ePlus Notes: Internet Marketing | SEO | Website Globalization BLOG

Corporate Policy for Social Media

2010-09-01T10:35:00.002-05:00

So your company or marketing department is into social media. But you have questions like:

How should we handle negative comments on Blog posts and other social media?
How should we handle comments that go beyond negative and are completely misleading and false?
How should we handle blogs and posts that give misleading and harmful information and we do not control the site?
Internally, how should the company address employees using social media?
Should all sales people have their own blog and Twitter account?
How do we make sure employees are posting information in line with our brand and message?
What happens if employees post something on their Facebook or other social medial sites that is inappropriate or just in poor taste? Can we tell them to take it down?

These questions will be answered tomorrow at the Business Marketing Association. Lunch. Starting at 11:30 you'll hear from the marketing and legal point of view.

Here's the link for more info: https://bma-stl.worldsecuresystems.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=98970

Marketers Missing the Boat When It Comes to Boardroom Discussions

2010-02-04T10:21:00.003-06:00

“Today’s Marketer, Tomorrow’s Growth Leader?” was the topic of the BMA St. Louis luncheon in last week. The speaker was Scott Davis, author of several books including “The Shift, The Transformation of Today’s Marketers into Tomorrow’s Growth Drivers” which was released in May 2009. Scott is an adjunct professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and has over 20 years of brand, marketing strategy and new product development experience.

Scott’s presentation was how marketers are missing the boat when it comes to board room discussions because they don’t talk about what the board is focused on which is mainly increasing profits. Davis explained how marketing is really made up of what most traditionally trained marketers refer to as the “Four P’s of Marketing” which include product, price, promotion and placement (a.k.a. distribution). When it comes to marketing, most only see it in terms of promotion. Even in the promotion area marketing is often split between “marketing departments” and sales.

I agree with Scott. After graduating from the University of Missouri – Columbia with a B.S.B.A. in Marketing I was surprised to see that most “marketers” totally ignored all aspects of marketing and only concerned themselves with promotions. I worked at an advertising agency as an account representative and then in management. The agency only focused on creative and ad placement – hardly ever strategy or how it relates to price, product or placement. But in reality, you have to follow the money. Ad agency’s revenue comes from billing for creative and ad placement. So naturally, they are going to be focused on this rather the big picture.

In my other marketing roles within other industries, I found it to be the same problem: people equate marketing with promotions and only promotions. My theory is that traditionally trained marketers only have themselves to blame. First, they don’t educate others on marketing. Next, as Scott said in last week’s meeting, marketers really don’t talk in terms of revenue and profits.

Many people that I have run into are in marketing positions but don’t have a formal education in marketing. They are trained in communications, journalism, advertising or sales. Others come from disciplines that don't study business such as engineering and graphic arts. When they land in a key marketing position, these marketers need to train themselves on such things as profits, loss, and revenue. They need to know how to calculate gross and net profit and be familiar with a balance sheet, income statement and equate how all aspects of marketing affect these reports.

With the Internet it is much easier to quantify a return on investment. It’s easier to measure key marketing tactics, spending and results. However, integrating your entire online and offline marketing and knowing how it affects PL is critical in proving its value to the bottom line.

However, marketers need to be involved with the other marketing P’s. They should be asking tough questions. What is the pricing strategy and how is it working? Can the product be improved or altered to affect sales? What stage of the product life cycle is your product in and what is the proven strategy for that product stage? How can you improve profits with different distribution channels? Marketers need to know how to ask these questions and be in the forefront of answering the questions.

Will there be a shift so that more marketers become growth leaders? They can only if they fully understand and participate in an organization’s growth in terms of numbers and strategy by utilizing the four P’s of Marketing.

Integrated Marketing Summit

2009-12-18T09:56:00.001-06:00

Last week I was a presenter at the Integrated Marketing Summit at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis. Thirty speakers came from across the US to present and attend seminars and discussions regarding integrated marketing. It was exciting to see so many people interested in learning more about the new dynamics of marketing. Shawn Elledge and Elizabeth Usovic, the organizers of the event, did an excellent job of gathering great speakers and putting together this event.

My presentation was on affordable tools regarding social media, Website conversion and lead management. I reviewed a few tools that would help marketers attract new leads to their Website, convert them into prospects and help manage the lead/prospect and sales process. You can download my presentation on the Integrated Marketing Summit Website.

Talking with various attendees, I found a wide range of knowledge level about these topics. There were the advanced marketers who are engaged in lead scoring and ranking software and doing some interesting things with integrating online and off line marketing tactics. Plus, there were also a number of novice online marketers who are just now getting into an integrated marketing approach.

The summit attendees seemed to me, to be more heavily attended by corporate marketers rather than agencies. I found this extremely interesting since many of the agencies involved with Internet development and strategy in St. Louis are lacking in some of the tools and strategy presented at the Summit.

Everyone seems keenly interested in social media topics. Presentations around social media had the biggest draw. That is not surprising since many are still trying to get their arms around the idea of social networking. Companies today are slowly realizing that the consumer is in charge of the brand. The ways of brand management from several years ago is changing and social media is a big part of the change.

However, social media is really just another attraction and communication tool. But what happens after the click in terms of lead management, customer relationship management, customer retention and leveraging customers. These topics, strategies and tactics are being overlooked again by many who are going after the next shinny object.

Overall, I thought the Summit was great. I don’t know anyone that can’t learn one more thing or look at what they’re doing in a different light. Just being around other great marketers was an energy and creative boost in itself. I plan on continual involvement with the Summit. For those who were not able to attend, be sure to watch for next year’s Summit. It promises to come back bigger and better in 2010.

Get More Out of your 2010 Marketing Budget

2009-11-02T09:18:00.001-06:00

It’s that time of year again, next year’s budget. You’ve probably been working on next years budget already and wondering how you are going to squeeze more dollars for marketing to achieve your sales goals. In today’s environment marketing budgets are usually being slashed. However, there are ways you can stretch your media dollars.

First, take a look at what your competitors are spending. Research keywords that your competitors are paying for and track their spending over an extended period of time. This information could confirm your keyword spending direction. Spyfu Kombat is a paid keyword research service that lets you track historical keyword analyses. If keyword spending is major part of your budget this tool may come in handy for you.

It probably goes without saying, but if you can demonstrate the value of marketing dollars spent now it goes a long way when asking for more or validating why you should keep your current budget. Your agency should be helping you with ROI reports through out the year. If you don’t have a way to calculate your current ROI this should be the first thing you do.

Other valuable investments should be made in testing tools and content. These areas will get the best bang for your buck. These two areas are often over looked and under valued.

eMarketer’s October 29th article “Bad Campagin Worse than None at All” illustrates what happens when you have a bad campaign. The same is true for bad landing pages. Invest in either purchasing testing tools or starting with some free tools and learning how to effectively use them. If your budget doesn’t allow you to purchase testing tools start with Google Website Optimizer.

Good content is another great investment. How to articles and press releases with great content can give you long-term return. We are still getting traffic from articles and press releases we posted over three years ago. Invest in getting a professional writer to help generate great content.

Another investment with long-term return is email marketing. Continue to build your email list. Yes, having thousands of followers on Twitter is great, but the best impact we’ve seen is in email marketing. We’ve seen people on email list for several years who finally take action. This is especially true for companies with long sales cycles.

The trend has been lately that budgets from off-line marketing have been going into online marketing. We’ve seen the same thing. However, don’t give up on the off-line. Having a well integrated marketing approach is your best strategy. Using tools wisely, testing and the right measurements will get you the best marketing ROI in 2010.

Why being ranked high in Google may hurt your business.

2009-10-26T11:04:00.001-05:00

Recently, I was at a networking event, and I ran into several people who were discussing Internet marketing. Some of the people were quite proud about how well their Website was ranked in Google. In further discussion I quickly learned that this seemingly positive accomplishment was actually hurting them and they didn’t even realize it.

Being highly ranked in Google, should be something to boast. However, as the conversation went on they revealed the actual phrases for which they were highly ranked. On learning the phrases, I immediately knew that their accomplishments were not only worthless, they were hurting the company.

One person was a small business owner who was a typical DIY “do it yourself”. If they can “save money” and do it your self they would. Typically, these people place little value on professionals of any type. That is, until they get into trouble. They will never see the difference between the product shot they took and the professional photographer’s beautiful photography. They see no difference between the DIY legal documents for trademarks compared to the experienced trademark attorney. They will always feel that they are ahead of the game for anything they can do themselves and not pay someone else to do.

