Web Generated Leads – How Soon Before They Get Cold?

We have  said it once and today we will say it again – following up with web generated leads as soon as possible is a good idea.  A  2008 study by MIT and InsideSales.com, should helpto  increase your businesses sales.

  • According to the MIT study, “the odds of contacting a lead if called within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drops 100 times.”  Statistics for qualifying leads are equally as surprising – “the odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drops 21 times.” Since the qualification stage is where we find out the purchasing potential of the web generated lead we should pay close attention and strive to follow up with all leads within 5 minutes.
  • What’s interesting about this study is that it only takes into account leads that were called upon at least one time.  Many studies exist that show between 30-80% of web generated leads are never followed up on.  If your business has any leads that fit this category, maybe it is time to add additional sales staff or other tools that can help your sales team quickly follow up on web generated leads.
  • The best times of the day to make contact is between 4 to 6 pm. 7-8 AM and 11-12 were some of the worst times to call during the day. The study seems to suggest that calling leads around breakfast and lunch time is not the prime time for contacting or qualifying leads.  The study still leads the reader to believe that regardless of the time called – calling within 5 minutes is the most ideal follow up time.
  • The study also found that Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to call in order to contact web-generated leads. Tuesday is the worst day to make contact with a lead, with Thursday being a 49.7% better day to call.  Now, we wouldn’t suggest that everyone takes off Tuesdays for the rest of the year, but maybe Tuesdays should be earmarked for learning sessions and quarterly off site meetings for your sales teams.

If you don’t already have a way of making sure your web generated leads are being followed-up with quickly – you should set a process in place right away.

The numbers game: choosing keywords for success

Thus far in our SEO gameplan for success we have discussed the types of goals you should have for your campaign and the types of information you should use to record baselines that you’ll build upon.  This article starts taking us past the prep work and gets us into the thick of things.  Obviously, a lot of what is done in SEO revolves around keywords.  One of the overarching goals of SEO is to improve your site’s visibility in the search engines for keywords that are going to bring you qualified traffic.  What constitutes a qualified visitor should have been tackled in “Determining goals and when to expect to achieve them” while taking a look into what types of keywords drive traffic to your site was referenced in “Determining and recording baselines”.  We’ll take this further and explore various ways to approach keyword research.

I would venture to say that there are basically two types of keywords in your future.  There are the general terms that have high search volume and there are the long-tail keywords that have low search volume.  With high search volume typically comes a big heaping helping of competiveness.  Reversely, the more specific a keyword phrase is, the less competition there will be.  As you would guess, these two types of keywords will also bring different types of visitors.  The general terms may bring a large quantity of visits but the quality of visitors could vary drastically.  Longtail keywords are more specific and will therefore typically bring a small amount of traffic but the traffic will be more qualified.  The final way I would recommend viewing these two types of keywords is related to how quickly you can expect to gain traction in the search engines for particular phrases.  Generally speaking, you’ll be able to affect your site’s ranking for the more specific keywords before you’ll ever make a dent in the broad terms.  This is why many times we will make two keyword groupings:  a short term goal based keyword set and a long term goal based keyword set.

When choosing keywords to target for search engine optimization for your site, I’d recommend considering at least the following:

  • Estimated search volume – you can use Google’s Keyword Tool for a very rough estimate of monthly search volume
  • Look into the competitiveness of each term – the number and quality of search results is a good place to start
  • Dig into your paid search data if you have it – which keywords are converting well for you in PPC
  • Dig into your web analytics data – which keywords bring qualified traffic to your site according to site metrics like bounce rate, average time on site, and probably most important, which provide conversions
  • Which will be your short term keywords and which will be your long term

Be sure and attempt to view your products and services from the point of view of a prospective client.  What would you type into the search box if you were looking for something but were perhaps unfamiliar with the industry jargon?  Would you use qualifiers like geographic locations, color, size, or any other descriptions?

Choosing keywords sometimes appears cut and dry in the beginning but once you really start researching from different angles and using actual data, you may find that reality is a bit different than your initial expectations.  We often find that the “obvious keywords” aren’t the ones that convert well.  We also find that choosing keywords isn’t something that you do once.  Let your list of target keywords evolve as you receive new data.

The next step in this SEO gameplan discusses how and why you should work on PPC and SEO together on your site.

