Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Sometimes getting conversions is like trying to capture mist in a jar or water with your fingers. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to get a secure hold on them.

There are countless test you can do with your website to help increase your conversion rates. A/B and multivariate tests can help you increase your conversion rate a couple of points, which can often translate into thousands of dollars of increased profits. But in all that conversion testing, trial and error, banging your head against the wall and twisting customer’s arms until they cry “UNCLE!,” there is often one overlooked piece of information that can help you dramatically improve your conversions.

That piece of information is: information. Content, to be exact!

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Companies focus a great deal of attention on two things: ROI and the bottom line. Rightfully so. When you invest thousands of dollars and perhaps hundred of hours in a something you believe will help your business grow, you want – and deserve – to see some results. So, a question we often hear is:

How much does online marketing cost?

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When more than 600 professionals in marketing, advertising and PR get together in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame City, you know the event is going to be a smash hit! Joe Pulizzi’s Content Marketing World 2011 was all that and more. The program agenda read like a who’s who in online marketing and included industry rock stars like Sally Hogshead, David Meerman Scott, Mike Stelzner, Brian Clark, Jay Baer, Lee Odden, Ann Handley and many, many more. Even at the end of two full days of seminars, panel discussions and content how-to’s, I was still trying to catch a waterfall in a water cooler cup.

For me, the focal point of the conference (beyond curiosity about Lady Gaga’s bizarre meat dress, currently on display at the Rock Hall) can be summed up in this phrase: fascinate, compel and convert your audience using the power of story. If you want to succeed in online marketing today, content must be a foundational pillar, not some website architect’s last-minute add-on.

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Sometimes we get to doing something for so long and are so involved in telling people how to do something, that we forget that there are still people who need to be convinced they actually need to do it.

In the last few years social media has jumped to the forefront of online marketing for many small businesses. Some business owners aren’t even bothering to market (or in some cases even build) their websites anymore.

They can just create a Facebook page.

Or a blog on Blogger.com

Or tweet on Twitter.

Or build a Google Places page.

Are we entering an age where SEO just doesn’t matter?

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In the first two parts of this series, we looked first at how the online audience differs from the traditional off-line audience. There are several distinct characteristics one has to take into account before pushing content out onto the web that was designed for print.

Next, we looked at the goals of online PR in order to identify key things that online PR must do that are both similar and different from offline PR. Good writing is still good writing, whether you are on- or offline, but when writing online content, you have to treat each piece a bit differently.

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I started this series looking at the differences between print readers and web readers. This is critical to understand before moving forward with your online public relations material. We cannot expect to reach online readers the same way we reach those that are offline. We can’t just do the old-world methods in a new-world medium.

The differences between the two readers is vast, and, without that understanding, there will be no way to hit the goals you are trying to achieve. But once you have a firm grasp on who your online audience is, and how they react, you can begin to set attainable goals for your online PR. Click here to keep learning

Over the years, I’ve come to realize I’m not a very good sales person. I’m not good at self promotion or pushing the hard-sell techniques that “convert” leads into customers. Despite all that, I have been my company’s best (and only) sales person over the past 12 years.

I’ve tried to hire sales people in the past, but it has never turned out well. It seems that I know our products and service far better than anyone else can learn them.

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Last time, we talked about a revolutionary tool in keyword research called Google Insights for Search that allows you to gain competitive advantages by doing dynamic keyword research instead of static keyword research. Static keyword research is using a keyword tool to get volume “numbers” at one point in time and then using that data to perform long-term marketing campaigns. The problem? Things change. Therefore, we need to incorporate dynamic keyword research to keep our campaigns aligned with what’s actually happening on the web.

One feature of this tool that allows you to do just that is called “Rising Searches.” These are searches that have experienced significant growth in a given time period, with respect to the preceding time period. It’s where and how things are changing. This is golden information because by the time keyword markets are well established, it’s more of an uphill battle to dominate there. You can clearly see how the benefits you get from positioning yourself at the forefront of web search interest trends are huge. Insights for Search is a great place to look to make that happen.

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While it’s great to know what people want, when you give them what they want, you only give them a partial solution. The want is the symptom. But, when you address the need, you are addressing the underlying problem and providing a much more holistic solution.

In Part 2 of this series, I started discussing a customers wants versus their needs. I continue this list here.

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Business building is about relationship building. In order to get and keep customers, you must be able to build some kind of relationship with them. In my last post, I talked about how building relationships online is essential to your long-term business strategy. After all, you want to be different than the 100′s or 1000′s of others all selling the same product or service. Once you open up the door to relationships with your customers, you create a comfort level and familiarity that continues to bring people back.

So, what is it that people want? How does that translate into what they need? And, how the heck does that get applied to your online business? Let’s look at some generalities of what people want and what you can do to meet their needs.

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