SMB Marketing Blog

The days when all you needed for online marketing was a nice website have long passed.  In order to be effectively represented online, you’ll need effective campaigns on several critical platforms.  The platforms vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for those of you still finding your footing; here is a short checklist of platforms you should consider.

Stable Content

• Website: Since its 2010, you should have professional website.  If you don’t have one, get on it.
• Bonus Points Wikipedia Entry: Businesses haven’t fully embraced Wikipedia but it is the authority for information reference.  Having a Wikipedia entry will become increasingly important for online credibility and exposure.

Regularly Updated Content

• Blog: A critical platform for establishing credibility with the online community and search engines.  If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you are missing out on establishing yourself as an online authority in your industry.
• Bonus Points Periodical Press Releases: Press Releases still have their place online, particularly when pushed out with a service like PRWeb.com.  It can do more than just a blog posting or website update as it pushes to many channels, allowing for more exposure and credibility.

Social Networking

• Twitter/Facebook Fan Page: Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social networking and an increasingly important platform to promote dialog between companies and the online community.
• Bonus Points LinkedIn/Foursquare: LinkedIn and Foursquare aren’t for everyone, but depending on the kind of business you do, these maybe valuable platforms to reach potential customers.

Video Media

• YouTube: YouTube continues to be a predominately an entertainment focused community, but its reach is undeniable.  If you have how-to videos, or a business presentation, they are good candidates for YouTube.
• Bonus Points Webinar: Webinars are a great way to interact with customers and the community.  Webinars add great value for any customer base.

Search Engine Marketing

• Google AdWords: This isn’t a must but for those of you who are just starting out, or struggling in competitive markets, pay-per-click campaigns with Google can get you that exposure when you need it.
• Bonus Points Pay-per-click on Facebook/LinkedIn/Yahoo/Bing: Although Google is the most recognized player; pretty much every major platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc) has a similar version of the pay-per-click program.  They may present a less competitive and more targeted environment to push marketing efforts.

Depending on your business and goals, the platforms mentioned may not be critical.  Also keep in mind that just because you are represented on these platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you are being represented well on each platform.  However, how to assess your effectiveness on the various online platforms is the topic for another post.

Do you have other platforms that are critical to your business’s online marketing strategy that you feel should be on this list?  Please share it with us in the comments.

If trade shows are an important part of your marketing strategy then you understand that they are one of the best ways to do both lead generation and face-to-face networking with a large group of qualified prospects. After a trade show, companies struggle with following up on a long list of inquiries with attendees, most of whom are not sales ready, and get neglected by the sales team who focus on ‘hotter’ leads.

Yves Matson, Senior Account Executive at ActiveConversion, & Nancy Nardin, President at Smart Selling Tools shared some strategies and tactics around increasing trade show ROI.

Attendees learned how equipping their company with simple and easy to use marketing automation software drives several benefits that increase trade show ROI:

Other topics covered were:

• Who is visiting your website right after a trade show
  - if you are “top of mind” enough for them to investigate you after a trade show, they are your best prospects!
• How to automate an email nurture campaign after a trade show
  - instead of having sales follow up with the entire list, have them focus on those that show engagement, even if that engagement is months later
• Track the effectiveness of various trade shows and compare the return on investment against each other

Download the recorded webinar from: http://www.activeconversion.com/webinar/webinar-june-2010-access.html

Download the presentation from: http://www.slideshare.net/activeconv/activeconversion-increasing-trade-show-roi

Your website’s online exposure is a key component of business life, just like getting healthy and into shape is a vital component of our own personal lives. However, most people never  ‘get into shape’. Many people buy gimmicky workout machines or slim fast drugs only to be tricked out of time and money. Many get confused, frustrated, or give up.

The Online Marketing Athlete
Online marketing is very similar to personal health and fitness, so don’t be tricked by thrills and gimmicks. Think of building and maintaining online exposure like training to become a competitive athlete. It takes planning, time, diligence, and the right combination of exercises.

Get Healthy
Most websites are not fit or robust enough for the internet search environment; many have problems they don’t even know about. Most websites aren’t very healthy, even if they look ‘good’. Fortunately, that means with the right ‘diet and exercise’ of a good online marketing solution, you’ll be ahead of the pack just by improving the health of your website.

Get Fit
Sometimes, just a clean bill of health isn’t enough. If you are in a very competitive environment or are playing in the big leagues, you’ll need to have an online marketing solution to match. You will need a highly regimented solution that is high impact and intensive.

Use a Trainer
Just spending more time or money on your website does not mean you are reaching your goals. The advice and on-going coaching from a good online marketing specialist is an essential guide for success. Lastly and most importantly, you don’t have to do it on your own. A good agency can do most of the heavily lifting to keep your online marketing in tip-top shape. And just like a trainer, it doesn’t require much of their time, and therefore it won’t cost you much.

Especially Important in SEO
This advice can be generalized to most streams of online marketing, but this is particularly important when assessing search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. The process of SEO is a credible and important part of any online marketing effort, however, be aware that SEO is becoming a growing buzz term associated with quick success schemes and effortless automated programs and software which search engines detest. Don’t be fooled.