Here’s a tip for salespeople and service professionals, do not waste your time on the typical DIY. They will never pay you what you’re worth, nor will they appreciate what you do for them. To them, cheap is always better. Some of these people may be successful but they will not go beyond a certain point because they will not hire professionals for key areas. Until they see the value of professional work they will always be stuck at a given plateau.

This guy was no different. He was bragging about how his Website was ranked third in Google. He also bragged about how he did it himself with little effort. The phrase that it was ranked high in was his company name. To make it even more obvious to most marketers, his company name is his last name which is not a common name at all. It wasn’t the time, or the place, to inform this poor man in front of his colleagues, that his Website without much effort should be placed high for his company name. Or educate him on what search terms he should try to achieve high ranking. I suspect that my information on his site rankings would fall on deaf ears.

Next, he was proud of the fact that his site was ranked high for a few product names. But further discussion disclosed too that these names were irrelevant. They were not names people use to search for his product. They were more company specific names.

You might be thinking well at least this site is ranked high in something, so why would it hurt the company? It is hurting the company because this company owner will have a long learning curve on what is really important and why he should pay a professional to do his search engine optimization. This long learning curve is costing him money. What typical DIY people miss is the value of ROI, return on investment. They may understand that term on some level, but what they miss is that professionals, used in the right way, can catapult their company’s revenues and profits. For each dollar they spend with a professional they should see a minimum return of three dollars.

It might take months, even years, before he realizes that his company name and obscure in-house product names are not the search terms people use to find his products. Pride and ego may never allow this Website owner to hire truly professional marketers, but in time he may realize that he is not getting the results he needs. I have often seen people with this mindset then conclude that the Internet just doesn’t work for their industry or product.

The terms he should be ranked high on are the terms his customers use to find his products. He should not pay too much attention to the terms his company uses to describe the products. Industry terminology may be appropriate if you are trying to attract people who are inside your industry. You need to research the keywords and phrases your target audience is using. Plus, understand most people search for the problem they have rather than the solution. Understand your customers first and then develop, modify and optimize your Website accordingly.

Until you understand the terms your customers are using to find your products or service, I wouldn’t waste too much time trying to rank your site for terms you think are important. And if you run across someone who is the typical DIY marketer you can always try to inform them of best practices, but beware that they usually have to find out the hard way.

Increasing Website Conversion – The Missing Step

2009-10-20T10:13:00.002-05:00

Time and time again I see business owners, product managers, marketing directors or namely anyone responsible to the profit and loss of their product, division or company miss the boat when it comes to Website conversion. They either don’t know, forget or don’t understand the value of testing.

When I mention the word “testing” to some people I see their eyes roll back, or I get a blank stare. Some have an idea what testing is, but don’t want to spend the money. Others have no idea what I’m referring to and don’t want to admit it.

Let’s start with what testing means. First, of all it doesn’t mean that all your links, forms and functionality work. That’s a programmer’s view point on testing. What I mean about testing is testing your message, text, graphic and layout. What’s the point? Well, it can mean a huge difference in increasing Website conversion. If you’re not sure about the value of Website conversion read how a 1% increase in Website conversion could mean a 160% increase in profits. Without testing you are most likely losing a boat load of money.

Just about everything should be tested, but when talking about Web conversion and testing you are usually dealing with page elements such as your headline, call to action, page layout, price the offer, etc. There are two types of testing we usually conduct and I recommend both. We utilize A/B split testing and multi-variate testing with live target audience tests and Website traffic tests.

A/B split testing means that you are testing two different page elements or pages. Site visitors or testers see either version A or version B. Multi-variate testing means that you are testing, as the name implies, multiple variations. This test could include the header, call to actions, graphics, offers, etc. and these are tested all at once.

One of the fastest ways to get some immediate feedback on your page elements is by conducting a live test with your target audience. The live target audience test consists of testing several members of your target audience one at a time. This can be done in-person or online. We use to use this method exclusively for usability (how easy is the site to use) but with each test we found valuable marketing/conversion information. Unless we test strictly for usability, we refer to this test as live test.

With online or in-person testing you first develop a set of questions. These questions include how the target audience perceives elements of the landing page. With tools like GoToMeeting and Camtasia you can test and record the subject’s moves and voice. Unless you have sophisticated tools, with this method you lack seeing the person’s body language including their facial expressions. However, even without this information online tests can yield valuable information.

The second type of testing is using a tool like Google Website Optimizer. Of course there are expensive programs out there that will yield more information, but don’t over this free tool. Let’s say you think your home page, landing page or shopping cart page is not performing as well as you like. Perhaps your designer wants to use graphic A and you think you should use graphic B. Instead of long discussion about which one to use you let the audience decide. So you run both on your site. One half of your audience will see version A and the other half will see version B. You count which one had the most conversion and that one wins.

With Google Website Optimizer you can also test the headline, call to action, text, layout, price and other page elements. This test will help you put together a super page which can have tremendous effects upon your Website conversion.

Before you spend another dime on advertising you should have your marketing team test. Pay-per-click is getting more and more expensive and search engine optimization takes long and can be costly too. First test your page elements and then turn on the advertising. Test again and advertise more. With the increased conversion rate you’ll be making more money which you can invest in more traffic.

In testing there is one rule to follow: test everything and always be testing.

Target Audiences Change

2009-10-12T10:30:00.003-05:00

Before we undertake any project we first conduct research and analysis. Skipping this step means that you are basing your project on instinct rather than facts. One of the elements in this step is examining the target audience. Analyzing the target audience and clearly understanding who they are and why they buy is critical in the success of your marketing strategy.

In most cases we ask our client to describe their target audience. What separates us from most companies is that we don’t assume anything. Lately we found that several companies were going after the wrong target audience. Their sales where sluggish at best and the company’s marketing efforts had poor returns.

My previous post on the presentation by Aimee Davis of Solutia, is an excellent example of going after the wrong target audience. The post talked about branding but what made a huge difference in Aimee’s strategy is that they focused on a different target audience. Prior to Ms. Davis’ work at Solutia the target audience was the final consumer of the end product rather than the direct buyer of the material who then produces the final product. Changing the focus to the direct buyer plus changes in the brand strategy resulted in the best quarter ever at Solutia.

Recently, one of our clients hired us to completely re-vamp their entire marketing strategy. This company wanted to reach the top marketing person at large (45 plus million in sales) corporations. However, upon examining the situation including the product, the offer, and the buying cycle, we found that that while they may want to attract large corporations it was not their target. The target audience - on average- no longer had a need for their product. Our client has a great product and there clearly is a need for the product, but the need is within mid-size and smaller companies.

Over ten years ago the target audience to the larger firms worked. However, this audience’s needs were being met with new technology and new players. These changes did not register with the client and sales were slipping. They thought they were keeping up with the times because they added new selling techniques, a new Website and utilized new technology but they never re-examined the need of their target audience. They were getting a few sales and continually thought they didn’t have good sales people and/or their marketing “creative” wasn’t good enough.

Changing the focus from who they wanted the client to be to the target audience that really had a need for their product made all the difference. With a change in the target audience and tweaking the message and offer made a huge difference in the success of their marketing.

Target audiences change and keeping an eye on these changes can make a significant impact on your marketing dollar return on investment.

Branding from the Experts!

2009-10-05T11:12:00.004-05:00

Last week I attended a wonderful presentation at the Business Marketing Association. The presenter was Aimee Davis, Global Marketing Communications Manager at Solutia. The topic was on branding and how in 2006, Solutia’s performance products division was suffering from brand confusion. Undeterred by these challenges, our speaker, Ms. Davis, helped bring these product brands under the branded house of Saflex, increasing brand recognition worldwide.

Aimee talked about how, with research, they discovered the problems associated to their brand which included: there was a lack of consistency and focus in market-facing activities, spreading their message across multiple brands with unclear relationships and promoting products and not a clearly defined “company” brand.

She then reminded us what a brand means and outline that a brand is:

• It’s what we stand for; it’s a promise!
• Must be aligned with business strategy.
• Helps position offerings in the minds of the market, customers and employees.
• It’s a company asset containing long-term equity.

And she outlined the benefits of a strong brand:
• Brand loyalty drives repeat business
• Creates preference > “premium pricing”
• Instant creditability with new product introductions
• Customers will be more loyal to you in a time of crisis
• People want to work for / work with brand leaders

To many professional marketers this outline is straight from brand strategy 101. However, what many marketers do is forget about the fundamentals and glance over the obvious. Going back to the fundamentals is essential in marketing. The first activity Solutia took was research. This is the least appreciated, often over looked activity in marketing. However, research is the lynch-pin to a successful marketing strategy. Without research a marketer is basing their activity on assumptions and guesses rather than facts.

