After the response I received to the previous cartoon from xkcd.com, I had to come back with another one that caught my attention.For those of you in the true journalism profession, surely this hits home.
Look for a “real” post later this week, but for now enjoy the following…
Please enjoy this guest post by Gary Walker, my colleague over at TopSide Media. It recently appeared on the TopSide blog, and it really hit home since I’m the client who put him through all of this! Gary was great with this project, so take a look at his account of what we did and why.
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Recently we rebuilt and launched a PPC account for an Austin client that had over 3,000 negative keywords. In our 5+ years of search marketing, this was a record at TopSide. The research and collaboration with our client on negative keywords was very productive, and took about as many days as all the other components combined.
A quick definition of negative or excluded keywords is as follows: a filter that prevents ads from showing. They are used to exclude aspects in your business category that you don’t want to trigger an ad for your particular business. Negatives (or NKWs as we call them around the office) increase overall efficiency of online ads. Proper use of negative keywords increases the CTR clickthrough rate, and this an important indicator of efficiency and relevance. The search engine ad programs reward efficiency with a lower CPC cost per click. More relevant ads usually produce a higher conversion rate and lower cost per conversion also.
Although in many ways they are opposite, like “positive” keywords that are used to trigger PPC ads, negative keywords can be single words or phrases. In some PPC ad programs, such as Google AdWords, negative keywords have broad , phrase, and exact matching options. Once an account is built and launched, we use a report called a Search Query report to look for additional negative keywords and topics for additional refinement.
The example we referred to is a Business-to-Business advertiser. B-to-B companies, particularly those in technology, tend to need more advanced negative keywords and tactics. The reason: many enterprise technology products and services have consumer level counterparts. Some of these (a couple of examples would be anti-virus and data backup /storage) are even free. In addition to negative keywords, filtering text in the ads can help filter out individuals who are not good prospects for a specialized or more costly product or service.
In summary, to make the most of your search marketing budget, a significant number of refinements are necessary to the default settings in PPC ad programs. Some of these are done up front, and more need to be done as search and click data comes in.
Surely you have seen the news by now that Google allows certain employees to manually adjust index rankings under special circumstances. Needless to say, the implications are rather widespread.
According to what I’ve read, employees sometimes have to make a judgment call about whether to lower a site’s ranking for a particular keyword or set of keywords. The main scenario where this is deemed “okay” by Google is when companies vertically integrate to a content-heavy model, using existing “SEO Juice” to enjoy visibility that is not yet deserved. That certainly seems like a good thing, does it not? Particularly since big brands can leverage existing budgets, SEO benefits, etc. much more easily than the smaller outfits or self-employed. In a sense, it can serve to provide a little bit of level to the playing field, whether inconsequential or not.
The issue that this raises is much more concerning, though. If employees can manually adjust rankings based on that situation, what else might be going on “behind the curtain?”
Let’s look at a few spins on this scenario where this is particularly concerning:
Obviously, you have to presume that Google takes every precaution possible to employ honest, trustworthy individuals. But even the most stringent interviewing, background checks, and even IQ/Compatibility testing can be fooled or just plain incorrect. In other words, in a company of this magnitude, you can’t hit the bullseye every single time you make a hire.
When you insert human judgment into the equation, everything changes. This mystical and ever-changing Google “Formula” is no longer strictly driven by rules and standards. The whole model comes under question. And, much to Google’s chagrin, they may no longer be able to keep their”secret sauce” so close to the vest, lest the company open itself up to an onslaught of potential legal challenges.
As perplexed as I am about the news, I’m also intrigued to see where this takes us. Will the “new Microsoft” finally take its first big legal smack to the face? Will this blow over without much ado? I don’t know about you, but I want to be sure that they are actually doing everything they say they are. One lie suggests there may be more, so best of luck to the Google PR department on getting some rest over the coming days and weeks.
What do you think? Am I overthinking this, or do you also have issues now with their credibility? Can you afford to bail on AdWords completely, or is it too important to your ongoing operations to bail?
Thanks to the very amusing folks over at xkcd.com for the following cartoon. Just remember, word of mouth is great, but use some common sense in the process.
