Online Branding Blog – reactorr.com

Internet Marketing Goals

Offline marketing is vastly different to doing so online. With traditional advertising, a media buyer takes a budget and selects a few channels (print, outdoor, tv, radio, etc) and decides on which are the best match for the demographic of the product or service. After organizing the buy, they present their recommendation and then usually move forward with their selections. And they’re done.

Internet marketing shares a few similarities, like targeting to a suitable demographic, but not a lot. The creative which might work offline doesn’t necessarily translate well to an online audience, or tweaks need to be made to work with the campaign. With online advertising you’re able to track effectiveness and use split testing to optimize for the best possible conversion. And with online markeitng data available in near real-time, you can adjust your campaign to dial up or down, or move your budget to better performing options.

Many companies measure the success of online advertising or social media simply by the increase in web traffic versus their usual traffic volume. Defining your goals is the ideal place to start for online advertising, search marketing, online branding, or social media. Some of the goals you might pursue for these are;

Search Engine Rankings – when your SEO strategy is moving in the right direction, you should see your site improve in the search results pages (SERPs) for predetermined phrases that you have chosen to pursue. The end result is an increase in both web traffic and leads.

Online Branding – while this includes an SEO component, an online branding strategy also includes internet marketing and social media. Online branding is not just ranking to have your website become synonymous with certain searched phrases, it also involves advertising online within the right circles to create that top of mind awareness with your brand. Additionally, it also employs social media tactics to develop your online brand essence and assist with online reputation management. Another way to measure is noting an increase in mentions on other websites, hopefully for the better.

Increase Sales – SEO can drive leads to your site, and if you’ve optimized for conversion, those leads should result in an increase in sales. This is a more common metric that is preferred, but not always the right one. If you’re running a pay per click (PPC) campain, then it might make sense, but if you’re campaign is social media or SEO, more suitable metrics might be followers or ranking.

Search Marketing for Small Business

There’s no doubt that it takes a little while for an SEO campaign to get off the ground. Which is why Search Marketing is a great way to get lead generation working for your business. Using Google Adwords, a business can be online and accepting leads in a matter of minutes.

Search marketing is what’s also known as Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, where you pay only for the ads clicks on, not how often its displayed. This Cost Per Action type of marketing is popular as it allows you to better control your marketing budget.  If you’re new to this type of advertising, you’ll be glad to know that you can cap your daily spend.

It should be noted that while Search Marketing with programs like Google Adwords or similar options can bring in leads fast, the Cost Per Click quickly adds up depending on what business you’re in. Also, the paid search listing typically get 20 percent of the clicks from search results, while the natural search listings tend to get the other 80 percent of the clicks. The thing with the natural listings is SEO can be it take 6 months or more to start ranking due to the cycles of link crawling and indexing. But on the other hand, SEO tends to be a better return long term strategy, despite the initial up front investment.

An interesting introduction to Adwords can be found at NY Times.

Digital Marketing

The old rules of digital marketing have changed. Past performance measures of ROI differ to that of “traditional” digital media. Recent research shows that consumers can be up to 40 percent more likely to purchase a product if they have liased with that brand in a social space.

Consumers do their fair share of online research before making a lot of purchases, and online branding has a big influence when a potential customer searches a phrase and find you in the top 5 natural listings. Of course paid listings are fine, but almost 80 percent of the clicks go to natural listings. Which is why a lot of people prefer search marketing and Internet advertising over SEO. You can turn on your campaigns quick, and track them easily.

But when it comes to your best online marketing ROI, there’s no comparison to SEO. The only downfall is the initial time and investment up front. But you might look at as an investment in your online branding.

Another area of Digital Marketing that’s difficult to forecast a return on can be social media. It seems this really depends on whether Social Media is the right fit for your business, but it’s more than just Twitter and Facebook. Although if you’re new to it all you might have trouble telling. But it’s fairly important that online branding includes a social media strategy, as well as developing your presence within relevant circles such as participating in the right forums and commenting on blogs.

Although the performance measures aren’t clear cut, developing metrics beyond web traffic is a good start.

Google Land

Ever wonder what it would be like to visit Google headquarters? Google is supposed to have not only a great corporate culture, but also some very interesting office space. Here’s some interesting pics for a behind the scenes look.

 A slide allows quick access from  different floors. There are also poles available similar to the ones used in fire stations.

Employees can eat all they want from a vast choice of food and drink in the Googleplex cafeteria.

Each employee has at least two large screens. There are 4-6 ‘Zooglers’ per office.

Google offices are spacious and modern in design.