Then Aimee outlined the common misconceptions about branding. Among the list is what I feel are the two most common misconceptions:

• Branding is simply a name and logo
• Brands take care of themselves.

I constantly see companies hire design firms to do their branding. And design firms boost of branding when all they really do is design a nice logo and letterhead. An “identity package” from a design firm is not branding. They never mention research or brand strategy they just keep posting logos and call it "branding". These companies are missing the boat. Now it is perfectly acceptable for a company to hire a design firm to design a logo and indentity materials after the research and brand strategy have been developed. But "indentity materials" without a true brand strategy is just a pretty design.

To many professional marketers this outline is straight from brand strategy 101. However, what many marketers do is forget about the fundamentals and glance over the obvious. Going back to the fundamentals is essential in marketing. Ms. Davis’ presentation confirmed that the fundamental brand strategy process is crucial in developing a strong brand.

Brand strategy is not just for large companies that can afford extensive research and brand strategy specialist. There are excellent professional marketers who not only have the education but have the experience who can help mid-size to small business owners develop, implement and maintain a highly valuable and profitable brand.

Ms. Davis’ presentation was outstanding. She walked us through the logic and strategy of developing a strong brand, implementing an internal and external strategy and concluded with the outcome. As a result of her work, Ms. Davis and the Solutia team have experience in 2Q09 the best quarter in the history of the company. Now that's a brand stratgy with straightforward results!

Fast & Easy Focus Group Testing

2009-09-14T14:05:00.002-05:00

There are several factors to consider when improving conversion of your marketing material. We often talk about Website conversion but any marketing material involves some type of conversion. Granted some conversion is harder to test and measure than others. One aspect of most marketing items includes graphics.

We advocate that you should test everything and test often. It’s not always easy to do. We did find a cool site that allows you to test your graphics. You can upload any jpg, gif or png. You can test the graphic or do a screen shot and test a landing page or print material.

The site is www.fivesecondtest.com and you can join for free and have others test your graphic. You can get a fast reality check which acts like a mini focus group.

You just upload your image and select if you want a classic test (someone views the graphic for 5 seconds and list five things they recall). Or your can do a click test (someone views the graphic, clicks on the first thing that catches their interest and then describe what they click on). It’s that easy.

You can email, the list or post them on Twitter or Facebook. You then view the responses. We’re experimenting with the program now and find it to be very interesting. Its worth trying.

We often test images to see which image we should use in a campaign, Web page, advertisement etc. Our test includes focus groups and online surveys. These test combined with fivesecondtest can give you valuable incite to your images.

Executives and Social Media

2009-09-10T11:45:00.001-05:00

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are all extremely popular and companies are trying to get a handle on how to use them. There is an interesting article today in eMarketer about Executives and Social Media.

Apparently, according to research by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, 8 in 10 management, marketing and HR executives cited relationship and brand building as the primary benefits of social media. So, should you jump on the band wagon and implement a social media strategy and let all your employees tweet away? Not so fast. Reading on in the article you’ll see that a Sophos, a security software company, found that 50 to 60% of companies studied blocked access to social networking sites from the workplace. They sited productivity and security as the primary reasons. So if most companies are blocking social sites who are you reaching?

Like anything else you need to look at the situation and study it. Then develop a strategy for your company or organization. Social media is growing and will continue to do so. There are plenty of reasons why you should consider using LinkedIn and other sites. Like any other marketing tool always be testing. What works today for social media may not work tomorrow. There is definitely a marketing power of Twitter and other sites so explore, experiment, test.

Email Pet Peeves

2009-08-27T10:36:00.001-05:00

One of my biggest email pet peeves is email signatures.

What’s an email signature? Did you ever notice that at the end of some emails you will see not only the email creator’s name, but their phone number, cell phone number, company name, logo, Web site address, etc. It’s amazing how easy this is to do and how many companies simply over look it.

Why is this so important? I’m out of the office a lot. I use my Blackberry to stay connected. I’ll receive an email from someone who wants an immediate reply. It would be SO EASY just to click on their phone number after their name. But do they bother to add their phone number? No. If they’re not in my system they are going to have to wait until I can get their phone number and call them back.

The interesting thing is that the same people who do NOT have an email signature with phone number OR even bother to type it in the email are the same ones that are annoyed that they don’t receive an immediate phone call. When I do return the call I politely tell them that I was out and mention that I could have quickly responded if they would have added their number to the message. The really annoying thing is they repeat the same old habits.

Having the company’s contact and Web site information makes it easy for the recipient to contact you or visit your site. This email signature should be standard for the entire company. Having everyone use the same font, style and format helps build your brand awareness. Adding your phone increases the response time with phone calls. At least with me anyway.

2009-04-21T10:21:00.001-05:00

Ok so I didn't get back to work just yet. Added Plaxo to my Ping.fm and am not sure I want my Blog updated from this tool or not.

2009-04-21T10:17:00.001-05:00

Now that I've gotten connected my 3 top social networking tools. I need to get to work. Back to PPC strategy overview for clients.

2009-04-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

YES!! This worked!! Ping.fm updated Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and my Blog -- all with one tool!! @perrybelcher GREAT TIP!! THANKS!!

2009-04-21T10:06:00.001-05:00

@perrybelcher Thanks for the ping.fm suggestion This may save me alot of time!

What You Don’t Know WILL Hurt You: Intellectual Property and the Internet

2009-04-15T10:45:00.004-05:00

Recently, I attended an extremely interesting and valuable seminar held by the Business Marketing Association The seminar, titled Where the Internet and Intellectual Property Law Collide, was presented by Don Kelly, an intellectual property attorney with Gallop, Johnson and Neuman. As his title implies, Don specializes in, well, intellectual property—things such as trademarks, copyrights, and patents—and how those things apply to Internet marketing.

Don’s topic provided me and the other seminar attendees with some insights that I’m sure will help us—and our clients—steer clear of potential legal trouble related to Internet marketing efforts. As you might imagine, there were a lot of questions—way to many to cover in this short blog. So, I thought I’d share a couple of those that seemed to garner the most interest, along with a paraphrased or high-level answer:

Q: What are the laws pertaining to videos, audio, and other information I pull from other sites to use on my site or blog?

A: A lot of companies and bloggers are posting videos created by artists and companies other than themselves. Even though these videos have been taken from the Internet, they are OK to use as long as you do not claim the work is yours, i.e., acknowledge the creator, and that the purpose is to teach and inform, i.e., this is an example.

Q: Can an employee or contractor who performed work for me, for which they were paid, claim it as there own?

A: If someone works for you as an employee or contract worker they cannot claim work they’ve done for you as their own—in most cases. They should not be using these creations in any manner, on or off-line unless they have written and signed permission to do so. Unfortunately, we all know there are people who are deceitful, desperate or just plain ignorant and will use this work and portray it as their own. In many cases since it reflects so poorly on them, these companies usually stop these practices. In other situations they only stop when forced to do so in court.
One company was more or less being extorted from their graphical design company for extra payment and rights over a logo. The design company felt that they “owned” the trademark they designed for another company. Here’s the law: unless they have a document relinquishing rights and clearly saying, in writing, that they own the trademark, they do not. The company that hired the design company owns the trademark. It appears that in this case the design company may soon be faced with some legal problems. If they’re smart they’ll stop using it – immediately.

Q: Do I need to include a physical address on all of my marketing oriented emails?

A: You are required to include a physical address on all general solicitation emails you send—especially if you acquired the email address to whom you are sending from a third party. You don’t have to have it of course if you are just corresponding to a client, friend, associate, etc. with whom you have an existing business or personal relationship. However, as a matter of best practice, I suggest as a company you should have a standard email signature (see our article on this subject).

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to go deeper into some of the other areas. Nearly everyone I talked with left wanting more. I know I still have many questions pertaining to Google Adwords, email, and some trademark questions. So, due to overwhelming response, ePlus Marketing will be sponsoring another event on this topic in the near future.

If you’re registered for our newsletter you will receive a notice of this presentation. If you’re not on our newsletter list, you might want to sign up now. In addition to being advised and invited to this event, we’ll provide you with all sorts of other tidbits of useful information..

Video Marketing Increasing - Tips on B2B Videos

2009-03-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

Great article today in eMarketer on Video Marketing. The article talks about how online video marketing and advertising is increasing, except in B2B. They concluded that the biggest factor in B2B video marketing is the lack of audio in the office.

