Marketing Results

Great call just now with Doug and Sara over at Compendium.  We were talking about the marketing ROI of blogging for business.  It goes like this.

1. I blog about the things I think and do.
2. I try to blog a lot.
3. I use the search marketing keywords that I know people search on.
4. I use a platform that automatically positions my content for maximum search engine love.
5. I get ranked in Google for terms like Cincinnati Marketing (#3 in local results) Cincinnati Marketing Firm (#1), Cincinnati Advertising Agency (#10), Social Media Marketing Cincinnati (#10), and about 45 others.
6. People search using these search marketing keywords b/c that's what the research tells me.
7. They find my blog.
8. They read and click on a call to action.
9. They get some value, and we have a great marketing strategy conversation.
10. Some of those people choose to engage us and help them build their business.

The recent results?

• 10 new leads
• 4 well-qualified opportunities
• 2 new clients
• 566% ROI

Not bad.  

If your Cincinnati marketing firm delivered $5.66 for every $1 you handed over, wouldn't you go find as many singles as you could?  Blogging for business really works.

I just left a meeting with a global organization that's facing the same challenges even the smallest of companies wrestle with.

• How can I build thought leadership?
• How do I capitalize on all of the great content our company produces?
• How can I use social media to start meaningful conversations with my audience?
• How can I target only those I wish to reach and engage them?
• How do I extend my event marketing plan to other channels?
• Can social media help me fill the room my next event?
  

While the answer is 'yes', it's not as simple as sending tweets with the event details.  The client was quick to dive into tools and platforms, but I'm trying to help them start the conversation at a different point.  I'm refocusing them on the market, what customers and prospects are trying to achieve, how the content the client has can help prospects in their education process, and then identifying the the conversations we're capable of starting and adding value to.  

Social media is just a channel.  It's not the strategy.

Social media is definitely a channel we will use to build event attendance, but ultimately, the client wants to close business.  To do that, we must engage the market in meaningful dialogue, and in order to get there, we have to first understand the conversations that are already happening, define the role we want to have in those conversations, and then devise a plan to add value to them vs. noise.

This is going to be a fun process of listening first, planning the dialogue we want to help foster, and using content, social sharing platforms and social media channels to engage the market and build a relationship.  I'll chime in along the way with some insight as to how the process is going.

In the meantime, I'd be interested in anyone you've seen do it right when it comes to using social media for event marketing.  Please share!

 As a Cincinnati marketing firm, I'm often asked for an explanation of how we help clients.  Here's a quick view of how we help grow your business:

1. Attract: - Generating demand, qualified traffic and new business leads.
2. Cultivate:  Building relationships with prospects via personalized marketing communications that resonate with their needs.
3. Close:  Focusing on conversion strategies - leading prospects down the path to buying decisions.
4. Retain:  Keeping customers around by developing deeper understandings of their lifecycle of needs and how the company can continue to serve them over time.

1. Brand Identity Design - imagery, ligature, logo, stationary
2. Sales Support Collateral - brochures, whitepapers, case studies, etc. - design & copywriting
3. Email Marketing - design, copywriting, implementation & the needed software
4. Search Engine Optimization - keyword research & site optimization
5. Blogging for Business - strategy development, blog software, training, content development & measurement
6. Social Media Marketing - strategy, messaging, training & monitoring
7. Public Relations - corp. communications strategies, news releases, media database development & on-target pitching
8. Website Development - soup to nuts creative strategy, design, writing & programming or in some cases, maybe you just need a great strategy to help your programmer along.
9. ROI Measurement - call to action design, program measurement & reporting

We help you define your strategy, plan and execute marketing communications that grow your business, and then we measure the efforts to make sure we're delivering powerful ROI.

Need more customers?  Get in touch!  We'd be happy to buy you a cup of coffee, discuss your goals and share our approaches.  It'll cost you nothing and you're guaranteed to walk away energized. (The caffeine will help with that too!)

Hitwise announces today that Google creeps toward 73% of U.S. searches.

Wow, if you haven't already, it's time to get your search engine optimization thing going...

• Can your customers & prospects find you if they search on something other than your name?  No?  You're in big trouble.
• Still dumpling keywords in your meta data as your only search engine optimization strategy?
• Are you executing a comprehensive content strategy & pushing it to the appropriate channels?