As I’ve mentioned in this space previously, I have spent a great deal of time of late evaluating various marketing related technologies to build out some efficiencies and adopt some of the newer tricks out there. Last month I dug into my view on the content management space. As it turns out, several of the content management and WEM vendors also include Marketing Automation. So I thought I’d talk a little how to use it to nurture leads.
If you already work in Marketing, there’s a good chance you already know what this means. Just to be certain we’re all on the same page, let’s put out there a quick definition to get on common ground.
Marketing Automation is a software-based solution that offers advanced email marketing functionality such as drip marketing, multi-step campaigns, landing page generation, and full analytical tracking. It also can include more advanced message testing and targeting features not commonly found in simple email marketing products.
Essentially, these products exist to help marketing teams better nurture and qualify leads in the early stages of the sales funnel. That way, once a lead makes it to sales, the person is more likely to be qualified, interested, and ready to dig in to consider the product in detail. They likely have a real project and budget, maybe even a desired time line, leading to a true opportunity waiting and ready for your sales team.
In order to achieve that vision just described, it is absolutely critical that you think carefully about how you want to designate what a qualified lead is. This can be done very simply, or it can be quite complicated in larger enterprises or businesses with a broad product portfolio.
The simplest example of how to implement lead scoring is to start with a multi-step campaign. Let’s say that, once you identify a new lead, they go into an automated campaign that sends the following emails:
Like I said, this is very simple. Basically, you are providing a little more motivation to respond each time. If this does not get a response, then perhaps they are not ready to buy quite yet. Or maybe they haven’t gotten the project approved, even though they will. But one way or the other, they were willing to let you be in touch with them. Unless they unsubscribe, you still have a reason to push on.
If you try the simple approach above, a certain minority of the contacts added to the database will convert. But you will still have quite a lot of names who did not respond, but who may one day still be a potential customer. For these contacts, you need to have a long-term drip marketing approach in your back pocket.
Drip marketing works similar to multi-step campaigns, except it loops in analytics and progressive profiling. That way, you can build an understanding of who they are, what they care about (particularly content and offers on your website and in emails), and how likely a true purchase is in the future. In most cases, it is absolutely crucial that email open and click data, web site paths and behaviors, and any dripped data fields be aggregated in a single Marketing Automation product.
Going into much more detail here would make this blog post a candidate for splitting into multiple entries, so I may take a moment in the future to dig into specifics. For now, just know who you want to sell to, know how to understand when they are ready to consider your product, and have a concrete set of standards for identifying true opportunities, then build your web content, site map, and email campaigns to “lead the horse to water”, to coin a tired-but -appropriate cliche.
In case it didn’t jump out at you, lead-scoring is the key to this whole approach. Sales teams have been scoring leads for years, so if you find yourself struggling to figure out how to score prospects, get some face time with whomever it is who does your sales pipeline management. Their model may or may not be ideal for you since it’s focused on actually closing the deals, but seeing how they build from first contact through a closed deal or lost deal is something you can extend out to earlier stages of the life cycle. That’s the part Marketing should be managing on behalf of sales anyway, and if frees up your sales team to generate revenue more quickly once leads and opportunities do make it to them.
Do you use a solid lead-scoring system? What works for you?
Everyone out there is talking about social media, the new opportunities and risks it poses, and how to best use it. In response, your peers have begun an aggressive push to figure out what the various tools, sites, and techniques can offer their business. This is a great thing, one that I’ve been cheering on since the start.
In reality, we’ve only taken baby steps toward really getting this all figured out in both a personal and business context. With so much left to learn and so many different opinions about this fast-changing area, it’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of mastering some new tricks.
“Generate content. Generate more content. Be sure it’s relevant. The eyeballs will come!”
What about the “eyeballs”? Sure, relevant content written in a compelling manner will attract attention. That should make the information sources happy. Who is looking out for the consumers of the content?
In case you are unfamiliar with the term, Citizen Journalism involves the “public” taking an active role in researching, analyzing, summarizing, and sharing new, information, data, gossip, multimedia, etc. that other members of the public would want to consume and/or discuss. If you think about all of the social media tools available to us — bookmarking, blogging, networking, content sharing — they are geared toward exactly that means.