I’m sure you’ve seen all types of videos online. To me, the most annoying ones are the ones that pop-up automatically and can’t be turned off. Last week I was on several conference calls and during the conversion we were going to various Websites. One conversation in particular was regarding vendor selection. A particular vendor had a pop-up person.

At first glance having the person pop-up with audio looked interesting. The more interesting ones are when the person appears to be walking in from behind your Web page. It seemed clever to have someone tell you about the Website and company so you don’t have to read. However, during the second visit they become absolutely annoying, especially when you can’t turn them off.

That’s what happened to us during the conference call. In fact, what ended up happening is that we had to leave the site completely and in doing so the vendor dropped off our list. Of course, that’s the worse case scenario and I’ve seen reports where these pop-up people actually increase ROI – but wait, now that I think about it, the reports are always from the video producer – mmmm. We’ll have to do more research on this and get back to you.

Back to the video for B2B marketers. The pop-up audio people or “talking head” videos are not the only method used in when utilizing video. However, the article to us pointed out the obvious. You need subtitles on B2B videos. We’re producing videos for our clients and while the best version of the video is with the voice over, a viewer will be able to get the main points of the video without the sound.

In the article, they state that videos with subtitles were watched 91% to completion, compared with 66% to completion for those without subtitles. While we didn’t have the research to back us up we know how annoying unexpected sound can be in the office. It happens in our office too many times and takes everyone else off task. Plus, we know that many businesses do not have audio available to workers at the office. Its great to have the research data back-up our conclusions. Of course, many graphic artist do not prefer to have text obstruct their work, but just like a Website you must blend form and function with results driven marketing wining every time.

Viral Marketing - Do the unexpected

2009-03-25T13:53:00.004-05:00

We've been doing some video marketing for a few of our clients, and we're looking into a viral marketing campagin. Recently, I found a BLOG that was talking about how in viral marketing, one tip is doing something unexpected. They used that concept in this video as an example.

I'm still laughing at this one.

I found that John West has a series of ads that are all unexpected and have a similar theme "enduring the worst to bring you the best". A series of ads with a smiliar theme is another tip in viral marketing.

This one is the funniest John West video I've found. Its worth sharing.

Increasing Website ROI

2009-03-23T10:22:00.001-05:00

The last couple of posts have been regarding ROI and how to measure it. Once you know how to measure ROI how do you increase it? The simple answering is testing. Testing means different things to different people. Ask a programmer and their definition of testing involves clicking on links and testing the functional aspects of a site. Others, mostly non-marketing professionals, will assume testing is having the client view the Website or page and approve it. However, testing to a marketing professional involves much more than the functional aspect of the site.

Testing involves usability test, A/B split and multivariate testing. For best results you should be using a combination of all three. One of the most common misconceptions about testing is that is expensive. Our answer, is how expensive is it to NOT to test? If you want to put some numbers with this answer find out what your conversation ratio is and determine how much profits will increase by increasing your conversion rate.

We’re going to look at usability testing. First, let’s explain what it is. Usability testing means that you observer how a test subject uses your site. This can be as scientific and high tech as some of the labs we’ve used with two-way mirrors, several observers, multiple cameras and software recording every mouse move and keystroke. Or the test can be extremely low tech by simply observing the testing.

If you’ve been in marketing for sometime, I’m sure you’ve been involved with focus groups. This is somewhat similar. In focus groups you gather in a sample of your target audience and they use and discuss the product. In usability testing you gather a sample of your target audience and ask them to complete several timed tasks on your Website.

Each task it timed and recorded. Since the site owner should not be present at the test it is best to record the session. Designers and programmers also benefit greatly from viewing the testing as well. Many times sites are developed and designed based on our own preferences. You many notice that designers get stuck in “template” mode. The designs are appealing but they all begin to all look very similar. Participating in usability test is one way to stretch the designer’s creativity and sharpen their skills.

Each usability test we’ve done have always uncovered at least one “gold nugget” that made the testing worth doing. Usually there are several areas on a Web project that can be improved as a result of usability testing. The reason is simply. If your target audience can easily use your site the likely hood of them taking action increases.

One of the misconceptions about usability testing is that it uncovers problems with navigation or ease of site use. However, much more than those areas should be tested. One of the first questions we ask the subject is “what is this site about” or “what service/product does this company offer”. Then note how long it takes the subject to answer the question. These questions have nothing to do with design or navigation but rather content. If the subject is unable to quickly say what the site is about how can the site be successful?

A common mistake in usability testing is that the tester fails to test the test. Never conduct a test without first testing the test yourself. The test developer and tester should BOTH take the test.

I’ve often been asked from new clients how do they know if their current site has been given a usability test. Since I know this important phase of development is skipped by most developers (many are totally unaware of the process) I know can safely say their site was not tested. My response is that if the developer never mentioned it then it safe to say that it was not tested. There is cost involved in testing and no one is going to do extra work and not get paid for it.

How important is usability testing? Well the answer goes back to the earlier topic about how expensive is testing. If you know that a 1% increase in your conversion ratio will yield 300% in gross profits – then you can easily how important testing can be

ROI for Lead Generation Websites

2009-03-13T10:03:00.000-05:00

On the last post we discussed return on investment (ROI) in general, for marketing projects. We’ve been asked how to measure ROI for lead generation (lead gen) Websites. The thinking here is the ecommerce Websites can easily be measured because someone is purchasing something and the cost and profit are clear. With lead gen sites it can’t be done because someone is not purchasing something online.

Lead gen sites and projects can be measured but you need extra information. First, you need to know the number of leads that Website (or all Internet activities) produces. Many people jus look at the leads from “Contact Us” forms but that’s not looking at the entire picture.

So, what else can you look at regarding leads from the Internet? Any other activity on the Internet can produce a lead. If you have PPC campaigns going on you can trace leads to landing pages which should have a form on it. In addition, you can have a service that offers a variety of phone numbers that all go into your main phone line but are traced back to the PPC campaign ad (we offer such a program). Leads from article marketing, videos, Web conferences, BLOGs, etc can all produce leads. How to trace it back is a topic for another post or White paper.

If you want to measure just one project such as your PPC campaign then you just count the leads from that activity. If you want to know overall how your entire Internet marketing strategy is working you need to track all of your activity.

Now that you are tracing all you leads, the next thing you need to know is how many on average, are qualified leads? Of course this number is going to go up and down each month. With each campaign you should test and monitor it for targeted leads. After a few months you should have an average number for qualified leads.

Now that you know how many qualified leads your project is producing, you need to know your average close ratio. As a sales manager or marketing director you should know the sales ratio for each sales rep and overall for the company or division. In some cases Internet leads are only distributed to a select group of sales reps so you just want to know that group’s close ratio and not the entire company’s sales ratio.

Now that you have these numbers you can determine your ROI.

Here’s an example. Let’s say all your Internet marketing projects cost $110,000.00. Your average sales price is $50,000.00. Your Internet activities produce on average, 200 leads per month. Of those 200 leads let’s be very conservative and say only 20% of them are really qualified leads (Someone ready, willing and able to purchase is going to be our standard or definition of qualified lead. You definition may be different.) That means the site is producing on average per month 40 qualified prospects.

Now, let’s say these qualified prospects are funneled to the sales reps and their close ratio is 20%. That means that 8 of the 40 prospects will convert into a sale each month. That means the Internet is producing $400,000.00 in sales per month ($50,000.00 avg. sales price X 8 avg. sales per month). Now take the $400,000.00 per month and multiple by 12 to get your yearly revenue which will be $4,800,000.00 in revenue.

However $4,800,000.00 is only revenue and you want ROI. As a business owner I want to know my gross net profit. So let’s subtract out your expenses and the expenses of the Internet project and you’ll have your ROI. Also, keep in mind that ROI is not just for one year so you need to look at the cost compared to the return over a given time frame.

Increasing your Internet ROI

2009-03-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I was asked to be on a panel discussion at the BMA luncheon meeting talking about how to increase ROI from your Website. It was a great presentation and I had a lot of fun doing it. Members from the association said that it was one of the best events that they had in some time. I’m still getting emails and calls from the luncheon asking for additional information, so I thought we would address some topics on our BLOG.

First, let’s talk about what ROI actually means. It seems like lately it’s a term that a lot of people are tossing around lately without knowing the definition. Many people just use the term to mean a generally that their projects or Website is successful. But measuring success is critical.