How to Use A Localized Paid Search Strategy to Drive Foot Traffic

As Paid Search becomes more and more competitive, advertisers are forced to become smarter about their PPC strategies to attain their goals.  One of the most difficult transitions can be for Brick and Mortar stores to compete online against bigger rivals who have vast budgets and resources, optimized websites and other bells and whistles.  This can be overwhelming for business owners who want to compete at a local level online. How do you compete?

You are local!

Local PPC Strategies can be an effective strategy that focuses your efforts on users who are looking online for brick and mortar stores  to physically see the products they are going to purchase, talk to a salesperson to have questions answered and be sure the product is the right fit.  To implement a localized PPC campaign, there are three easy steps to follow to get your account moving in the right direction.

  • Target the right terms– find search queries to target that include the City, State, Zip or even part of town your business is located.  An example is if you own a shop that sells surf boards located in North Austin.  Use keyword tools like Google’s to find what amount of traffic is localized.  Add additional qualifiers like Austin, 78756, North Austin and others to your terms to target those who are searching for your product in your area of business.  The use of the qualifier focuses your budget on the right type of traffic and weed out those who are looking to purchase online.
  • Ad Copy (use of Local Business Extension)-once your keyword list is ready to go, the next piece of the buy is to use ad copy to highlight that your are a local business.  Google’s LOCAL BUSINESS EXTENSION allows you to create a 5th line of text that includes you business address with a clickable link to Google Maps to see where you are located.  The use of local business extension makes your ad pop out to users who are searching for a local business by adding this 5th line of text.  Google also allows you to track how many clicks the link to Google Maps gets to see how effective this strategy can be.
  • Landing Page- The final piece of the puzzle is to add landing pages that highlight your products, location and send an encouraging message to drive traffic into your stores.  Some ways to track the effectiveness of the landing page is to have a coupon that users can bring into your stores for a 10% discount.  The biggest thing many advertisers overlook is keeping the user experience level from start to finish.  You have targeted the right traffic with your keyword list, sent the right message with your ad copy…be sure to keep that message constant with your landing page.

As you see your efforts improve through the use of a localized strategy, you can grow this strategy by adding the use of mobile targeted paid ads.  Mobile ads are even more targeted to local traffic as most searches on smart phones are visitors who are en route to find your products or services.  We will have more on Local Mobile PPC to follow…

Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is certainly an up and coming segment of the online marketing world. It is predicted that 100 million users will access the mobile web in 2010 according to Nielsen.  Users of Apple’s iPhone and the Android top the list for types of phone used in the US.
There are currently four different types of mobile marketing that advertisers are using to connect their brands with consumers:
Mobile Web
Mobile web is perhaps the most common form of mobile advertising.  Advertising in this format mainly shows up after a user enters a search query, but the content is optimized and created for a  mobile web browser.
Messaging
Mobile messaging is somewhat similar to email marketing, but the message arrives to your cell phone.  In some cases, you can even send your mobile message to a group of mobile users who have opted in to receive offers from your company or similar advertisers
Applications
Apple has a great mobile app store that users can download different applications from.  Companies can place ads either within the ad or even before or after the app begins.  This type of advertising is very compelling as you can easily target your audience by finding out the target demographic of the mobile application.
Mobile Video and TV
Many people are using their cellphones to download and view content from the internet.  Mobile video ads allow marketers to place video or even static images before or after the video begins.  YouTube mobile does a great job of making this type of application available.
No matter what type of business you are – people can be looking for you and your product through the mobile web.  Make sure you are setup to do business via iPhone, Android or the latest SmartPhone by having a well thought out mobile media plan at your disposal that takes advantage of the right type of mobile media as shown above.

Mobile advertising is certainly an up and coming segment of the online marketing world. It is predicted that 100 million users will access the mobile web in 2010 according to Nielsen.  Users of Apple’s iPhone and the Android top the list for types of phone used in the US.  There are currently four different types of mobile marketing that advertisers are using to connect their brands with consumers:

Mobile Web

Mobile web is perhaps the most common form of mobile advertising.  Advertising in this format mainly shows up after a user enters a search query, but the content is optimized and created for a  mobile web browser.