This sort of empowerment of voice is truly a breakthrough that the Internet has been so kind as to provide us. But how would one know when something is “true” or “correct”? Sure, there are easy ways to do this based on public opinion, but then again, does popularity really prove anything, except the fact that a writer can get and hold your attention?
It is essential that you take a critical eye toward everything you read online. Even the stuff written by the “experts” or “thought leaders”. The following is a quick 6-question guide for completing a “stink test” on anything you read online.
This is the no-brainer, and the premise behind Google Caffeine. If you know someone, their intelligence level, their credibility and trustworthiness, and their ability to assimilate information, why wouldn’t you put credence into their thoughts and opinions? If they are trustworthy and dependable, you know they won’t bend the truth just to make a point. And if you know them, you likely also know what their area of specialty is, which should significantly enhance your confidence in their writings on said topic.
Whether you are a fan of Caffeine (the search logic, not the stimulant) or not, it was built on a sound assumption that I anticipate will be proven useful. Don’t just search for me based on cryptic formulas and keywords; also filter those results for the colleagues and friends with whom I’ve already established a base level of credibility.
Extending out one more degree away from you (even Kevin Bacon would be proud), you don’t have to necessarily know someone personally to quickly establish credibility. When a trusted contact of mine makes a recommendation, I take it at face value. If you are like most of us, you likely do the same.
Think about Twitter for a moment. They’ve taken this concept and run with it. For example…Retweets, Lists, and even Follow Friday. Those traditions are all various methods of connecting people to each other (or to each other’s content) via recommendation. They are popular for a reason, and this is it.
This is where reputation comes into play. The first two tests are the most obvious and easiest to answer. For anyone who doesn’t make it through those filters, it makes sense to then consider public opinion. Are they a well-respected thought leader, a’la Chris Brogan (Social Media), Erin Jacobs (IT and Information Security), or Seth Godin (Marketing Strategies)? Do many of their peers seem to link to them?
It is important to consider whether someone is popular because they are already in established media, or whether they were popular on their own right before going in print or on the radio/television. All the three examples above established strong personal identities on their own merit. That’s what you need to look for.
Perhaps the person under question for you is an unknown commodity, to you, your peers, and to the general public. Don’t just assume that means their opinions are not important. If you like a piece they’ve written, take a few moments to peruse more of their work. Share some of the “eyeball” love! You just might be the person whom your peers will trust when they are evaluating the same individual’s work in the near future.
Hmmm, so you and your peers don’t know the person, they aren’t an established thought leader or information source, and you’ve read more of their work…but you still can’t determine the difference between fact or “quack”.
Compare notes. Do a quick search on the topic under question. See what others are saying. Is this a popular opinion or a unique one? Do you agree with popular opinion or not? Perhaps the masses are still singing the same old song while this one person truly gets it! Or perhaps the writing was hammered out while under a peyote-induced haze. This is where you need to really insert some of your own rationale into the process, as in…
That’s right. There is no perfect system, but at the end of the day, what do you really think? Did the writing move you to change your mind about something? Is that a sensible reaction or not? This isn’t saying to blindly accept something as fact, but quite the opposite. By this point, you’ve done enough consideration of whether they are credible or not. You’ve seen what peers, experts, and popular opinion think about them or the topic. Read, analyze, draw your own conclusions, and move on. Or maybe you can just post your thoughts to a blog, citizen journalism style!
Everyone is jumping on the citizen journalism bandwagon these days. That can be a great thing, but you want to be sure to use some calculated filtering of what you read out there. This isn’t just limited to blogs and social media; be critical of the established media as well.
What approach do you use with user-generated content? Do you tend to believe everything, nothing, or something in between? Do you have a better approach to the “stink test”? Fill me in!
Really got your attention with that headline, didn’t I? It’s not just a ploy to get cheap clicks.
As you are surely aware by now, I’m a huge fan of social media, new media, social networking, sharing/bookmarking, and pretty much every other cool social offering out there. I spend countless hours playing with different services, sites, and techniques on a weekly basis. Heck, I’ve met some good friends and amazing colleagues through various forms of social networking.