Conclusion
Employing a physical fitness mentality and approach for online marketing will keep efforts focused, committed, and working in the right direction. It may be hard at the beginning but it won’t be long until you’ll see results. And even easier to keep that way!

The 2010 mediaFresh awards hosted by Digital Alberta are dedicated to the recognition of those Alberta Digital Media Professionals and Post-Secondary students who have created outstanding project and programs between September 2008 and November 2009.

Category: Best Entrepreneur Award for creative/business/technology entries will be judged on

• 40% Marketing Strategy
• 30% Commercial viability
• 30% Uniqueness of technology

Winning entries will be featured in a full color catalogue that will be published and distributed following the awards ceremony. Each winner will receive a complimentary copy of the catalogue for their portfolio. Additional copies of the mediaFresh 2010 will be distributed to promote digital media production in Alberta and around the world.

Fred Yee, CEO of Foundpages/ActiveConversion, is one of the nominees. We think Fred and the product / services fit the ranking criteria very well.

Marketers are shifting to digital for a variety of reasons, chief among them are the results.  While social media gets all the hype, it’s two tried and true workhorses, email and search marketing, that come out on top of effectiveness.  From a post over at Marketing Profs:

Most marketing executives cite email or search marketing as their company’s top-performing advertising channel in 2009—39.4% and 23.6%, respectively—and over nine in ten (93.6%) say they plan to increase their budget allocation to digital marketing in the next five years, according to the Fourth Annual Marketing and Media Survey from Datran Media.

Just 9.4% of marketers cited offline channels as their most effective response channel last year. Another 4.7% cited social media, while mobile marketing, still in its early stages, was cited by 0.8% of marketers.

Crucially I’d argue that all these pieces need to work together.  Search so they find you, content to convert them, email to nurture them.

I spoke with a prospect recently who was disappointed with the results they were receiving from the Google advertising they had set up and paying as much as $5 per click with little or no response.  Search advertisers make it very easy for business owners to set up a pay per click account but the costs of setting it incorrectly are not as apparent as they should be.

In today’s blog we look at the top 5 mistakes made when setting up pay per click advertising:

1. Not doing the right keyword research – Search advertisers provide research tools to find keywords to run your advertisements on, but often they suggest the highest searched keywords which have the highest competition.  Selecting these keywords also requires you to bid significantly higher for them in order to have your advertisement show up.  In most cases it is better to select keywords which have a reasonably high search volume, but lower competition, which will help to keep your bids down in the long run.
2. Not defining a daily budget – You can define a daily budget for your advertising where your advertisements stop showing after the budget is reached.  Not doing this may result in your monthly budget being reached within a week or two and your advertisements not showing for the remainder of the month.
3. Not targeting the right audience – You need to define the cities, states or countries that you want your advertising to be shown in. It doesn’t make sense for a local service provider to show advertising across the nation.  It is also important to set the time of day you want your advertisements to show (ex. Not in the middle of the night).
4. Not improving your website or landing page – If you do not get any business off your website currently, then driving more traffic using pay per click advertising does not always mean that will improve.  Your company website needs to be credible and look professional before someone will contact you from it.  Improve your landing page and add the right offers or calls to action to entice your visitor to make contact.
5. Not maintaining the advertisements regularly – There are a lot of moving parts in pay per click advertising that often get overlooked; It’s not easy enough to simply set something up and let it run.  You need to pay attention to things like: bids, keywords, ad copy, click through rate, bounce rate, quality score, etc.  It is worth the effort to run experiments and try different variations on ad copy and landing pages to see what produces the best result.

Search advertising is a very powerful medium to use when it is done right.  It can produce a good amount of business and easily pay for itself.  If you do not have the expertise or time to manage it, we recommend consulting with an expert who can help you to manage and achieve better results.

It is important to note that paid search advertisements are only clicked on by ~30% of search engine users; the large majority of search results are delivered through organic listings, so ensure you have a search engine optimization strategy as well.

This post is a bit of a rant inspired by a web comic I stumbled on, but it is so true and so common that it bears talking about.

At a certain point most SMBs decide that their website is no good, and that this critical portion of their marketing (which is very true of course) needs a makeover, or a re-design.  The ones that are smart go out and hire a professional, or a very reputable firm, the ones that aren’t hire the cheapest thing they can find, waste time, money and opportunity, and then eventually hire professionals.   So pros are hired, people with years of experience maximizing what a website can do, especially those who combine website development with online marketing, social media, demand gen, and inbound marketing.  But then this SMB proceeds to tell the pro(s) exactly what to do, or as the website nears reality, others in the company suddenly take interest and chime in, and then change their mind(s) over and over. This is a little like going to the doctors office because you have a medical problem and telling the doctor what the diagnosis is (based on your web research) and what medications you want him/her to prescribe, and of course on your next visit change your mind entirely.

The blog The Oatmeal sums it up all too accurately in this little web comic.  I showed it to our designers and one of them said he wanted to laugh, but it brought up some painful memories.  I thought this was funny, but he had a very serious look on his face.