We don't go to web pages anymore.  Thanks to search, web pages come to us.  Are you bringing yours to your market when they're searching?


 

I had a great meeting with a fun team at a local Cincinnati company today and the topic of conversation was how to use a blogging for business platform to dominate search, aid in recruitment marketing and leverage the power of keyword focused content to extend their reach into a variety of communication channels.  

The possibilities for a well-executed blogging for business platform are endless.  While this isn't a complete discussion of the topic, I'll share some of the highlights of our conversation.

• Blogs are the ideal acquisition tool - 91% of all internet users utilize search (Pew institute); 44% of all online activity begins with search (Piper Jaffray)
• Search engines love blogs. If deployed correctly, blogging for business platforms deliver the page titles, keyword rich content, narrow topics vs. encyclopedias, linking, recency & age that search engines need.  
• Pay per click advertising doesn't accessing a sufficient portion of the market. 99% of clicks on a search engine results page are on organic links (Sherpa Search Engine Guide 2008)
• SEO by itself isn't easily scalable. To truly dominate the search space in your industry, you have to cast a wide net but with SEO this takes tons of time & effort to create enough content.
• Blogs are a fantastic recruitment tool - blogs allow you to showcase your culture and the human side.  People buy from (and want to join) people who are like them. (Edelmen Trust Survey)  As such, a blog focused on recruiting should:
  • Talk about the culture
  • Share employee stories 
  • Bring clarity to the hiring process
  • Provide calls to action to apply, search jobs, learn more
• Blogs will drive better engagement with customers & prospects & create new business opportunities. Each sales rep could easily have their own page featuring their photo, bio, blog posts, customer testimonials, etc.  One post per day from just half the sales team about one customer they helped would produce hundreds of pages of content quickly & dominate search.
• Blogging for business helps you fully leverage other distribution channels like email & social media
  • Content creation via the blogs as the central strategy
  • The best blog posts become email campaigns - these could even be automated from each rep with their blog posts populating the email! - i.e., Posts could include
    • Photo
    • Bio
    • What I'm doing this week
    • The last customer I helped
    • Here's what my customers say  
  • All blogs can pushed to rep-specific pages on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter - AUTOMATICALLY

So, how are you using your blog?  Does your blog...

• Attract employee candidates?
• Tell your story?
• Communicate your culture?
• Bring your company to life?
• Give your people a voice?  Each of them?
• Create communities?
• Drive engagement?
• Attract & share customer testimonials? (user-generated content)
• Serve as the hub of your content strategy?
• Enable you to leverage social media & other content distribution channels?
• Achieve significant search engine positions?
• Deliver new business leads?

In my view, the rate at which people these days are calling themselves experts has approached the unbelievable.  Thanks to P&G and other well known companies with a rich history in this town, many Cincinnati advertising agencies are stocked with fantastic talent.  But I think that in many respects we've created a problem.  Great experience across diverse client bases has turned many into legitimate experts in their fields.  But today everyone is calling themselves an expert - in social media, advertising, interactive, etc., and in many respects it's almost like we're expected to say as much.

Clients want us to take their data, their brands and their problems, go away for a month and work on it, strategize, analyze, etc. and come back with the silver bullet answers. As one Cincinnati advertising agency among many, for so long we've wanted to do this, and depended on appearing capable of this.

Here's (my version of) the real story.

We can't be the experts on everything, and if I or any other Cincinnati advertising agency told you that we were, would you really want to hire us?  Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours.  Seth generally agrees, but offers an interesting take.  More importantly, the internet changes things everyday.  We knew the answer yesterday.  Today we don't.  Do we have experience in your market?  Yes.  Have we solved similar problems?  Yes.  Have we encountered an exact replica of your challenge combined with the internal dynamics and external market factors that only you are experiencing?  Not likely.

Two points:

1.  Specialist, Not Expert
I think it's more important, and more credible, to become a specialist.  Instead of claiming to be a social media expert, how about a specialist at using Facebook to help luxury auto brands drive test drives?  Rather than claiming to be the Cincinnati advertising agency that's an expert in interactive, how about a specialist in helping apparel retailers build interactive experiences & communities that engage their customers and turn them into brand ambassadors?  Skellie has started a wonderful conversation on this point and I'd encourage you to investigate further.