This is an area that separates a lot of marketing professionals, especially those involved with Internet marketing. We discuss this issue with our clients and they’re well aware of ROI and what it means. Also, keep in mind if you’re talking to a financial person the term and calculation is a bit different compared to marketers.

ROI is Return on Investment. It is the return over time that you will receive on your initial investment.

We tell our clients that they should expect a 3:1 ROI ratio with our projects. What does that mean? It means that for every dollar they spend with us that they receive three dollars in return in profit. Most receive a return much higher than that. However, that means AFTER they get their initial investment back. You also have to keep in mind that the investment should yield profit over time.

For what ever project you undertake you need to look at the return to see if it’s worth doing or if you would be better off investing the money is another way.

Some of the discussion talked about ROI on an ecommerce site VS a lead generation sites. You can and should measure ROI for both types of Web projects. Our next post will discuss how to measure ROI for a lead generation Website.

Twitter Mania for Business

2009-03-04T22:47:00.001-06:00

I’ve just started Twittering a few weeks ago and I’m still trying to figure out the ins and outs of it. So far my experience has been positive. However, I’m constantly researching and testing how this tool could be used for business. Here’s what I know so far.

Can be a powerful networking tool if used correctly.
Businesses need to setup training and policies for employees to Twitter during work hours.
Once a strategy and process is place business should embrace the program.

What to Tweet about:
• Targeted questions or real business problems are very useful. I’ve stated “what I’m working on” and when it was problem solving activity, I found that others will offer suggestions and join the Tweets.
• I don’t care to hear what you had for lunch or that you’re hungry for ice-cream. To me, it just jams up the Tweets. Plus, if all you have to do is tell me what you’re eating and mention your products, I’m most likely going to stop following you.
• Tweets on issues that can be fully explained on a BLOG are great. Link it back to a BLOG or article.
• Ask people questions and engage them in conversion.
• Ask people for help with business problems. Offer solutions to others.
• Become a resource for people. Don’t bloviate (isn’t that a great word – guess who I learned that word from).
• Share information about your company but don’t over do it.

When to Tweet:

Set aside a couple of times a day to Tweet. But if you find that you’re spending too much time Tweeting and not enough time producing – stop it!

That’s all for now on Twitter for business. I’ll be taking notes and dong a bit more research before I put together an article on Twitter for business. Right now it’s always fun to investigate a new Internet tool. I just have to make sure I don’t get lost in Twitter land.

Oh, yes, one more thing. Check out this great page with 140+ Twitter Tools Twittermania

Invited to Speak at St. Louis BMA Luncheon

2009-03-03T12:43:00.003-06:00

I've just been invited to speak at the BMA luncheon meeting this Thursday. It's a panel discussion on ROI (return on investment). Ellen Sherberg, Publisher of the St. Louis Business Journal is moderator of the discussion. The group will discuss ways to improve your marketing ROI.

I constantly tell my clients we are NOT a Web company. We're a marketing company here to get you results. If you want a Web company there are plenty in town and I give them a list.

What's the difference? Well if you're focusing on design you're going to get great design. If you're focusing on results you're going to get results. Why not focus on both you say? Well, you do want great design but if from the bottom up you don't start with understanding a return on investment how do you expect to get a return.

First thing to consider is the organization that is in charge of your projects. Look at their background and accomplishments. Case in point I have a BSBA-Marketing and MBA. Plus, our clients see a minimum of 3:1. For every dollar they spend with us they get three in return.

Our best example is how we took a Website from $8,0000.00 in gross profits a month to $900,000.00 in gross profits a month. Yes, that blows out of the water the 3:1 but return but not everyone is going to achieve the same results.

After Thursday we'll be posting more on ROI and how to increase it.

To read more about the event go to our news story on the BMA and increasing ROI panel discussion.

If you're in town, I hope to see you there!

PPC - Keyword Strategy for High Organic Results

2009-03-03T10:20:00.000-06:00

In managing PPC programs over the years we have always been careful not to include words or phrases where the product or company already ranks high. I have to say I really don’t understand this strategy at all.

If you are ranked on the first page on “widgets” for example, why would you include the word “widgets” in your PPC? Especially considering research and testing clearly shows that organic search results are clicked first and have a higher ROI. Why would you reduce your budget by including keywords that your site already ranks high?

I keep seeing this over and over again and we refuse to have our clients budgets reduced in this manner. Unless someone can explain their strategy I’m going to continue thinking it’s a waste of money.

Along the same line, why do companies purchase their name in a PPC campaign? Unless their site isn’t ranked well with their company name I see this as a waste as well. Just recently I searched in Google for Salesforce. We use Salesforce for our company and many of our clients, but I wanted to see what competitors are purchasing the name “Salesforce” in their PPC campaign.

The first link was a from a PPC campaign – from Salesforce. Guess what the first organic result is when you search for Salesforce. Yep, it’s Salesforce. And Salesforce had the second organic listing as well. I don’t get it. They must have money to burn. It looks like Oracle and other CRM companies are also purchasing “Salesforce” so I guess I get their logic. But when your company has the first two organic results I guess you want to really make sure that your site is found.

I did click on the PPC result for Salesforce because I figured it had to be that they purchased their own name in a PPC campaign because they have a killer landing page. They do have a landing page but it’s my favorite – one option only landing page. (See post for 2/28) They did have their logo hot linked in to their home page which is nicer than most “one option” landing page, but still only one option – complete the form to view a demo or try Salesforce for free for 30 days. What if I didn’t know anything about Salesforce? Why would I want to waste my time watching a demo or trying it for free until I know that the program is a good solution for my situation? It may not be what I want.

I suspect that Salesforce is testing their landing pages and PPC campaigns but I am extremely curious to find out the ROI on just purchasing their name. I would love to see the comparison between conversion rates on the PPC listing compared to the organic listing. It would be interesting.

PPC Campaign Tools

2009-03-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

Currently we’re researching tools to manage multiple PPC campaigns. If you’re working with multiple clients who have multiple campaigns and several people in your organization who are managing the campaigns you need efficient tools to help.

As a manager, I need the ability to review my employee’s PPC campaigns and it’s extremely time consuming to go into each group campaign for an overall review. Google offers some nice tools, but we’re not always just using Google. Next, add in international campaigns with country specific search engines and you can see how complicated the problem really can be.

Right now we’re researching various tools. If you have any suggestions feel free to comment. We’ve gotten some great advice from our Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking friends, but we’re opening our research for additional comments, suggestions and advice. Yes, we’ll even consider a shameless plug for your PPC tools. (But don’t over do it.) ;)

Landing Pages with only One Option

2009-02-28T10:39:00.001-06:00

Did you ever search for something and click one of the links that were using a PPC campaign? Then, when you land on the page it seems to match what the ad stated so you start reading. The page wants you to take the action THEY want you to take. However, it’s not the action YOU want to take. So you begin to look around the page to find out more information before you take their suggested action, but there is no other action offered to you. They’ve completely striped out ALL navigation, the logo isn’t hot linked to the home page and the footer doesn’t have any links back the site either. You’re trapped. You’re only out is to delete the URL down to the root and only leave www.whateversite.com. Some sites have even gone as far as putting their landing pages on a one page site. YUK!! You’re trapped.

If you’re really interested you could perhaps Google the name of the company but why bother. Instead you leave and never return.

Why are people doing this? Does their split test really show that strategy increases their conversion rate? If I’m annoyed with these tactics other people have to be as well. I hate to waste ad dollars to test, but I might have to just to satisfy my own curiosity. What do you think? Do you like the landing pages that give you only one action to perform and no other links to their site? Except perhaps when it comes to elections, I don’t think people are lemmings and follow directions blindly. We’re conducting more research on this topic and I’ll keep you updated

Boost Sales in a Down Economy

2008-12-15T11:21:00.001-06:00

Gee, is this headline getting old already or what??? Well before this is all over – and I’m sure it will get worse for many before it gets better – you’ll see the headline to this post again and again.

I’m sure many of you have been reading articles on marketing in a down economy. There are a lot of great tips and advice but really, it’s nothing new. When a sports player gets in a slum what do they do? The coach always has the player go back to basics. It’s no different in business – go back to the basics and do them RIGHT. No fancy get rich fast schemes. No “hidden secret that will make you millions”. It’s the basic marketing principles done right.

But here’s a tip that many people are forgetting. As a company that deals with international Internet marketing we know that people make decisions based on culture. Culture is based on attitudes and beliefs. If your belief is that things are going to get tough what do you do when you spend money? You make sure that every penny spent is giving you value back. So, how would you sell to someone like you -- eliminate risks as much as possible.

