of earning money online and
offline. Make sure you sign up to SoundExchange (itʼs free!) in order to collect your
digital royalties and keep up to date with issues affecting musicians by checking in with
The Future of Music Coalition.
8. Be creative, be personal - Donʼt be afraid to ask your fans for input into your creative
process. If they see you are listening to them, it will incentivize their loyalty and you will
create word-of-mouth buzz.
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Jem Bahaijoub is the founder of imaginePR, a music PR and marketing company based in
Washington, DC. You can connect with her on twitter @jembahaijoub or Facebook
www.facebook.com/imaginePR
“Green Buzz Agency has been very easy to work with throughout the entire production process, from developing creative concepts to the receipt of deliverables. Open and clear communication can be difficult to find with out-sourced help, but it is definitely something that Green Buzz values and works hard to maintain. Their diligent work and quick turn-around makes them stand out from other agencies.”
Crystal Hudson, Game Operations & New Media Manager: Washington Mystics
A Facebook presence is becoming an increasingly complex part of a marketers strategy to understand an engage with fans and customers alike. Clearly the objective is not to start a page and hope fans will find you. Because as we all know, hope is not a strategy. You need to plan for success. It is important to understand the unique aspects of Facebook’s functionality to deliver the best experience for your fans which should beget more fans. Facebook can help drive brand awareness, loyalty, engagement, and ultimately, benefit to your bottom line.
Having a seat at the table with clients for the last 4 years, below is a 3-step condensed reference guide for using Facebook as a strategic marketing channel:
Step 1 – Develop a Creative Brief: Take the good ole fashioned creative brief, and make it work for you in social media. Here are a few questions you should ask as you develop your strategy:
- Why do you want to be on Facebook? (And the answer isn’t because everyone is doing it!)
- What role will Facebook play for the brand or business? Customer loyalty? Customer service? Product development? Drive awareness of new sales or special offers? A hybrid? Nail this down – it will matter in every aspect going forward.
- What type of business are you? Who are your target customers? Are there new voices you want to engage with to expand or maximize your understanding of their needs?
- How expansive is your current digital strategy? How does social media fit into your marketing mix and budget – and consider the priority of Facebook to determine budgets, timing, manpower, etc
- Who will be handling the administrative aspects and ongoing communication via your Facebook page? Are there multiple internal constituents that will want to sign off on posts? You should also plan for the inevitable real time need to respond to help requests or issues with your product or service. Lastly, check to see if your company has a social media policy. It will likely need to be modified to reflect the real time nature of Facebook and your publishing strategy.
- What is your brand personality and messaging tone? Consider adapting that for a social media environment where character limitations will challenge the traditional messaging architecture.
- What other social media tools should you use; and how will those differ in message, tone and purpose from your Facebook page? i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, company blog)
- How will you handle spam and response management to make your Facebook page a safe destination? As spam has increased, what words or terms do you want to track and moderate? Facebook provides the basic ability to delete unwanted comments and report or block users who violate Facebook’s Statements of Rights and Responsibilities. Page administrators tend to use these functions while going through whichever moderation process they use, which brings us to the three moderation methods: manual, automatic and one that combines the previous two.
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Step 2 – Create an Engaging, Ongoing Experience
- Speak in your brand or business voice, but respect the Facebook platform for length of post. Also, look to how your fans comment to adjust for tone and approachability. Vary first and third person to relfect the conversational approach that is appropriate for a particular piece of content.
- Plan to vary your posts to include multimedia posts: Vary and keep posts engaging and eye-catching. Consider polls or quizzes to engage your fans in a two-way conversation.
- Utilize the power of the news feed: Vitrue has found the news feed to be 110 times greater reach,
- Optimize and customize Tab content that can be used periodically in conjunction with your news feed. With the news feed moving so rapidly you should include compelling, informative and engaging content or promotions via a coupon that harnesses the ongoing constant presence of a Tab.
- Target your posts: Segment your fans through geo-location and language for relevancy using Open Graph objects.
- Use custom URL to shorten links: Give your links authenticity and protect your analytics from competitors by using a custom or branded shortening tool for long URLs.
Step 3 – Develop a Conversational Calendar:
- Start with a 14 or 30-day advanced planning to layout events, topics and content that might be meaningful to your brand advocates. Planning in advance will maximize the time you have to create meaningful and appropriate content
- Evaluate the number of posts for optimal reception by your fans. We currently recommend staggering messaging for most businesses to 2-3 times a day. This should vary if you are a media outlet publishing real time news content versus a B2B product or service.
- Time of day/day of week matters. Consider the context of your business and when it makes sense to communicate. For example, if you are a restaurant, before lunch and early evening prior to dinner might be optimal times for posting.