The Googleplex has one of the most interest open office concepts I’ve seen.

Large boards are available just about everywhere because “ideas don’t always come when seated in the office” says one of Google’s managers.

 Pool tables, video games etc. are  available in many areas.

Each floor hosts private cabin areas where employees (Zooglers) can attend to personal  affairs.

Problem with your computer ?  No problem …Bring it to this area where drinks are available while it is being fixed …

Professional masseurs and masseuses are  available.

This room offers massage chairs that you control while you view relaxing aquariums.

There are many books in the Google library – even some that are about  something other than programming.

Thanks to Dave (and Kara) of Fusion Advertising for sharing most of the images.

Will Poken Catch On?

Here’s an ingenious idea from a Swiss company that could catch one. It’s called Poken, and it might just replace business cards someday. A Poken has 2 parts to it. There is the Poken itself, which reflects some side of your identity. Then there is the Poken hand, which pulls out and connects to your computer.

The way it works is when you meet someone, instead of exchanging business cards, two people would touch the Poken hands together and your Pokens exchange ID information.  When they come in close proximity a little light glows to tell you it worked.After you get home you connect the Poken USB hand to your computer and see the information from your new friends. It’s like exchanging a business card, only quicker and with a lot more info.

From their site…

“We’re not another social network. You’ve already got that.We’ve thought bigger to let you instantly bridge the gap between the people you meet in the real world and those you stay connected to online.”

On the Poken site you create an account and add social media accounts to your profile various like Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, and many more. This might be a good time to grab your name.

Social Media Business Strategies

Using social media tools can allow a business to connect and create conversations with their clients. Savvy companies have picked up on the opportunities and are already engaged. Throughout the customer life cycle a company can educate, support, pitch, introduce and more.

Social media is about conntecting people. Integratration of social media into your marketing strategy is no longer a question if whether if you should, but how you plan to do so. The possibilities are numerous, and your customers will show their appreciation through shorter sales cyles and increased business.

Usually customers are using social media tools before the companies are, so its important to participate, but also understand that you’re not in charge. Simply put, either let go or lose control.

Where does one start? Does your company have a blog? Depending on the nature of your business, you might have several experts within your company and want to have multiple blogs. If you have more than one division or product line you might be a candidate for multiple blogs.  Maybe your engineers are working on different aspects of the business that justify multiple blogs? An example of a company with multiple blogs is GMblogs which discusses everything from new products to events. This approach caters to specific interests and makes the blogs more interesting to read than lumping all related aut content into one blog.

Dell is another example, with 10 internal blogs and over 20 Twitter accounts, they’re maintaining relations and communication with consumers on a few levels. If your business can be segmented, without becoming overly fragmented, multiple blogs might be an option for you too.

In other cases, it can make sense to run forums. This is more of a direct conversation with your audience and can require a higher degree of maintenance. As would creating your own social network. But the return on a successfully create forum or social network provides a direction line of communication with your customer. Be forewarned that creating and maintaining a forum or social network is a demanding endeavour.

By personalizing the customer experience through interaction you involve your customers and give your company a face at the same time. And advantage of having multiple blogs is, when applicable, you’re delivering a more targeted message to the readers. It’s important to keep in mind not to be overly commercial in your conversation, yet still mention informative news. Being informative and resourceful is going to add stickiness and interest to your message, as opposed to using it as an advertising channel.

Studies now show that as much as 60% of consumers find advertising unappealing or irrelevant. We’re no longer living in a society where media can push messages at consumers. They’ll find what they want, when they want. Your brand can be part of that.

Another great example is when P&G developed beinggirl.com to put themselves at the center of the conversation. While its cheaper to sponsor a site than create and support one, the control and equity built are incomparable. The community P&G built surrounds issues of the target market and hold their attention.  Building a community isn’t for everyone, it can depend on your audience and topic. In the case of beinggirl the consumer is higher to participate and join in the conversation, and they would be at the beginning of the sales cycle. Determining their lifetime value it made sense to create the community. This chart from BusinessWeek illustrates contributors by age.

Examples cited might be Fortune 1000, the message is still the same. Brand awareness is more than advertising. Maintaining that top of mind awareness is no longer about repetition. We know that hasn’t worked for some time and consumers are tuning us out the message. Products and services of value are about making life easier, so it stands to reason the message ought to be following the same format. Provide value in your communications and consumers will notice, preach to them and you risk losing them.

Although mentioned previously, it’s worth restating; you can either be part of the conversation or watch the opportunities to speak with your customers pass you by.