Messaging

Mobile messaging is somewhat similar to email marketing, but the message arrives to your cell phone.  In some cases, you can even send your mobile message to a group of mobile users who have opted in to receive offers from your company or similar advertisers.

Applications

Apple has a great mobile app store that users can download different applications from.  Companies can place ads either within the ad or even before or after the app begins.  This type of advertising is very compelling as you can easily target your audience by finding out the target demographic of the mobile application.

Mobile Video and TV

Many people are using their cellphones to download and view content from the internet.  Mobile video ads allow marketers to place video or even static images before or after the video begins.  YouTube mobile does a great job of making this type of application available.

No matter what type of business you are – chances are people are looking for your business and your product through the mobile web.  Make sure you are setup to do business via iPhone, Android or the latest SmartPhone by having a well thought out mobile media plan at your disposal that takes advantage of the right type of mobile media as shown above.

Determining and recording SEO baselines

The next step I often take in working to create a successful SEO campaign is often a fun one for me.  The purpose of this step is to take inventory of what you have to begin with.  You’re likely to fall in or near one of the two following groupings:  You are fortunate enough to have a site ranking for some decent phrases, already have some traffic coming in from those rankings, and you might even have some conversions from SEO.  Or, you have a site but not much else…yet!  Either way, this step gets you to look at where you’re starting from and even if you’re starting with nearly nothing, the fun comes from knowing you will be able to improve.

What baselines are important to record early on?

Your first instinct may lead you to start by noting where your site ranks for certain keywords.  While this is an important metric that you can (and should) easily compare with over time, I would encourage you to spend your time finding where your starting point is from a web analytics perspective and save setting keyword ranking baselines until you are doing keyword research.

Whether you’re using a free web analytics platform (such as Google Analytics) or you’re using a paid option, you will have a lot of information available to you.  Starting out, dig up at least enough information to answer the following questions:

  • how much traffic do you receive from organic, non-paid traffic
  • what keywords drive your natural search traffic
  • how much referral traffic do you receive now
  • what sites refer traffic to you
  • what are your typical bounce rates
  • how long do visitors typically spend on your main pages
  • how many conversions come from natural search traffic

Feel free to give us a call if you have trouble gathering any of this information!

Note:  this information can typically be referenced in your analytics account at any time but I see a lot of benefit from pulling this information early on.  There are a lot of ways to manipulate this data to give you the information that you need.  For instance, you may want to compare data from December 2009 to December 2008.

Dig into your data early on and establish your baselines to get a better idea of where you’re starting and what you need to focus on to improve.

The next step in this SEO gameplan discusses what considerations you should move through when choosing what keywords to pursue with Search Engine Optimization.

When Search is not the answer

Recently, our team decided against taking on a Pay-Per-Click project for a potential client due to a situation…their product/service is too unique and niche.  How does this present a problem for SEM efforts?  As we have preached many times before on our blog, is the understanding of all Online Marketing Strategies and how they cooperate with one another.  Search Marketing, by nature, is a form of demand fulfillment in which advertisers target visitors who are actively looking for their products and services.  For this process to occur, awareness of your products/services by those who need it.  The issue that occurs for niche products/services is the lack of the awareness factor which leads to little to no search volume…in short, if people are not aware that they need you they will not search for you.  So how do you solve this issue and get qualified traffic to your site? Demand Generationstrategies is what you need…

  • Display Advertising

Display Advertising is one of the most effective online marketing strategies for awareness and branding when done right.  Using messaging/images and targeting the right placements/web sites is one of the quickest ways to generate awareness due to the reach its capable of.  Display Advertising can reach millions of targeted traffic daily and provide more awareness then TV or Radio combined.  As you generate Display traffic, you will see traffic volume from your Branded Terms and Direct traffic increase along with your sales and leads.  This is what makes Display Advertising the closest thing to traditional advertising online.

  • Google Content Network

The Google Content Network is Google’s version of a Display Network.  Their Content Network is estimated to reach up to 76% of the visitors in the US and with the right targeting strategy can be very effective in bring forth awareness.  Google’s Content Network allows you to use Text, Image and Video ads and target demographics, websites and/or relevant content (through keyword targeting) to find qualified  visitors.  As you collect data, you will be able to use the Google Adwords and Analytics reporting to measure the effectiveness of Content Network targeting.  In upcoming posts, we will get into Content Network strategy and how to be effective.