Let’s get one thing straight though…most of what is being thrown around as strategic advice is nothing but some good ol’ fashioned hype. Yes, there is a time and place for social networking and social media. Yes, there appears to be a list of actual money-making techniques that can be employed to derive financial value from these services. But a great deal of this yammering about ROI is just that…talk.
I’ve seen a few select examples of how social media can be used for B2B in a measurable fashion, but I’ve also seen many more examples of futile attempts at replicating these successes. And that’s not even to mention the widespread list of social media “gurus” and “experts” who throw around pie-in-the-sky advice about how you should be using social media. My message to them: Show me real world examples.
I recall earlier in my career when the Internet and email marketing were the hot trends. We had long conversations about our “email marketing strategy”, right after we finished talking about our “trade show strategy”, “web site strategy”, and “direct mail strategy.” We thought we were cutting edge, until someone who actually knew what they were talking about chimed in.
No one in the room could give a reasonable answer to that question. Luckily, I was just a couple of years out of school, so I could chalk up my “deer in the headlights” response to inexperience. But today I’m seeing the same trend. I see all of these people talking about social media strategy, content strategy, even Twitter strategy!
Let’ s get one thing straight – a strategy requires high level thinking. A medium is simply a tactic that should support a true strategy. Twitter, my friends, is a tactic, a medium. Plain and simply.
Now, many of the consultants out there will sell you on why you need a “social media strategy.” I agree that you need a plan for how to integrate social media into your business operations. But social media as the strategy itself? What’s the objective behind it…to meet a bunch of cool people and LOL/LMAO/LMFAO our way to the bank? Maybe it is a real and profitable strategy for the smart entrepreneurs, pundits, and consultants who keep dangling shiny new toys and techniques in front of you. For the rest of us, we need to take a chill pill and think for a second.
This is a very important point. You work for a business (or run a business in some of your cases). That business has important metrics to meet in order to succeed. Those metrics might be growing revenue, signing up “n” new customers, reducing business expenses, or even “keeping” the loyal and profitable customers or clients with whom you’ve built valuable relationships.
What do these metrics have to do with the subject of this post? Strategy must be derived from important business objectives. It must also be measured against real business metrics to benchmark success. The metrics should be driving the objectives, which in turn should be driving your strategic decisions. Then, and only then, should you turn your attention to go-to-market tactics.
Strategic thinking is very important, and a simple objectives/strategy/tactics model should prove very helpful in keeping this all in perspective. Let’s start talking about how to fit social media into our existing businesses and our overall media mix in a truly integrated fashion. This argument is not a new one; I was having conversations like this in the mid-90s!
What do you think? Do you view social media as a strategy? Is that a realistic way to look at it? It’s most certainly not just a “fad”, as I’ve heard many baby boomers refer to it. The Internet was tailor made for this sort of interaction, so that narrow viewpoint is extremely naive.
Will you think about it differently now, or did you already manage to sort all this out for yourself amidst the hype?
I’ve spent a lot of time recently researching for a new Web Content Management System to replace the HTML-based static website for Anue Systems. In my extensive research, I learned something rather concerning: this is a diverse, fragmented, and most of all, confusing market!
Luckily, I was able to read enough and pick Julie Hunt‘s brain enough to feel like I finally have a clear grasp of the differences. Since there was no “quick start” guide that was concise and written in language for marketers, I decided to take it upon myself to share some of the key findings to date.
Some of this may seem elementary to you if you are a research analyst type, but this is written for marketing practitioners. The people who often must select just such a product for their (or their clients’) real web marketing needs.
Here is my view of the market:
These are not the gamut of offerings, because I saw other offerings that did some or all of these activities, plus marketing automation or email marketing in many cases. Those which do not offer this capability often partner with email marketing providers to provide a joint offering of services.
If you want to learn more about these technologies, I’ve found CMS Wire to be helpful, albeit a bit incomplete. Hopefully they beef up the content in the near future, because the big analyst firms simply don’t cover this part of the market well.
What are you using to manage your website? Is it working? What are the support challenges and hidden costs? I’d love to hear your thoughts; it will help more than you may know!
