March 2011 Archives

The 4th B2B Barometer (2011) survey reveals that:

• 57% of B2B marketers have seen increased revenues over the last 12 months
• 67% reported a greater number of new business enquiries over the last six months
• 51% are seeing improvement in quality of enquiries
• 73% of agencies report a confident outlook for the next 12 months
• 70% of client-side marketers highlighted the customer as one of their highest priorities
• 64% of marketing companies are now developing and implementing social media strategies

The full report is now available for download from the IDM.

The latest data published by Neilsen tells us which brands are estimated to have spent the most on display advertising during 2010.

The last post on PPC, To Pay Or Not To Pay pointed out that sometimes paid search may not be the right marketing activity for your business. If however you can see an opportunity for your business to attract additional visitors via paid search, then these tips should help you get started.

Paid search in a nut shell

Before I dig in to the detail, I'll briefly re-cap how paid search works...Paid search refers to the listings at the top and right hand side of search engines results pages (SERPs). Each time one of these ads is clicked, the advertiser will pay for that click, which is why paid search is often referred to as Pay per Click (PPC) or Cost Per Click (CPC).

Each time a user makes a search an auction takes place for that keyword phrase with advertisers bidding for the best position on a SERP. The bid is not the only factor that determines position. Quality score is also used - this is a metric out of 10 that search engines use to reward advertisers who have the most relevant ads and landing pages. A higher quality score reduces the cost of clicks. This Google video eloquently explains how Google ad auctions work.

5 tips for setting up paid search campaigns

• Make a list of the products or services that your website offers to form a seed list.

• Use a keyword research tool to research this list and find out what actual terms people are using to search for these products and/or services such as the Google Keyword Tool, the Google wonder wheel or Wordtracker.

• Set up a campaign for each distinct product or service, and then group similarly themed words into individual ad groups. The more granular you can make these ad groups the better. You want to aim to have about 20 keywords per ad group.

• Set up ad texts specific to each ad group - 2 or 3 ad texts per ad group is a best practice. Try to make the ad texts as relevant to the keywords in that ad group as possible.

• Set up conversion tracking so you can see if the terms bring in relevant visitors.

5 things to avoid when setting up paid search campaigns

• The Google Content Network: this can be very effective for generating targeted visits as part of a long-term strategy, but it's worth avoiding if you are new to Adwords as it is easy to burn through money very quickly without getting a decent return on investment.

• Bidding on high volume generic terms without implementing negative keywords: these terms can be very expensive and do not always generate the best converting visitors. If you need to bid on generic terms, make sure you include negative keywords to weed out irrelevant traffic.

• Sending traffic to a homepage: you need to make it easy for visitors to complete an action, so send them to pages tailored to specific campaigns rather than making them dig around for the relevant content.

• False Offers: you may be tempted to promote an unrealistic offer in your ad text to push up your click through rates, but if users do not find this offer on your website you'll turn off potential customers and the paid search providers will also penalise you. Keep keywords relevant to ad text and ad text relevant to the landing pages.

• Focusing only on advert click through rates (CTRs): it is in the interests of the paid search providers to encourage you to promote your best performing ads, but you need to make sure that these ads attract relevant visitors that then go on to convert by making a purchase or signing up to the site etc. Focus on achieving a target cost per conversion - and do this by increasing your CTRs and improving your conversion rates These are just a few tips to get you started.

For more hints and advice take a look at other posts on this blog or try out the blogs listed below:

• PPC Hero
• Adwords Blog
• SEM Geek

If you're currently bidding on your brand name in a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign and sending the visitors that click on your ad to your home page you're potentially missing out on a good source of leads and sales.

At first thought it seems sensible to send visitors searching under your brand name to your home page - from the keyword they entered you can assume they know something about your company, but you don't specifically know what they're searching for (apart from your brand). So it's common practice to send them to your homepage and let them navigate to what they want from there.

Chances are some people will find what they want but others will click away without finding the information they need - it depends on how well optimized your home page is. And some of those that click away could have been potential leads, but now they've just cost you money without you finding out anything about them.

So, if the aim of your website is to generate leads and sales, why not test this tactic...