2.  It's OK to Not Have All The Answers...Initially
So why are you hiring a Cincinnati advertising agency?  In the past we had to be right all the time.  We had to have the answer that the client couldn't come up with on their own, or didn't have the time for.  Do we really need to be that today?  Maybe what we need to be is a group of people that has experienced enough business challenges and figured out enough solutions to earn the trust from our clients that we can probably do the same for them.

I think it's the same when you try to hire great people.  You want people who have been in the trenches, but is it critical that they've solved your exact problem before?  In some respects it is, but in many others perhaps not.  What you're looking for is a smart person who has the skills and the problem solving abilities to get you through what you don't yet know is coming.

As advertising agencies, I think it's OK to not claim to be the expert.  Instead, I think we should demonstrate our specialties and get specific.  Secondly, I think if we demonstrate our experience, it's OK to not have all the answers right away.  Six months or a year into the relationship, what the client really cares about is that you are an innovative enough group of folks that can help them out of the mess they're in right now.  

Wrestle with the problem - in front of your clients.  

Apply smart thinking and proven problem solving abilities.

Work together to find the answers. 

Very interesting report out last week from email marketing services provider ExactTarget.  According to research conducted by ExactTarget and Ball State University, "a record number of email marketers are planning to bridge the gap between online social networks and their email marketing campaigns, and the number of social email initiatives is expected to grow 367% this year.

If you want to really improve email marketing open rates, create a focused effort around testing various subject line strategies.  This is your one shot to say something that matters, and your audience is sitting there scanning messages and decided what to read.  

Here are a few email marketing tips for improving open rates by working on the subject line:

• Personalize that subject line with the recipient's name.
• Say something compelling and maybe even a little provocative.
• Speak in a human voice.  Instead of "Tell us what you think - take our survey", consider something like "Brian, thanks for being my customer.  Can I ask you for a 2 minute favor?"
• Test the length of your subject lines as well.  Some will only pay attention to what they can read in the inbox, while others will glance down at the preview pane to read the whole subject line before opening. 
• Test using your brand name and/or recognizable names of key people in the subject line
• Test different benefit statements right up front.  For example, "Mary, [product name] will save you 2 hours a week.

Have more email marketing tips to improve open rates?  Please share!

The From address is one of the most common places where email open rates can get sabotaged.  

 

Your email marketing campaigns should come from a person, a real person and not from newsletters@, info@ or any other address you come up with to avoid putting a real person in there.  

When we receive new email, we often use the from address for email triage.  Face it, if you see an email from your CEO, you're probably reading it right now.  Messages that come from institutions, info@ or from people you don't instantly recognize will get pushed to the bottom of the list at best, if not deleted right away.  

People like to hear from and buy from real people like themselves.  Send your email marketing messages from a real person and stick with it to build familiarity. You'll foster closer relationships by communicating in a more 1-to-1 fashion.

P.S.  Make sure someone is reading and responding to the replies! (Ideally, the person who "sent" the email.)

• Send your email from a person, not newsletter@
• Get REAL permission for the specific campaign you're sending
• Ask subscribers to whitelist your from address
• Utilize double opt in, making your your subscribers have confirmed their intention to join your list
• Educate yourself on words that commonly trigger spam filters - and avoid them
• Use content scoring tools that analyze your content againts major spam filters
• Cleanse your list of email addresses with hard bounces & repeated soft bounces to avoid having the ISPs block all of your messages
• Use Multi-Part MIME to make sure you deliver both HTML & text versions
• Monitor blacklist reports & make sure you're not on them
• Employ SPF and Domain Keys to prove you're who you say you are and avoid domain spoofers
• Consider a dedicated IP address - if your email services provider offers it, do it.
• Throttle your sends - if you send large volumes of email marketing communications, you should employ send throttling to avoid hitting limits set by some ISPs
• Use a reputable email services provider that works with ISPs to make sure your emails get through.  This takes a lot of effort and should not be underestimated.

Have you employed any other tactics to improve email deliverability?  Share your email marketing tips!