How do you eliminate risks? It’s going back to the basics to over come uncertainty. Give people guarantees, proof of your claims, and assurance that you can solve their problem. Don’t increase the hype – increase the proof of your ad claims. Use testimonials. Use real numbers to explain how your product or service increased profits or contributed to solving their problem. Be specific and back-up your claim.

Overlooking Alt Tags

2008-11-18T10:18:00.000-06:00

Years ago when I started out in Internet marketing – I can’t believe I’ve been at this game since the mid-‘90s – Alt tags where a big deal. Of those of you that forgot or just don’t know, alt tags are those text boxes that pop-up when you mouse over graphic. After awhile, alt tags seemed to be a bit of a nuisance except when experimenting with SEO tactics. There always seemed to be more important issues to concern our staff with than alt tags. However, they shouldn’t be overlooked.

Years ago when most people where on dial-up to connect to the Internet, alt tags where very useful. (That’s when you connected to the Internet through a phone line and modem which for me started with a 14k download. Yes, back in the olden days.) Alt tags where important if you created a site with the end-user in mind because they gave the site visitor valuable information.

Many people turned off their browser’s graphics display because downloading graphics slowed surfing the net to a snail’s pace. You could literally go grab a cup of coffee and snack and when you returned a Web page was still downloading. If you had graphics turned on, the alt tags gave you a clue to what the graphic was about and was waiting worth it. Or at least they were supposed to give you a clue. Back then most site where strictly done by programmers and most graphics where just labeled such creative and useful names like “pic1.jpg” or “graphic2left.jpg” and the alt tag, if any, was the same name such as “pic 1”. Why bother with an alt tag like that?

Today we have high speed Internet connections and computers are faster than ever, but alt tags are still important and for the same reason. Alt tags are important as a visible clue to inform and persuade the end-user, to help in SEO efforts and if you want to comply with the American with Disabilities Act as it applies to the Internet.

Consider emails with graphics. Many times you have to right click to see all the graphics and correct and interesting alt tags can help inform and persuade the end-user to view the email with graphics.

Many mobile devices don’t show graphics by default. Alt tags give the reader a clue as to what your graphics are about. Entice and inform the reader to turn on the graphics to view your message.

Don’t overlook the importance of alt tags. They are worth the time adding a brief but complete description of the graphic.

Online Slow in 2009?

2008-11-14T17:00:00.000-06:00

eMarketer Daily research shows that local online advertising will grow but not as likely as it was during the past few years. Online advertising spending in 2007 was $8.7 billion, in '08 it was $12.9 billion - a 47% change. In 2009 it is expected to be only 13.9 -- only a 7.8% change.

As an Internet marketing company I hav say, I hope eMarketer is wrong. Currently our business is great and continues to grow. In fact, 2009 looks to be our best year. Not only are our current clients spending more but we're adding new clients faster than we've ever done in the past.

Most of the growth is due to the economy in that smart buiness people know that they need to be smarter about how they market and that includes doing more on the Web. Of course they wouldn't continue with that if they weren't getting great results.

Fee VS FREE

2008-10-28T14:22:00.002-05:00

eMarketer Daily's email today talked about Fee VS Free in Tough Times. They asked a question if content owners put a renewed emphasis on subscription fees? According to their research 52% of respondents will pay for Google compared to only 22% that will pay for Yahoo on only 19% will pay for YouTube.

It's interesting to think about. In my opinon once something is offered for free and then taken away you have just created an opportunity to fill the void for the free version.

It would be interesting to watch to see if YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, MapQuest etc. start charging for what is now free.

Tips to Build Your email list

2008-10-25T13:55:00.000-05:00

Email can be one of your most valuable marketing tools. But growing and maintaining a list can be costly. Here are a few tips.

1) Leverage

The most powerful way to crease profits is to leverage your existing clients. One of the ways to do that is to improve your list with any one that has purchased from you and asking them to refer others.

Developing a strategy for a refer program would not only help in building your list but also to increase sales. Keep in mind when asking for referrals if you are too general in your request people usually don’t respond. Instead of saying “please forward this message to a friend or colleague” say instead “please forward this to anyone you know in the service industry, who is in charge of marketing”. Of course you need to re-word it for your target audience.

2) Website subscription form

Be sure to have a place on most every page of your site for your site visitors to join your subscription. The best way to do that is to have a GREAT offer. A contest, free download, etc are all great offers to join an email list. Some of the pop-under scripts are also getting a good response rate. They are not as intrusive as the pop-up ads.

3) Test offer

When you have an offer to join your email list, test a variety of offers. The free download may not be an attention getter, but the 25% off next order may be the key to having people sign-up.

4) Co-Registration

Join forces with complimentary companies. If you sell shoes and they sell hats why not have a Thank you page that has an offer to join the hat company’s list. Of course the hat company needs a great offer and needs to put a reciprocal link to their email subscription thank you page to make it work.

5) Email address from point of sale

The most obvious way to grow your list is through your point of sale. Regardless if it’s online or offline there should be a process that is followed to add all emails to your list from a sale.

6) Purchase a list
There are several ways to purchase a list. Search for a list broker but be sure to find out where the subscribers are coming from. You need targeted email lists. First, you might want to determine how valuable a subscriber is too you.

Why Focusing on SEO is Not Enough

2007-08-08T09:06:00.000-05:00

We have been talking about Web site conversion on our last couple of BLOG entries. I just want to emphasis again, that if you’re just focusing on SEO and getting traffic to your site you’re missing the boat. Traffic is great. Don’t get me wrong on that, but what is your traffic doing on your site is a question you should be asking.

Many may think that more traffic to your site means more sales. Yes, that is true. There is a direct correlation to site traffic and results, but what would it mean to you if you got more results first from the traffic you have now?

Look at our July 27th entry and you’ll see how we explained that if you could increase your site conversion ratio by 1% you could increase profits by 160%! Before you spend a dime more on SEO or Adwords first take a look at the performance of your site.

What should you look at? That’s a good question. We have clients that many times want to review their site statistics on their own. We encourage everyone to be actively involved with their own site, but many times we find that most people have no idea what they are looking at when it comes to site statistics. Who can blame them when many stat programs can produce hundreds of reports?

Let’s first consider some simple things. First, what are you trying to accomplish? That’s different for everyone and the type of site you have. We take a look at for now, a lead generation site.

Most lead generation sites have some type of Contact Us form. We’ll start with that page. Find out how many unique visitors you have on your site in one month. Eventually, you should know how your reporting tool counts unique visitors but we’re going to keep it simple right now. Keep in mind that we are going to consider trends over all. Don’t get too hung-up. Trends can tell you a lot of information and it’s a good place to start for beginners.

Next, look at how many unique visitors came to your Contact Us form page in the same month. That number is your first conversion number. Let’s say you get 1,500 visitors to your site in one month. Of the 1,500 unique visitors 120 come to your Contact Us form page.

To get your conversion rate take 120 divided by 1500 and you will get 0.08. So your conversion ratio for the page is 8%. That sounds pretty good. But let’s look a little closer at that number and what is going on.

Next, let’s see how many people completed the form. Depending on your statistical package the only way you may know this number is to look at your responses in your database or email – however your form is programmed. We’ll say that you have 30 responses.

What is conversion ratio now?

From visitors on the page to completed form your conversion ratio is 25% (30/120= .25). That looks great, doesn’t it?

What is your conversion ratio from site visitors to complete form? That is only 2% (30/1500= 0.02).

The questions you should be asking include:

How many people started to complete the form but didn’t finish it?
If they started the form and abandoned it, where in the form did they stop?
Why didn’t more people complete the form?
How do I get more people to complete the form?
How do I get more people to the form page?
Are the people filling out the form quality leads?
Where are the people that complete the form coming from? How did they find out about the site? How often did they come to the site prior to completing the form? What else did they look at?

Those are all good questions and I’m sure you can think of more questions. Let’s consider the first question. How many people started to complete the form but didn’t finish it?

I’m always surprised when people don’t think to ask this question. In fact, I have clients tell me, at first, that if site visitors are interested in the product they’ll complete the form. They’re thinking that the only reason someone didn’t complete the form is because they don’t have an immediate need.

Well that may be part of it. Then I ask them this question: How many sites have you been on where you are highly interested in the product or service and for some reason didn’t complete the form or stopped in the middle of it. Everyone I’ve talked has abandoned a Contact Us form for one reason or another even when they were highly interested in the product or service.