Instead of sending brand name searches to your home page, create an optimized landing page around some free content that's going to be engaging to your target audience. And then direct the brand name PPC searches to this page. Remember, normal PPC campaign and ad set up rules apply - your landing page and your content still need to be relevant to the keyword - in this case your brand name.

You can put a sign-up form in front of the content so you can start to collect respondents' details. Depending on your business model you can then start to nurture the leads or send them to sales. At the very least you've now got something (information on the responder) from the cost of that click.

This is something we've tested at RBI after getting the idea from Eloqua after searching under their brand name in connection with searches for lead nurturing.

Here's a screen grab of the search results page for the key word 'Eloqua' - in their PPC ad they're offering two different pieces of content (perhaps targeting different personas).

You'll also notice that their organic listing appears underneath the ad giving searchers the more standard links to relevant pages.

And here's the landing page for the eBook - highly optimized for conversion.

Here at RBI we're involved in providing information and marketing solutions to decision makers and professionals. We've created content in the form of white papers, market reports and case studies specifically targeted at our audiences in the industry sectors we serve. We've set up landing pages and changed our 'brand name' ad campaigns so that people are now directed to the content on these pages.

As far as results go, we've generally seen average CTR for the ad-groups increase by over 30%. We've collected details of thousands of prospects that we potentially wouldn't have got otherwise. We know that a number of sales initially entered our funnel via this route and overall the campaigns give us a positive ROI.

Below is a fantastic tool we use at RBI to help keep consistency when there are a number of people communicating as a brand.

In each column mark where is most appropriate for your brand and audience and see if it corresponds to your current messages.

A good social media policy is one that delivers user value while extending your brands reach. The interplay between someone's social media profile and your brand is so important as a positive endorsement requires an investment of time and enthusiasm. Most companies now have an element of social media on their sites, but here are some tips on extending your brand's reach.

1. Social integration - as social interaction gains ubiquity across the planet, plugging all activity into the social web is essential, allowing users to navigate between content and their social profile. From a technological perspective, social integration can take two key forms, both essential in reducing the barriers to a good social experience:

• At the most basic level, make sure your content links in effectively with the major social media platforms, either through widget plugins or through more complete integration. For example, Facebook now offers the ability to link in your comments with their functionality, seamlessly linking a comment and a Facebook profile.
• Adhere to open standards such as Oauth and Open ID to make sure users can link content between their social media profiles and your website using a single login.

Both these measures allow users to have a seamless experience between your brand and their own social media platforms. The ubiquity of sites such as Facebook means that this interaction is essential, the key caveat being is be sure you have ultimate control of your site's data, as this can be a big part of your business strategy,.

2. Profile building - make sure you advertise your relevant social media channels throughout your site, increasing user awareness while reinforcing the notion that your site is social.

3. Social campaigns - can you use those brands to push a marketing campaign or to interact with your users, whether through a simple Q&A or competition.

4. Push content - sometimes users just want your content delivered in a way that is most convenient to them. If they exclusively use Twitter for example, push your content out to them and segment it into a way that informs both the more general and more engaged users of your brand.

5. Social support - fully integrated support functions that allow users to get immediate feedback on a problem.

6. Social interaction - at the most basic level, social media is about showing the human side to your brand. Therefore the more you do it the more transparent your brand can be.

7. Think to the future -the landscape of social media trends changes so quickly that it is important you stay informed about growing trends. For example the growth of mobile is fundamentally changing the levels of access and interaction with your brand, with sites such as Foursquare using location as a social layer to capitalise on.

Do not rely upon instinct when it comes to the development and design of your website. Relying on instinct is high risk with a low success rate and potential for damage is high.

Engaging in user research is low risk with a high success rate as you make evidence-based business and design decisions.

The key benefits of a User Centred Design process can be summarised into two main categories; Financial and Improved User Experience:

Financial:

• Reduction in development time
• Reduction in development effort
• Reduced support costs
• Increased sales/revenue

Improved User Experience:

• Increased user satisfaction
• Users returning to your site
• Users spending more time on your site
• Successfully completing tasks in the minimum time
• Increased user loyalty
• Strong word of mouth

 And here are some useful statistics relating to the increase in (return) site visitors:

• More than 83% of Internet users are likely to leave a website if they feel they have too many clicks to find what they're looking for (source: Arthur Andersen)
• 58% of visitors who experience usability problems on a website did not return (source: Forrester Research)
• People can't find the information they're seeking on a website about 60% of the time, due to usability issues (source: User Interface Engineering)
• More traffic ---> more page impressions ---> more advertising revenue

Online display advertising appears in many forms, not just traditional banners, skyscrapers and MPUs.