The big takeaway is understanding your online marketing tool kit to be successful.  If you are starting a new service or product that the world has never heard of, don’t be surprised when your SEM efforts fall short.  Use Display and the Google Content Network to educate potential customers and get the business you need online!

Reasons To be on Facebook

To Make Connections

Facebook just reached 300 million active users and nearly half of these users check their pages daily. This means that your business’s page has an extremely high chance of being seen and interacted with daily. If your company takes the time to network, constantly reaches out to interested parties, and becomes part of the discussion, Facebook will become a successful marketing venue. Facebook is a place to make connections with your current users and potential customers, inevitably growing your business.

To Increase Business

Due to recent changes in marketing tracking and Facebook’s partnership with Nielsen, companies can now track how successful their Facebook efforts have been on a ROI level. It now goes beyond how many people have “fanned” your company, to showing exactly how these fans have impacted growth. Moreover, simply creating a new online presence in the fastest growing social media network shows that you understand what people want, and know what is currently engaging your customers’ attention.

To Manage Your Reputation


Immersing your company in the depths of Facebook discussions puts your organization on the same level as its customers. If you give them a direct connection with your brand, you are more likely to answer questions and correct falsities that arise before they hit the blogs. Facebook fan pages are a new platform to manage crisis and reach your company’s publics quickly and efficiently.

Fan Pages are Public


Facebook “pages” are more suited to businesses than group pages or people profiles and could help your company build another online presence. The fan pages were produced to give companies the optimal communication outlet and allow their customers to “fan” them- showing everyone a connection to the brand and opening a discussion. Pages are indexed by Google and can be searched and viewed by non-Facebook members, giving non-members the option to view your page. Mass messages can be sent to all fans, and any update to your profile is shown on your fans’ News Feed. The presence of your fan page can spread virally, reaching people and getting them involved.

To Get People Excited


Facebook is a relatively blank canvas for your company to experiment and explore. Page options like adding pictures, links, applications, videos, discussion boards, reviews, and company information, will engage your fans. The more you add and interact with the page, the more the fan is reminded of your brand and the hip things you are doing for it. Facebook can aid your company in generating buzz- In a lot of ways it does your PR grunt work for you. While no social media network encourages straight self-promotion, there is room to promote new products and sales offers.

– Leverage Marketing Team

The first step in crafting a successful SEO campaign – Goal Setting

Determining what it is that you want to accomplish with search engine optimization should be at the forefront of your thinking when you start a concentrated SEO effort.  In SEO, setting goals, whether for your site, for your SEO agency, or for another piece of the effort, is an important element to a healthy campaign.  Your goals can act as milestones and can be perfect check points to measure the success of a task.  Goals for an SEO campaign can of course come in all shapes and sizes (so to speak), and can be wildly different depending on who is setting them and how lofty their aspirations are.  Many site owners will undoubtedly want to rank first for all keywords that could even possibly drive related traffic to their site no matter how general those terms may be.  For instance, I just recently spoke with someone who listed as a goal for their site:  “ranking first for the term ‘win.'”  Now, I don’t mention this to imply that this person was dumb – they certainly are not, but I do mention it because this perfectly illustrates how some goals sound great until you dig a little deeper and look into attainability.  This goal would not only be difficult to reach (Microsoft sites are entrenched at the top of Google due to their windows products), but reaching the top position would almost undoubtedly not result in high quality traffic.

So, what are realistic goals for SEO?

I personally recommend you start by setting goals related to the following consideration before you even go further:

-Type of conversions desired

By type of conversion I mean determining what actions you want your visitors to take once they land on your page.  For example:  fill out a lead form, call a phone number, sign up for a newsletter, buy directly from the site, etc.

Goals from there can go in a lot of directions but make sure you at least consider the following:

-Goals related to what happens when people visit your site

Another type of goal will come from your actual site metrics.  Hopefully you have some sort of visitor tracking on your site and hopefully it has been running for some time now and you have insight into current and past metrics.  If you don’t, it is never too late to add web tracking.  Google Analytics is a free and robust web analytics program that many of our customers use.  We’ll get more into setting goals based on web analytics baselines next Friday when we discuss determining baselines.