You may not have the tools or program that can tell you where in the form a site visitor stopped. Depending on what you’re selling and how important a lead is to you, getting that information may be extremely valuable to you. Most sites do not have the capability of giving you that information but there are other ways to find out the pit falls of your form.

If you don’t have tools that can tell you where on the form someone stopped you might want to try a usability study on the form. You may think your form is simple enough to complete and anyone that can read can complete the form, so why take time and money to test it? You’ll be surprised at how little changes on your form can make a big impact on results. Read our February 14th entry on We Value Your Privacy. You can see how changing a few words increased conversion on a form by over 250%

Next we’ll talk about how to improve this conversion ratio and what a lead means to you in dollars.

Website Conversion - What is it costing you?

2007-07-27T10:40:00.000-05:00

In converting Website visitors to leads/sales, etc. let’s first look at what an increase in conversion could mean to your bottom line.

This information is on our Website under Website Conversion, but we feel it is so important to understand we are going to address it here.

Below is the site production numbers for Sample Site A & B :

Average monthly unique site visitors: 1,500
Average monthly marketing cost for site: $500.00
Average monthly number of customers: 30
Average total purchase per customer: $50.00
Average gross profit margin 50%

Monthly revenue is calculated by:

# of customers x dollar amount of average total purchase per customer
= Monthly revenue in dollars

Gross Profit is calculated by:
(Monthly revenue minus gross margin) minus marketing expenses
= monthly gross profit (profit before fixed overhead)

Sample Site A has a 2% conversion ratio which yields
$250.00 gross profit

30 x $50.00 = $1,500.00 monthly revenue
( $1,500 - 50% profit margin)-500 = $250.00 gross profit

Sample Site B has a 3% conversion ratio which yields
$650.00 a month of gross profit:
1500 site visitors x 3% conversion ratio = 45 customers
45 x $50.00 (average purchase)= $2,250.00 monthly revenue

Profit ($2,250 - 50% profit margin) - $500 = ($1125) - $500 = $650.00 gross profit

That is a 160% increase in profit by increasing your conversion by only 1%

You can plug your own numbers if you know what they are. For many people the first place they need to start is finding out what their traffic is on their site.

Next we’ll talk about looking at some of your site statistics and what they mean in relationship to your conversion and marketing.

What is Website Conversion and Should You Care?

2007-07-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

For years now experts in Internet marketing have been talking about Website conversion, but the message does not seem to be getting through many marketers. Any marketing manager or director I’ve talked to is very familiar with offline marketing conversion. They seem to fully understand conversion when it comes to their print, radio, TV advertising but they somehow miss the connection when it comes to the Internet.

Website conversion means measuring, monitoring and converting site visitors into leads, customers or clients. You want to convert people on your site from just visiting to take the desired action. For example, if you have 5000 visitors to your site in one month and 5 visitors complete your inquiry form you have a conversion of .1%. Divide your number of results, in this case completing a form, by the number of unique visitors.

Why should you care about this? Why not just get more traffic? Maybe the other 4995 people in the above scenario just weren’t interested.

Well, perhaps the other 4995 unique visitors somehow came on your site and found it wasn’t what they wanted and left. Perhaps the visitors are interested in your product or service but didn’t want to complete your form, couldn’t find the form or got lost, frustrated, or confused on your site.

Do you really want to spend more money to get more people to your site until you first find out if your conversion ratio is at its optimal level? If people are leaving your site because they are confused, or lost wouldn't you want to correct those issues? What if site visitors start to complete your form or buy your product and then stopped? Wouldn’t it be better if you first corrected that before you spent more money to have more people fall through the holes? Would you want to at least find out if you have that problem?

Tomorrow we’ll address what your current conversion rate is costing you.

Mobile Marketing Survey

2007-07-18T10:28:00.000-05:00

If you've subscribed to our newsletter, you will receive a link to our newest survey on Mobile Marketing. There are only a few questions so it won't take long to complete.

The best thing about the survey is that your name will be entered into a drawing to win a free mobile webcam.

If you haven't signed-up for our newsletter you can click below to take the survey and enter the drawing for the mobile Webcam.

Click here to take our mobile marketing survey.

The survey will be closed on August 5th. Winners of the mobile marketing survey drawing will be notified by email and announced in our August newsletter.

ePlus Marketing Hires New Marketing & Sales Assistant

2007-06-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

We're proud to announce that ePlus Marketing has hired Ari Fefferman as an Internet Marketing and Sales Assistant.

Ari is joing the staff to help us with our search engine optimization and marketing projects as well as assist with some of our sales projects.

Read our press release on our newest member to ePlus Marketing.

Search Engine Decoder

2007-06-11T08:21:00.000-05:00

Early this year in our newsletter we posted a link to a site that is called the Search Engine Decoder. It's a great tool that allows you to see how all the various search engines are related.

Several people have asked us to post the URL of the decoder again so here it is:

http://www.search-this.com/search-engine-decoder/

We often use this site to illustrate to our clients various aspects of the relationships of the search engines. For example, this tool will without a doubt show you how important registering with dmoz is to your site.

Once you're on the site just click on the dmoz button and you'll hsee how many search engines pull information from dmoz.

Have fun with the site.

Free Whitepaper on Culturally Customized Websites

2007-06-04T09:41:00.000-05:00

We've added a free whitepaper download to our site about culturally customizing a Website.

If you're marketing to an international audience and have only translated your Website you may have found that your conversation rates could improve. Customizing the site to fit your target audience's culture will improve the site's proformance.

Highlights of the paper:
•Consumers take action and make decisions based on culture
•Web sites that are congruent to a target audience’s culture are more successful
•The five cultural values that that contribute to a site’s customization

Download the paper Culturally Customized Websites by by Dr. Pereira

Avoid the Most Costly Internet Marketing Blunder

2007-05-28T09:37:00.000-05:00

Of all the aspects of Internet Marketing what is one of the least expensive items to buy, but could be one of the most expensive to replace? It may have cost you less than $10.00 to get, but just think what your domain name means to your company. It’s on everything from your business cards to your invoices. It’s on promotional items, trucks, letterhead, and on all your emails. Now think of all the money, and time you spent promoting your URL and getting it ranked in search engines. Imagine the cost if you had to start all over because you lost your domain name.

If you think it can’t happen to you think again. Years seem to fly by and you may have registered your domain name for a two or three year period, so you don’t worry about when it expires. You may also have a false sense of security because you feel that the company you bought the domain name from will inform you. You’re right, the company will inform you, but it is not fool proof.

Keep in mind, depending on which company you used, if their main business is registering domains they probably don’t care if your domain expires. Many of these companies have backorder options. Backorder options gives someone the ability to backorder your domain so the very second your domain expires it is registered with the person that backordered it. It may not seem legal, but it is.

In addition, the company that backordered your name can be kept anonymous – even if they end up with your name. Your name can be sold to someone else that may never use it and you may never be able to find out who has it. Just think about it. An unethical competitor can backorder your domain name and if you are not careful they can own it and sit on it just to keep you from having it. Or they can try to turn around and sell it to you for thousands of dollars and it’s all legal. Not ethical, but legal.

When you registered your domain name you most likely included your contact information, but has that changed? Is the email address still valid and do you check it often? If you’re like me, you probably receive hundreds of emails a day and many go straight into your spam folder and get lost. You should not expect the company that you registered your domain name with to call you. They won’t.

Each year you should check the status of your domain name. Have some sort of system to remind you such as a tickler file or an email alert. When you check on your domain name you may want to check to see if there are other domain extensions available such as .net or .mobi. You may not want to use these names right now, but they are inexpensive, so it’s worth buying them.

Be sure to register your domain name with a reliable company. Also, make it easy on yourself and consider registering it with your hosting company. Our hosting company’s main business is hosting. Registering domain names is a value added service. It may cost a few dollars more to register the domain name with them, but the convenience of having all the information at one location is extremely valuable. We are able to go into our hosting account information and on the dash board see when the domain names expire.

Your domain name is a valuable asset to your company. The age of a domain name also plays into rankings for search engines. Just image if you lost your domain name and everything you will have to do to change it or the cost of trying to get it back. Consider the cost of reprogramming your site, reprinting everything that has your domain name and not to mention any online ads you have running. Losing your domain name will cost you thousands of dollars and could be the most costly Internet marketing blunder you make.

ePlus Marketing Hires New Office Manager

2007-05-25T10:30:00.000-05:00

We are excited to annouce that Kay Bloss will be joining our team as office manager. Kay has over 25 years experience and brings a wealth of knowledge and skills to our office.