I'm in the second day of blogging for business training in Indianapolis with Compendium and we're discussing how to help clients accomplish a quick start and produce short term results.

That's what blogging for business is about - lead generation, customer acquisition and conversion.  So from R.O.Why! Marketing - your Cincinnati marketing firm, the fine folks at Compendium and a roomful of tremendously talented agencies from around the country, here's the short list of how to achieve blogging for business success in the short term:

• Get the blog up & running in under 2 weeks
• Set milestones: 50 posts as soon as possible, then 200+ posts
• Focus on achieving an average of at least 25 posts per keyword blog
• Obtain as close to 100 inbound links as possible
• Cast a wide net - target at least 50 keyword
• Target keywords that PPC advertisers pay $2.00-$2.50 per click
• Focus the keyword selection on mostly local/geo-targeted terms and those with high traffic estimates
• Have as many content contributors as possible - spread the work load
• Post consistently.  Ups & downs will happen, but don't allow days & weeks to go by with no new posts. 
• Strong program owner - perhaps the most important factor, the blogging for business initiative must have a champion.  This should be someone who is measured on the success of the program.  The reason most corporate blogging & social media efforts fail is because they aren't tied to specific goals and they often lose steam.  The program owner will be the key to long term sustainability.

I'll post more learnings from the training in the coming weeks, but if you have additional thoughts on what leads to blogging for business success, please share!

By now you know you need to start participating in the social media, and you've even been hearing how it can be a great driver of new business. But where do you start? Have you set up your Twitter account?  What about Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, FriendFeed, TweetBurner, Ping.fm, oh, and your blog?  Which platforms are the right ones?

Overwhelmed? No time to add another task? We can help.

R.O.Why! Marketing helps you build an effective social media marketing plan that creates tangible results.   Before you jump in to social media Cincinnati, it's important to have a strategy.  Social media is just a tool, a series of channels, and without a clear vision of how the tool will be used, you'll likely see little value.

We help you listen to the market, understand what's being said, determine where you can add value, and zero in on engagement opportunities.   Then we deliver proven strategies & tactics to make social media a business driver.  Setting up your social media profiles is just one step.  Without an effective plan for how the tools will be used (and how they won't,) and also a clear view of the metrics of success you'll monitor (and how,) you're in danger of adding a huge time waster to your organization.  

R.O.Why! Marketing is a Cincinnati marketing firm that will build the plan, flesh out the strategy & approach, train your teams and help you measure success.  

Marketing budget cut? Need to grow the business?

While the need for results-focused marketing programs hasn't gone away, many are forced to do more with less. We are a Cincinnati marketing firm and we can help!

Every business has to do 3 things well: 



1. Get found. 

2. Cultivate relationships. 

3. Convert.

As your Cincinnati marketing firm, we deliver marketing programs designed to help you dominate the search engines, attract qualified prospect traffic, build strong relationships with potential customers, and inspire them to take action. 



There's a systematic approach to making these things happen and if you're strained on capacity or budget, we can deliver a budget-conscious, results-focused solution on a project basis that helps you win new business.

No fat retainers, no long-term contracts, no typical agency smoke & mirrors.

Just real programs that work from a local Cincinnati marketing firm, backed by excellent service, outstanding communication throughout the project, and a willingness to grow with you. 



Want to see results? (Like a recent variable data email program - combined with variable data direct mail & PURL landing pages that garnered a 64% response rate?!)  Contact me and we'll talk. No high pressure sales tactics.  We love what we do and will happily spend some time showing you what we've done for others. 



If you're not already, follow me on Twitter and get in touch!

When was the last time you got through an entire day (half a day?, ok, an hour?) without hearing or reading something about the explosion of social media?  It's everywhere, and the social media noise just keeps getting louder.

Nielson Online reports that two thirds of the global online population visits social networks and blogs, and  that participation in these communities is now the fourth most popular online category - behind search, portals, and PC software, but ahead of personal email use.  

The study goes further to say the following:

"Social networking and blogging now account for nearly 10% of all time spent on the internet and have “become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” said John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. “While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. This study explains why.”

The report also discussed some recommendations for marketers as they jump into the social media marketing action.  Nielsen's BuzzMetrics discovered that the term most closely associated with advertising is the word "false."  It's recommended that marketers work hard to understand social media before trying to make money from it. 