-Goals related to where your site ranks for particular phrases

Your goals for rankings may be related to branding goals, traffic generation, quality traffic factors, and many other thoughts but generally I recommend having at least two buckets of keywords.  You’ll want your long-term goals and your short-term goals.  Your short-term goals will consist of long-tail phrases that probably won’t drive huge amounts of traffic from any one term but the traffic they do drive will generally be at least fairly qualified and these terms will be low on the competitiveness scale.  Your long-terms goals will consist of broader terms that will likely be searched rather frequently, will be more competitive, and will drive more general traffic than the long-tail phrases.  A discussion on choosing keywords that meet this criteria comes on January 22nd.

One last note regarding goals:  Give enough time to collect good data related to your goals but realize that goals may need to evolve.  In other words, don’t be afraid to change some of your goals if need be.

The next step in this SEO gameplan is determining and recording SEO baselines.

Yahoo Step Ups Bidding Capabilities

Yahoo Paid Ads has recently rolled out new Advanced bidding options that are second to none in the Paid Search Market.  With the new  Bidding options, you are now able to target your bids based on:

  • Demographics (Age, Sex)
  • City and State Targeting
  • Time of Day Targeting

The roll-out of the new bidding options will allow you to set your campaigns to target bids more aggressively for all of the variables mentioned.  This rivals bidding options on Google and Bing because of the ability to take the Demographic, Geo and/or Time of Day information and bid more aggressively by what works and back off bids on what doesn’t.

An example of this would be if your are client X and you sell online books.  Based on the demographic and regional data collected, you find that women in their 30-40s  and in major Metropolitan areas has the highest conversion rates.  You can set your campaign settings to increase bids for those visitors by x% in effort to increase exposure to your target market.  On the flip side, if you find that there is a high cost involved with people under the age of 18 you can lower your bids on this demographic.

Overall, while there are many needed improvements on Yahoo’s Search Marketing platform, the ability to control bidding at this level adds a whole new level of strategy.  When it comes to bid optimization efforts, Yahoo now has the advantage!

Google Content Network as Cost-Effective as Search Network IF You Give it Enough Time

We’ve often heard stories of businesses who tried the content network only to be met with financial losses and no way to know if sales resulted.  Google’s Content Network can still be a big bad place, but it doesn’t have to be if you follow these strategic recommendations:

Effectively target and create your ads with your audience in mind. Your audience should consist of those customers who may actually turn into customers*.   Effectively targeting your ads also includes ensuring your creative is appealing to your target market and that your offer is in-line with what your target demographic expects.

Target your content ads both contextually and by placement. Contextually targeting your ads is a great option if you want your content ads to appear alongside certain keywords or content.

If you are selling ‘I Love New York City’ merchandise, you may want your ads to appear alongside any story that discusses the closing of the famed Tavern on the Green Restaurant located in Central Park.  You would want to be careful, although, that your ads do not show up alongside any articles for Frank The Entertainer…In a Basement Affair, the show starring the guy who first gained fame from VH1’s I Love New York TV Show!

Don’t include all of your products under one umbrella. A common mistake is including too many products or keywords in one ad group.  The best optimized content campaigns are categorical and not keyword based; only add a handful of keywords into each ad group.  For starters you can use like keywords from your already well optimized search campaign.

Always be tracking. Make sure you are giving yourself enough time to see conversions come in.  Timeframe can be dependent upon your product’s buying cycle and how many clicks your ads receive.  Now that you have conversion data, make sure you are moving forward in optimizing your account only for conversions with an ideal ROI. To optimize your ads you can use tactics such as increasing bids on high-converting sites and lowering bids and/or excluding poorly performing sites.

Remember, you can’t always be tracking. There are instances where you won’t see a jump in sales just because you began a content network campaign.  Realize that the content network can also work to get customers familiar with your brand.  You won’t always be able to make an attribution from the content network ad to the conversion that comes out the other side.

The steps above are high-level, but you should work on setting up a great structure and optimize your Content Network account just as much as your search account. According to Google research, “[i]n a study of 25,000 global accounts, over half had an average Content Network CPA equal to or better than their Search Network CPA.”

*If you don’t have a good handle on who your target demographic is, a great place to start is your Yahoo account.  Yahoo has tools that will allow you to pinpoint your demographic IF you enable this feature in your Yahoo account.