For sometime we have been in need of an experienced office manager who can help run the day to day operations of our busy office. Kay hit the ground running and has been a tremendous value to us and our clients.

Read more about Kay in our press release: Internet Marketing firm Hires Office Manager.

Search Engine Optimization Tool

2007-05-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

We love gadgets and tools, especially when the involve marketing and Internet marketing.

Here's a tool we found that can be used to compare different websites to each other on ranked pages while comparing them to yours.

You'll be able to see what competitors are doing that you might not be doing. It's pretty easy to use. First go on Google and perform a Google search using one of your keywords. Take note of the top three or more site that out performed yours. Enter these sites and yours into the tool and you'll be to see what they are doing compared to yours.

Pretty cool, isn't it.
Just click on this link. The tool is on a site made by InterMakers.

Access Denied Systems Invents Computer System to Protect Against Internal Data Theft

2007-04-16T09:11:00.000-05:00

One of our clients, Access Denied Systems (ADS) invented a new product that will help protect companies, universities, hospitals, governments, banks, and other organizations from internal data theft. We are proud to say that we created a new site for their product.

This is a fascinating product. While working on this project we have learned a lot about internal data threats and how internal threats have surpassed external threats in number and in dollars lost. However, most companies are not focusing on this issue. Several companies over the last few years have been completely shut down due to their lack of security when it comes to internal data threats.

Since our business deals with data and the development of websites, we often see how many companies completely overlook securing their data or even more disturbing, their client’s data. While reviewing one project for a potential client we were given a disk with all of their client’s names, address, and credit card numbers. That lack of security can be the end of career or company.

This issue is something every manager and business owner should be aware of and take steps to secure their data. Access Denied Systems has a unique product that addresses this issue.

Read the press release on this story on our site and visit their Web site at:www.accessdeniedsystems.com

Partnership Alliance with AAA Translation

2007-03-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

AAA Translation, Inc., a full-service translation and global business consulting company formed a partnership alliance with ePlus Marketing, LLC, an integrated Internet marketing company. The partnership will provide companies with one source for foreign language translation, Website globalization and International Internet marketing.

“This alliance benefits everyone,” stated Patricia Hughes of ePlus Marketing, the founder of the firm. Hughes explained that their services includes international Internet marketing and Web globalization. To increase their effectiveness, they need a top level firm that can provide translations for their customers. Hughes has 20 years of marketing experience and has been involved with Internet marketing for over ten years.

“We needed a partner that we can not only rely on to provide our clients with translations for marketing and Web based projects, but a company that we can seamlessly work with,” stated Hughes.

Susanne Evens, president of AAA Translation, agrees that the partnership makes perfect sense. Her firm provides a full range of professional services in over 100 languages to businesses of all sizes. Born and raised in Germany, Evens speaks five languages and has over 20 years of international communications experience.

“Many of our clients are in need of marketing services once we translate their materials. Other times we can see that they need to talk to ePlus Marketing first because their site is not internationalized or ready for translations,” stated Evens.

ePlus Marketing assists companies that wish to expand or enter into global Internet marketing. The firm has a successful track record with increasing site visits from targeted foreign countries to over 300%, as well as seeing a 250% increase of the sites’ conversion ratio (ratio of site visitors to site visitors who complete the desired action). ePlus Marketing develops Web projects that can be easily customized to the target audience’s culture and marketed to the target audience’s country.

While both companies may work with other similar firms for a variety of reasons, the partnership means that they will give each other “first pass” on project collaboration where necessary. The partnership also means that since the firm works closely together they have integrated their production process, which provides better communication and enhanced service for their clients.

“Since we have integrated our procedures, our clients can be confident that their projects will be produced with less hassle, more efficiently and with fewer errors than other companies that do not have partnership. Ultimately, that translates into cost savings for the consumer,” stated Hughes.

“AAA Translation has helped us with our international projects and continues to provide our clients with excellent translation. Susanne provides effective consultation on aspects of globalization, in addition to resources,” acknowledged Hughes.

Together the companies can help any size business develop and market Websites, email and other marketing materials to foreign countries. Through a network of established relationships, they can also make recommendations on other aspects of International trade such as shipping, International law and finance.

Email Signatures

2007-02-15T08:47:00.000-06:00

Create standard email signatures for ALL your employees. Anyone that uses the Internet in your company should have a company standard email signature.

What’s an email signature? Did you ever notice that at the end of some emails you will see not only the email creator’s name, but their phone number, fax, number, company name, logo, Web site address, etc. It’s amazing how easy this is to do and how many companies simply over look it. Or they let everyone do their own thing.

Having the company’s contact and Web site information makes it easy for the recipient to contact you or visit your site. Making it a standard email signature improves your overall branding strategy. Check your email software. If you are using Microsoft Outlook and want to add a signature click on Tools, then Options, then Mail Format and then Signatures.

Again, make sure that everyone in your company follows the same format. Also, add a signature for reply mail which can be different than new mail. Very often the reply mail signature does not always have the same information. I strongly recommend that you at least add your phone number. It makes it very convenient for someone to call you when your phone is easy to find.

We Value Your Privacy

2007-02-14T12:03:00.000-06:00

We value your privacy. This simple four word sentence can have a tremendous effect on your email or form conversion ratios. Be sure to have the sentence, or at least the word “privacy” linked to your privacy statement.

Use this sentence next to any email form on your site or on your contact page. Clearly and simply stating your privacy policy assures the site visitor that you will not sell, give or trade their email or personal information to a third party.
While a privacy page is standard practice for most professional site builders, lawyers usually have their hand in writing a company’s privacy policy. That results in having the privacy policy looking like a long legal document.

Using the simple sentence with a link to the privacy policy gives the site visitor assurance that you care about their privacy without having a long explanation.

For one of our client’s Web sites we added “We value your privacy” just above their email form. The sentence was linked to their privacy policy. The link was hardly used, but having that simple statement was all that was needed. The added statement increased their form’s conversion ratio by over 250%

404 Error Page - Another Opportunity to Improve Your Site

2007-02-03T10:37:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the smallest things can have the biggest impact. One of the most overlooked aspects of a Web site is the 404 error page. Creating a unique 404 page is another opportunity to improve your site's performance and provide your site visitors easy access to other pages. Creating a 404 error page should be standard practice when redesigning a site.

What is a 404 error page? It’s the page you see when someone clicks on a broken link or a page that has been renamed. When that happens the site visitor will see a standard page that simply tells you the page is no longer available. It has no thrills, no other links, no branding and above all, very little helpful information.

The page usually starts off with these words:

The page cannot be found.
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Your unique 404 error page should look like a regular page of your site. It should include your site’s header, footer and navigation bar so that the site visitor can easily click on another area of your site. The content of this unique 404 error page should contain text explaining that the page selected is no longer available along with contact information so the site visitor has the option of emailing or calling your company.

An example of our 404 error page can be found at:

http://www.eplusm.com/404.html

You might want to check with your hosting company first to see if they allow you to create custom error pages. Just creating the page and uploading with your other page files is usually is not enough. You most likely will have to change how the error pages are handled through your hosting company. Most hosting companies have a hosting administration tool or control panel that you can use to change or upload your custom error page.

ePlus Marketing Launches New Website

2007-01-17T11:40:00.000-06:00

The launch of our new blog coincides with the launch of our new Website. While developing our site we tested it with some of our associates and clients. One comment that came back from a majority of the “Beta version testers” was the thought that we are giving away too much information. Actually, we thought that was a good thing.

Our blog and Website is designed to share information and provide resources. The old adage “givers gain” is part of our corporate philosophy. We believe when helping others or “pay it forward” you also help yourself. It always comes back to you.

“Won’t that help the competition?” asked several site testers.

While we intend to give away information, most of it can be found in one form or another on the Web. Other information we share is through our experience.

Our true competitive edge is not just in our knowledge, but our processes, procedures, strategy, creativity, customer service, and experience. It’s the complete combination that makes our projects successful.

While the launch of our site and blog has long been in the works, the paradox of most marketing companies is that their own work suffers while they’re busy working on their client’s projects. We are excited and pleased with our new site and blog, there is plenty more in the works, so be sure to visit often.

Subscribe to our blog and visit our Web site frequently for new updates, white papers and resource information. If you are new to blogging and are not sure what it’s all about, read an article by Debbie Weil who is one of the leading experts in blogging, corporate blogs and blogs for CEOs.