Wow, 10% of al time spent online?  That's huge.  I think it's important to note that the above research shows that these communication channels are more popular than personal email.  To me, that seems quite true.  I can generally stay in touch with a much larger group of my friends & family on Facebook than I could ever do via email.  I use LinkedIn and Twitter and email for networking with business connections, and in a different study, Netpop Research agrees.

The challenge for marketers is only going to get worse, and the unprepared face enormous risks if they jump in with both feet before truly understanding the social media landscape.  

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll remind you of the only 4 goals that matter when evaluating a new marketing channel.

Does the channel I'm considering help me attract, cultivate, convert, or retain?  While on the surface this may seem overly simplistic, I truly believe that these are the only 4 goals a marketer must focus on.  Within each, build out strategies, objectives & tactics that map back to the overall goal.  Craft a solid plan, execute with precision and measure progress.

Before you listen and react to all of the social media noise, ask yourself:

1. What are my goals for using social media? (No, connecting with my market, staying in touch, building awareness isn't enough - which of the above 4 goals will it help me achieve?)
2. Is my audience already using this medium?
3. Do they want to connect with me here?
4. Am I prepared to listen first, and if so, what will I do with what I hear?
5. What value will I deliver through social media channels?
6. What is my approach, my voice, and my tone?
7. How will I measure success?

If you can put social media marketing into one of the above 4 categories and build solid strategies and tactics around it, pre-plan your goals and measure them, then you're on your way to an effective social media marketing plan.  If too many of these details are fuzzy, you may have just found a great way for you and your team to waste an incredible amount of time and resources.

Focus on the goals & evaluate tools (that's all social media is, isn't it?) against their ability to help you achieve them.

Need help?  blecount[at]rowhymarketing[dot]com

I just read an interesting article on MarketingCharts.com that discussed a recent study showing that "cocooning" millennials are planning big spending cuts.  Of note:

"In no category do Millennials expect to spend more, while the majority of teens and young adults expect to spend less on electronics and technology (57%), going out to eat (55%), snacks (51%), and entertainment (50%). Only in categories where spending is generally compulsory (such as housing, transportation, groceries, and paying off debt) do Millennials anticipate spending the same over the next 12 months."

“Gone are the days of reckless spending among young consumers. They’re still willing to open their wallets, but only if what they’re paying for has legitimate value.”

I think this has some serious implications for big advertising and small business marketing strategies alike.  When your target market is increasingly becoming more cost conscious and value focused, they also become much more immune to marketing messages.  They're not as easily swayed by your latest email marketing offer.  Two important marketing goals really stand out for me here:

1. Solve their problem.
2. Earn & protect the relationship.

As consumers develop a much more inward focus, it will become even more important to achieve and maintain visibility when they do come looking for you.  The fact of the matter is, everyone has problems to solve and they WILL come searching for a solution.  As marketers, our challenge is to GET FOUND, ENGAGE, and CONVERT.  Blogs and (best practices focused) email marketing are great tools to achieve this at reasonable levels of investment.

Everyone searches.  In fact, some studies show that upwards of 80% of web usage begins with a search.  Make it a priority to employ a blogging for business strategy designed to deliver fresh content that's focused on solving the searcher's problem.  

Next, focus on the relationship and not the instant sale.  Recognize that email marketing is still by far the marketing tactic with the highest return on investment (if done well!)  Despite overflowing inboxes, we all pay attention to extremely valuable email content.  As marketers, it's our job to deliver relevant, highly personalized, expected, wanted, and valued email content.  Throw the 'spray & pray' approach to email marketing out the window.  Use the data you already have to deliver personalized experiences and win, then protect the relationship.  

In following this approach you'll have an opportunity to catch the quick sales that will come from high volumes of searchers looking for a solution, while forming strong relationships with those that will return to higher spending levels in the future.

In this post I'll share some email marketing tips that are proven to significantly increase response rates.

We recently partnered up with Bramkamp on a personalized print & email marketing project for a well-known public university here in Ohio.  Every higher education institution in the country is deeply engaged in their marketing programs aimed at fall admission, and the university's marketing team was once again tasked with reaching out to accepted students.