Something many of our sites/ magazines are looking at is interactive digital editions. This is not just the print edition replicated online as they do not follow the standard column widths and heavy text commonly found in hard copy as it really isn't suitable for consuming online. Instead, we fill them with plenty of images, videos and info-graphics designed to make it easy for the user to read without having to zoom in to read small text.

At Flightglobal.com we produced around a dozen of these in 2010 and plan to increase this in 2011. Ours came about from the air show coverage where we produce a printed Flight Daily News handed out to visitors but what about all those people who want to know what is happening but can't make it wherever in the World it is? The answer for us, along with our website, was Interactive Flight Daily News. This is delivered to your inbox so you can see, hear and experience the latest news and information even if you can't be there.

This has been a huge success not just editorially but for advertisers who can provide static ads as they would in print or they can adapt to the new format and provide interactive Rich Media advertisements. You can see this in the following link to our Farnborough Air Show iFDN 

Airbus saw click-through rates of around 6.7% but there are a few advertising tips;

1) Make sure the whole of your ad is hyperlinked - whilst any urls will be picked up and automatically hyperlinked you are relying on a steady hand to mouse over it and you want to make it as easy as possible to click through to your site.

2) Catch the reader's eye straight away - there is so much going on in these editions you really need to stand out.

3) Give the user choices and remember the Rich Media ads can be so much deeper than a static image - create different tabs within the ad so they can view different content which you can also track and see where and what the user is interested in.

It isn't just air shows as we have now recently launched the interactive Airline Business whilst in the agricultural market Crops has just gone digital which complements the eight print issues, sent to around 10,000 subscribers. 

With more and more magazines going digital and with compatibility on iPads the opportunities for advertising in innovative ways to existing and new audiences are really opening up.

1. Forward to a friend

Why?
Promote promotion - Forward to a friend allows an email recipient to forward your email to others in a way that avoids formatting errors and promotes sign-ups. When the recipient clicks on the link Outlook creates a new outlook email that contains:

• A set subject line
• A link to the web page version of the email in the body
• A link to the registration form to subscribe to receive the forwarded email
   

How?
Here is the forward to a friend code. This code should be entered as a hyperlink:

<a href="

mailto:&subject=FW:SUBJECT LINE

&body=You have been forwarded this email by a friend.

%0D%0A

%0D%0A

View the newsletter here:%0D%0AURL TO WEB VERSION OF EMAIL

%0D%0A

%0D%0A

Register to receive this newsletter here:%0D%0AURL TO EMAIL SIGN-UP FORM"> forward this email to a friend</a>

When using forward to a friend, there are a few things to check/update:
1. Ensure that you do not track the links that appear in the forward to a friend email (signup form link, link to web page version of the email.)
2. Ensure that the paragraph break code is there (%0D%0A)
3. Ensure that the link to the web page version of this email is correct. You will need to update this on EVERY email


2. View as a webpage

Why?
Should there, for any reason, be a problem rendering your emails, it is best practice to offer your contacts the option of viewing your emails online as a webpage.

How?
1. Place the sentence 'view this email as a webpage' at the top of this email.
2. To host the email, add the HTML file to your image server. 
3. Hyperlink the 'a webpage' to links through to the HTML version of the email, hosted on your server.


3. Add us to your whitelist

Why?
An email whitelist (sometimes called a safelist) is a list of all the sender names/addresses who the recipient deems acceptable to receive email from. Mail sent from a whitelisted sender will be delivered to a recipient's inbox (never classed as spam or junk mail) and all the images that appear in that email will automatically be downloaded.

Whitelisting pacifies the email client spam filters and improves the deliverability of your communications - it's best to encourage it!

How?
Place the sentence 'To keep receiving this email, please add us to your safe / white list' at the top of the email. Hyperlink the words 'safe / white list' to a landing page that shows the recipient how to add your sender name/address to the whitelist in Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL amd other clients. Here is the link to ours here at Reed Business Information:
http://epidm.edgesuite.net/RBI/whitelist/whitelist.html