- Remember and capitalize on special events, holidays, news or milestones that are specific to your business that might be of interest to your followers, i.e. Labor Day is prime time for sales of consumer home goods
- Lastly, but not least: measure to manage. Track responses to your post by type, day, time as well as plays and shares. This will help you iterate your calendar, post type and posting schedule.
This post is intended to be a high-level summary to get you started and moving in the right direction. Clearly social media is vast and requires ongoing refinement and thinking. Please leave your thoughts or comments below on what has worked well for you in using Facebook as a Strategic Marketing Channel.
Erika Jolly Brookes is Vice President, Marketing at Vitrue. Follow her on twitter @ebrookes or email her at erika@vitrue.com.
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You’re probably familiar with the basics of search engines and Google rankings…but did you know that LinkedIn lets you manipulate your profile information to achieve higher rank?
LinkedIn profiles rank high on Google organic search. If you want to influence ‘getting found’ on Google, an optimized LinkedIn profile will get you there.
Here’s how it’s done:
1. Create your public profile
2. Select Full View – very important
3. Create a ‘vanity’ URL…i.e., instead of the default URL, customize your profile with your name. For example, mine is www.LinkedIn.com/in/VictoriaIpri
4. Use this link in your email signature, on your web page, when you comment on a blog, and other places across the web to boost your visibility
The Green Buzz Agency Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people
Along with optimizing your vanity URL, promote your website to Google and other search engines through the links right there on your profile page. You know that spot that says “My Website”? Don’t leave it that way! Edit the tag by clicking on ‘Edit’, then ‘Other’, then type in your actual website name so it appears on your profile page.
As well, if you have a blog, use the new blog App to link your blog posts to your profile page. Then be sure to add the URL of your blog in the additional available line back where you modified your website URL a second ago.
Ta Da! Instant Optimization!
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is not difficult if you know what to do. We know what to do…so let us help you. Contact me, Victoria Ipri, at 800-614-4619, or email me at ModelloMedia@gmail.com to learn more about affordable, professional profile optimization that can bring stunning results.
Victoria Ipri is CEO of Ontogeny, Inc., a full service Internet marketing firm with an emphasis on copywriting and social media. She welcomes your questions and comments about optimizing your LinkedIn profile. Look around the Green Buzz Agency Blog for her other excellent articles on Linkedin.
Feel free to send an invite to connect with members of Green Buzz Agency on Linkedin: Tod Plotkin, Sara Evans, Jennie Nowers, Brittney Grove, and Jennie Ryon. Or join the Green Buzz Agency Linkedin Group.
You can see them just up ahead, glimmering in the social media sun like gold nuggets—your potential clients. You may know who you wish to target, but how do you entice them to get to know you…without fruitless cold-calling and a potentially obnoxious hard-sell?
Social networking allows you to establish camaraderie and build a rapport, literally from scratch, without ever leaving your desk. It’s never been easier to get in front of your dream client…if you know how to leverage the power of LinkedIn.
Grab Your Prospecting Pan…We’re Going IN!
During the gold prospecting days of the 1800s, the gold pan was the tool of choice, used to sample the soil to find the richest areas. But a pan was only a pan if you didn’t know how to use it correctly. The skilled prospector had to shake the pan just so, to allow gravel to slough away, revealing any valuable gold nestled beneath.
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Fast forward to 2010. You are the prospector. LinkedIn is the gold pan… excellent for prospecting, but only if you know how to shake away the time-wasters and find the gold… people who are looking for your products and services.
How do you demonstrate your value? By optimizing your profile. Here are four ways to make your profile work for you:
- Tagline: Found right under your name on your profile page, the ‘tagline’ tells people what you do, who you are, and the value you provide.
- Web links: Link to your website, blog or articles to show, not tell, what you’re all about. Perception is reality, right? Don’t make people dig for what they want to know. Put it out there where they can easily see it.
- Summary: Tell your story! Let your potential clients know who you are, how you can solve their problems and what differentiates you from the competition.
- Recommendations: Satisfied clients will tell your story many times over, and more effectively than when it comes from you. Let others sing your praises.
Bring Home the Gold
You’ve got the right pan. You’ve shaken and sifted and sampled the soil. Now it’s time to bring home the gold! Social networks like LinkedIn are great for prospecting, establishing common ground and starting wonderful business relationships. Of course, not every pan-full will yield gold, but like the prospectors of old who hiked to the hills day after day to make that one valuable find, don’t give up. With time, patience and perseverance, fields of gold can be yours.
Victoria Ipri is CEO of Ontogeny, Inc., a full service Internet marketing firm with an emphasis on copywriting and social media. She welcomes your questions and comments about optimizing your LinkedIn profile. Look around the Green Buzz Agency Blog for her other excellent articles on Linkedin.
Feel free to send an invite to connect with members of Green Buzz Agency on Linkedin: Sara Evans, Jennie Nowers, Tod Plotkin, Brittney Grove, and Jennie Ryon. Or join the Green Buzz Agency Linkedin Group.