Thousands apply and many are accepted, but the real challenge is convincing accepted students to choose your university.

At R.O.Why! Marketing, a Cincinnati marketing firm, we were asked to develop a personalized email marketing program to coincide with a series of direct mail pieces being sent over the coming weeks.  Bramkamp did an excellent job developing a printed direct mail campaign that utilized variable data to personalize each piece.  The mailing contained unique content for parents and students, and it was further customized with content specific to 5 different degree programs offered by one of the university's schools.

In all, the campaign consisted of 10 unique direct mail pieces.  The next challenge was to extend the strategy into email marketing.

We developed an email marketing campaign that utilized custom content based on the segments identified and produced 20 unique email marketing campaigns (5 degree programs, parent & student, html & text versions!)

Instead of parents and students across all degree programs receiving the same piece, each audience segment received a highly relevant, personalized communication based on what we knew about them.  The email marketing campaign also pointed students and parents to a personalized online marketing landing page (PURL) that addressed them by name and offered content specific to their academic interests.

The results?  A 64% response rate, all measurable by prospective student and parent name through every step of the cycle.  We know who received the mailing, we know who responded, who received and opened the email, who visited the personalized landing page, and of course, who responded to the calls to action included in the campaign.  

One dimensional campaigns (printed direct mail or email alone) are nowhere near as effective.  In fact, our approach garnered a 200% greater response than the email only control group.  What has been proven over and over again is the dramatic increase in results that are available when you transform your marketing campaigns into true multi-dimensional communication strategies.

Want to increase your results?
Here are some email marketing tips to grow your response rates.

1. Instead of one-off communications, turn your campaign into an ongoing dialogue.
2. Consider how each new communication can add additional value to the conversation.
3. Use traditional touch points to get permission to communicate through other channels.
4. Create multiple touch points, leveraging direct mail, email marketing, SMS and even phone contact to reach prospects through multiple channels.
5. Focus on your data, collect everything you can and use that data to personalize your communications beyond "Hello [first name]..."
6. Utilize personalized response mechanisms, including PURLs; avoid the temptation to go the easy route with a single static landing page.
7. Test varying degrees of personalized content, content and image placement, headlines, subject lines and promotional offers (calls to action.)

Utilizing variable data in direct mail and email marketing communications is certainly not new, but it is becoming much more accessible.  The great news is that the technology needed for infinitely-customized direct mail and email marketing campaigns is readily available and it doesn't require a monstrous budget.  These variable campaigns can be cost-effectively executed for a database of 10 people or up to 100,000 or many more.  The best part is a much greater ability to measure engagement and conversion.

We've seen as much as 500% greater response rates!  

Say goodbye to 1%-2% response rates and go the extra mile to use your data to deliver highly relevant personalized communications that create significant results.

Want to see some examples and determine what your campaign could look like?  Contact me at blecount[at]rowhymarketing[dot]com.

I really enjoy the discussions that come out of LinkedIn's groups, and just engaged in one on blogging for business in the Social Media Marketing group page.

I'll post my thoughts here as well.  I would encourage you to join the group!

1. Attract significant qualified visitors based on winning the search.
2. Engage visitors with content relevant to their search.
3. Convert visitors with targeted calls to action that get them engaged with your company.

Perhaps the original (electronic) social network, email marketing is by far the most effective (relatively automated) mechanism for cultivating relationships with large groups of people. Of course, we all have too much SPAM, but every one of us pays close attention to the select few email marketers that we value.  It might be our favorite automaker, sports apparel manufacturer, consumer electronics company, or membership site, but we all pay attention to those brands that we identify with.

We've also heard what the DMA has to say about the ROI of email marketing - that it's expected to return north of $45 for every $1 spent.  Wow! That is by far the highest return marketing vehicle out there.  I'll add to that that I believe that only the BEST email marketers will see that return, but email marketing that is worthy of being in the 'best practices' category is within everyone's reach.

With all of the available communication channels, email remains to be the 'glue' that keeps us connected.  More importantly, it is an extremely effective cultivation tool for building and sustaining relationships.  If your email effort is stuck in "spray and pray" mode, it's time to work on better segmentation, personalizing content, and developing a "Subscribers Rule" mentality.