The really sad part is I’ve experienced that sorta thing so many times the comic actually makes me a bit mad because it brings back some haunting memories.

So the takeaway is, if you’re going to pay good money and hire a professional to develop a marketing strategy (in this case part of your online marketing mix) and execute tactically (design and build the website), let them!  Sitting over their shoulder and directing the development almost guarantees a worse end-result.  The same is true for hiring a professional firm to do your SEO, or set up and maintain your Google Adwords campaigns, or set up and integrate a marketing and lead management automation solution; they do this full time, you’re paying them for their expertise, your involvement above what they ask for diminishes their performance correspondingly.

At the end of October Google released the latest PageRank (PR) updates. Has your Google PR gone up or down on your website? One of our brand new product websites, ActiveProspects, has gone from PR0 to PR5 in just two months and we are excited about it.

In an earlier post, I described how Google PageRank is based on a link analysis algorithm that is similar to a ballot system. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important that page is assumed to be. It is also calculated on the quality of those links. A handful of links from authoritative, trustworthy, relevant pages far outweigh hundreds of links from so-so sites.

Here are my tips on improving your Google PageRank:

1) Create professional and useful content on your website. When people find your content valuable, they will likely link and reference to your web content.

2) Provide client testimonials to your vendors. They will be happy to post your testimonial on their website and link to your website to show that its legitimate and credible (format the testimonial with a link).

3) Post insightful comments on blogs related to your industry (like this one!).  Avoid simply commenting with just “good post” etc. You’ll have to show that you understand the post; in your comment demonstrate a  shared experience or even challenge their idea with relevant sources.  Make sure in your profile your name links back to your website.

4) Your partners and clients are also good sources of relevant inbound links. Work hard at getting links from them.

5) Does your business have other websites. Make sure you create links to your website from your other web properties (but make sure these are not mirror sites).

There are many more ways to get credible inbound links, including outsourcing a link building campaign. Building up Googe PageRank through a link building campaign requires creativity and hard work. The upside is once you’ve earned a good Google PageRank for your website, the payoff is long term.

Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords
from the NYTimes Small Business Guide, October 14, 2009

This is a very good background article by the NYTs on Google AdWords, further evidence that Google AdWords are going mainstream.  Maybe I’m too deep into the forest, but I’m still always surprised by how many small and medium sized business managers who don’t know, or know enough about Google AdWords to realize what they are losing out on.

“It used to be that business owners often struggled to afford advertising for their products or services. Google AdWords has changed that by offering an inexpensive way to spread the word. But if you don’t do some careful planning, you can easily find yourself spending thousands of dollars with little to show for it.”

Kudos to them for also identifying that unless done properly, Google AdWords can also be a waste of money.  The truth is, in the same way when someone clicks through on a “natural” search (the unpaid portion of Google) Google is interested in sending searchers to the best quality content, Google has the same goal for click throughs on ads.  This is why having good search engine marketing skills is key to successful AdWords Marketing.  If Google likes your website for certain keywords, it will like your ads and the website it directs searches to because it is relevant. Seems commonsensical, but the popular perception is that you just have to bid the highest and your ads will show up highest.

Double Kudos to the NYTimes for mentioning the wisdom of outsourcing the setting-up and maintenance of AdWords campaigns.  Outsourcing this is low cost, and it far outweighs the opportunity cost of not doing it well.

One of the most popular free search engine marketing tools is the one providing Website Comparisons. The tool allows you to see how your website ranks, and compares your site against others such as  your competitors.  Here are a few key benchmarks of search engine marketing you should know about from the tool.

Alexa Rank – gives you a general measure of the traffic your website is receiving.  The lower the score the better.  It’s very useful to compare the traffic trend to that of your competitors for example.  If you do any social media marketing, it will play a part in how much traffic you receive from your marketing effort. The SiteInfo of Alexa will also tell you a lot about a particular website, like Traffic Stats, Contact Info, Related Links, Keywords, Clickstream and Demographics.

Google PageRank – is a numeric value between 0-10 that represents how important a page is on the web. It is based on a link analysis algorithm that is similar to a ballot system. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important that page is assumed to be.

Indexed Pages – reports how many pages of your website can be found on Google.  More indexed pages usually indicates your website is search engine friendly and is ultimately beneficial to your ranking.   As an example, we’ve seen a large DVD rental website that initially had about 100 pages indexed by Google due to search engine barriers on the site.  With some effort and minor optimization of the website, it went from 100 to over 50,000 indexed pages in less than a month.

Inbound Links - reports how many websites directly link back to your site.  Having a good number of credible links to your website will also boost your Google Page-Rank and improve the importance of your website within Google.  It allows Google and other search engines to position your website higher in their search results.  Of course, the content needs to be related to the search terms.

The Website Comparison tool is just one tool and a start for your online marketing efforts.  You can also try the  Keyword Suggestion Tool to see what search terms people are using to find your website and Webpage Analyzer to get a technical breakdown of key components of a webpage relevant to the search engines.